Thoughts Concerning the Copenhagen Attacks and Zionism

...It would be nice to believe that in the enlightened Western Europe of our own day the fears about mobs crying “Death to the Jews” that motivated Theodor Herzl to write The Jewish State and found modern Zionism would no longer apply. But a Europe where the Jew-hatred of the Arab and Muslim world that was imported by Middle Eastern immigrants mixes with the contempt for Jewish identity and Israel that has become conventional wisdom among European intellectual elites is not a place where Jews can live safely.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
15 February '15..

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted to the attack on a Copenhagen synagogue last night (Saturday night) by placing it the context of a rising tide of violent anti-Semitism. But, as he did after last month’s attacks in Paris, he said European Jews should draw conclusions from these events when he called on them to “come home” to Israel. In response the chief rabbi of Denmark criticized the prime minister saying that the statement was irresponsible and that terrorism wasn’t a reason to move to Israel. Some, especially Netanyahu’s many critics, view this exchange as yet another example of his seeking to take advantage of tragedies for the sake of boosting his poll ratings in a tight election race. But whatever you may think of Netanyahu, these attacks are both unfair and inaccurate. As the nation state of the Jewish people in their ancient homeland, Israel doesn’t exist solely as a refuge for Jews under attack. But the latest string of attacks on Jews in Europe, as the editors of this magazine wrote in our editorial in the February issue of COMMENTARY, do once again prove “the existential necessity of Zionism.”

Part of the pushback against Netanyahu’s statements and actions after both the Paris attacks and last night’s fatal shooting of a Jew guarding a Copenhagen synagogue stems from personal resentment of the prime minister who happens to be in the fight for his political life in the Knesset election that will be held next month. Here in the United States, supporters of President Obama and his effort to appease Iran have been bashing him relentlessly. In particular, the left-wing J Street lobby has initiated a campaign seeking to delegitimize Netanyahu, urging Jews to say that he “doesn’t speak” for them. Their stand is not only misguided on the issue of Iran; it also seeks to undermine the ability of the democratically-elected leader of the Jewish state to voice concerns about Jewish security in a way that only the person who holds that office can (something they won’t tolerate from the right if Netanyahu is replaced by someone from the left).

But Danish Chief Rabbi Yair Melchior was not engaging in that sort of attack. Rather, he seemed to view Netanyahu’s statement about the need for Jews to leave Europe as an attack on his community. As others said after the Hyper Cacher attack in Paris, the rabbi seems to believe that if Jews flee, the terrorists as well as the growing ranks of European anti-Semites win.

As the Times of Israel reported:

Rabbi Yair Melchior said, in response: “People from Denmark move to Israel because they love Israel, because of Zionism. But not because of terrorism.”

“If the way we deal with terror is to run somewhere else, we should all run to a deserted island,” Melchior said.

There is some truth to Melchior’s argument. Certainly Jews who immigrate to Israel from the United States are not fleeing injustice but are rather embracing Israel and Zionism. But does he really think the decline in the population of European Jews and the vast increase in aliyah in recent years is a statistical anomaly? As the Pew Research Center’s latest data reports, Jews are fleeing Europe. That is not just because of the alarming increase in violence against Jews but a product of the way anti-Semitism has once again become mainstream in European culture after decades of being marginalized, or at least kept under wraps, after the Holocaust.

Narcissists and Madmen

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
11 December 09

Perhaps when the history of our times is written, ours will be called The Era of Narcissistic Catechisms. To understand why this is the case it is enough to consider the fortunes of two green movements.

On the main stage of global affairs this week we have the much touted UN climate change conference in Copenhagen. Standing with 15,000 delegates representing green activism groups and politically correct scientists the world over are international celebrity leaders like Nobel Peace Prize laureates Barack Obama, Al Gore and Desmond Tutu and their fellow celebrities and Oscar and Grammy winners Al Gore, Leonardo Dicaprio, Sting, Cate Blanchett and Daryl Hannah.

These celebrities are wholly committed to the proposition that manmade global warming is the greatest threat to mankind. They are similarly convinced that if the developed countries don't ante up $10 trillion dollars and pass them on to the less-developed countries, we will kill Planet Earth.

And we shouldn't balk at the price tag. As Deutsche Bank's climate change guru Kevin Parker told the New York Times, the cost is nothing when compared to the "cost of inaction." That cost, in his view, entails nothing less than "the extinction of the human race. Period."

Parker's alarmism would probably have a depraved ring to it in all circumstances. But when placed against the backdrop of the hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University, it sounds like the rabid ravings of a psychopath.

Posted on the Internet two weeks ago, those emails exposed how for over a decade prominent climate scientists have apparently falsified data to advance popular belief in manmade global warming. Among the group's various tactics, they intimidated and misled journalists. They massaged data to conform to their predetermined conclusions. And they sought to block scientists whose research led them to conclude that it is impossible to determine what role if any human activity has had in determining global temperatures from publishing their findings in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Despite the fraud exposed at the heart of the global warming movement, Western celebrity leaders remain ready to tax their countries into the pre-industrial age in order to mitigate the dangers of global warming. The EU and the US are committed to taking radical action that is liable to derail the global economy by regulating and taxing their most productive sectors out of business in order to contend with a threat that may not exist.

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