Wouldn’t you want to be warned of a clear and present danger? Where would you look for protection if an enraged mob were bearing down on you, armed and murderous? If you answered Yes and the police, then ask yourself why you haven’t seen video footage of the record crowd that affronted the Israel-Sweden Davis Cup match in Malmö Sweden on March 7th.
The Malmö incident can be seen as a blueprint of an extensive ongoing intimidation project. Chanting Khaybar Khaybar ya yahoud / Jaish Muhammad sa yaoud [Khaybar Khaybar O you Jews/ The army of Mohamed is on its way]. The mob correctly situated the 7th century origin of its genocidal intent.[1] Mob actions of this type were repeated throughout Europe and in the United States in January. Hundreds of thousands of “demonstrators” stood shoulder to shoulder, echoing or passively accepting the chants, flags, and slogans promising death to Israel, death to the Jews. Society at large did not protest this outrage. Citizens have not been warned that this apparently acceptable Jew hatred is serving to mask broader intentions against their nations. Thugs throwing paving stones against Swedish police cars were, of course, furious at the police for keeping them from smashing the heads of Jewish Israeli tennis players. But that is just one small chapter of their gripe against Sweden, the country that took them in and now submits to their will. Their anger is directed against the whole free world, against the very democratic societies that allow that rage to materialize under cover of “peaceful demonstrations.”
Local authorities had already stigmatized the event by announcing well in advance that the match would play to an empty stadium… in order, they explained, to avoid unpleasant incidents. As a result, anti-fans gathered outside the stadium and the incidents were distinctly unpleasant. Apparently following the same logic that spared the public the troubling sight of Israeli tennis players—Gaza, you know—major media neglected to show graphic images of mob action deceptively reported as “protest.” However, video footage of the scene can be accessed with a few clicks of the mouse.[2]
The mob, reported to be 6,000 strong, sets off from a square in downtown Malmö, chanting its intentions in no uncertain terms: Khaybar Khaybar ya yahoud….. Translation: we will exterminate the Jews today just as Mohamed massacred them in the Khaybar oasis in 629. When the crowd reaches the grounds of the Baltiske Hallen where the match is underway, masked hooded men in the forward ranks vent their rage and contempt against a row of parked police cars. In a parody of the tennis match, they “serve” heavy paving stones at the vehicles, retrieve them as they bounce off the armored surface and send them smashing back into the “opponent’s court.” One man jumps on top of a blue and yellow police van and kicks to bits everything that he can get his feet on. The cars sit there dumbly, taking the punishment. Are they empty? If not, why doesn’t anyone react? In fact, policemen are huddled inside. Humiliated! The windows don’t break, the armored body resists, but the rage is murderous. For a fleeting instant we see a policeman jump out of a van and draw what looks like a taser to ward off an attacker. Finally, reinforcements arrive, push the crowd back… a temporary respite.
The incidents were essentially ignored by the mass media. Pitifully inadequate AP and AFP releases studiously separated a hundred thuggish youths from the mass of peaceful “demonstrators” protesting the Israeli “offensive” against Gaza. That is not what the videos show.
As the enraged mob defied the police outside the stadium, the Israeli team pulled off an incredible victory on the tennis court, eliminating the Swedes and qualifying for the quarter finals. In an unmistakable display of bad sportsmanship, coach Mat Wilanders—a legendary tennis ace—his team and tennis federation officials reportedly turned their backs on the Israelis and walked to the lockers.
From thugs to classy tennis players, from the House of Lords to the United Nations, we can observe a continuum of intimidation aimed at Israel, the Jews, and ultimately at Western societies. In another tennis incident, the emirate of Dubai, host to a World Tennis Federation tournament, refused to issue a visa to Israeli tennis woman Shahar Pe'er. This total disregard for the rules of international sports events was met with mixed reactions. The Wall Street Journal Europe immediately withdrew sponsorship of the tournament. The tennis channel cancelled its scheduled broadcast. But Barclay’s waffled. (In a widely distributed email letter to Mr. John Varley, Group CEO, Barclays Bank Plc. Samuel Abady, Jack DeLowe, and Lenny Kristal, announced plans to launch a divestment campaign unless Barclay’s promises to forego future sponsorship of any event that discriminates by race creed color or nationality.) Dubai “made amends” by issuing a visa for tennis man Andy Ram.
In our day an ounce of intimidation can overturn centuries of cherished values: apparently submitting to Lord Nazir Ahmed of Rotherham’s threat to mobilize 10,000 Muslim protesters, the Home Office refused entry to Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders who had been invited to give a private showing of his film, “Fitna”. In France, a Jewish comedian who goes by the name of Arthur, and a Jewish singer of Algerian origin, Enrico Macias, were forced to cancel performances under threats from wrathful Muslims. Neither selected details nor the tally—350 antisemitic incidents registered in January—can give the full measure of the deteriorating situation in France. President Nicolas Sarkozy only made matters worse by declaring that his government would punish, with equal severity, “anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.”
“Cast Lead,” a defensive Israeli military operation against Hamas-controlled Gaza, serves as a pretext for the current wave of threats and attacks against Jews. Cooked information from Hamas sources relayed with the willing submission of Western media transformed the operation into a massacre of innocents, genocide, and war crimes justifying actions against Jews all over the world. Demonstrations of force by Islamic mobs ripping through the streets were downplayed and excused as protest marches. Singly or by the thousands, the warriors advance. In two separate incidents, armed jihadis burst into Brooklyn synagogues during services, promising mayhem. Murderous hostility toward Jews is accepted as understandable under the circumstances, and violent rebellion against law enforcement is dismissed as insensitive.
These are not demonstrations. They are aborted pogroms. A thin line of armored cars and frightened policemen in fluo vests separates the victims from the perpetrators. Will it break?
[1] Andrew Bostom traces this obsession from its origins to the present in Legacy of Islamic anti-Semitism.
[2] Ample coverage is available at Atlas Shrugs.
