Guess what is on the rise in Europe once again? Clue: The media prefer to downplay one of its main causes: the Islamization of Europe.
The European elites are more than willing to sacrifice Israel in return for good relations with Islamic dictators. The anti-Israeli propaganda, such as the al-Dura hoax, staged by the French state-owned television network France 2, is intended to stir anti-Jewish feelings among the population and prepare the ground for abandoning Israel.
Last week’s Economist referred to the problem (though only in passing) in an article on Muslims in Europe where it mentioned fights between Muslims and Jews in rough parts of northern Paris.
Denis MacShane’s column about “Europe’s Jewish Problem” in last week’s Newsweek, refers to Jewish kids from North London afraid to go home on public buses on account of anti-Jewish attacks.
Mr. MacShane, a Labour MP and Britain’s former Europe minister, states that the British National Party and Islamist ideologues are the two anti-Semitic groups in Britain, He does not mention that the North London buses are being terrorized by Muslim gangs and not by BNP thugs.
When addressing the problem of rising anti-Semitism in Spain, he refers to a third cause for the rise of anti-Jewish feelings: “the anti-Israel language of Spain’s liberal-left intellectual and media elites.” The anti-Israeli bias of the intellectual and media elites exists in Britain and other European countries too.
In my opinion, the main causes for the surge in anti-Semitism in Europe are, first and foremost, the growing appeal of Islamic ideology on immigrant populations in West-European urban areas, and, secondly, the anti-Israeli bias of Europe’s intellectual, political and media elites who, eager to please Muslims, blame the latter’s anger for the West on the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. If only Israel (and the Jews) would disappear, they reason the Arabs and the Europeans could live in harmony and peace.
Given the extent of the media bias against Israel it is a small miracle that anti-Jewish feelings are not more widespread among the indigenous, non-Muslim, Europeans. Neo-Nazi parties remain fringe groups. They sympathize with the anti-Semitism of the radical Islamists. Meanwhile nationalist parties, who purge themselves from anti-Semites and realize that Israel is Europe’s front post in the war against Islamic radicalism, are growing in the polls.
“As jobs are lost and welfare becomes meaner and leaner, the politics of blaming the outsider can only grow,” writes Denis MacShane. “The hard-won European politics of breaking down frontiers and trying to legislate for tolerance will get harder to defend, still less to promote. European populism and the anti-EU nationalism of both the right and the left is now the politics to watch.” Mr. MacShane fears the European populism and nationalism. I think it is the best hope we have got.
