In recent weeks, the Middle East section of most European and American newspapers and magazines included many articles on Muhammad Allan, a hunger striker imprisoned in Israel. Apparently that Muhammad Allan is in jail because he belongs to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad seemed irrelevant. That the Israeli intelligence services know he was preparing terrorist attacks also did not seem to matter . That the Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel additionally did not seem to matter.
Muhammad Allan was described as a victim. If he had died on a hunger strike, Israel would be blamed. As he did not die, but suffered brain damage due to self-inflicted starvation, Israel was blamed anyway.
When a member of a Palestinian jihadist organization that has killed Jews and that wants to kill more Jews puts his life in danger, most mainstream media in Europe and in America depict him as a "resister." Negative comments are usually directed against Israel.
When a Palestinian Arab terrorist is killed by an Israeli soldier, most members of the mainstream media in Europe and America blame the Israeli army, even if the person killed was known to have murdered or injured Israeli Jews.
A few weeks ago, when a Palestinian Arab house was set on fire and a baby died in the flames, the perpetrators were assumed to be Israeli Jews. Even though the Israeli government immediately denounced the crime, almost all the reports published in European and American media accused Israel.
When Israeli Jews are murdered, often barbarically, nearly all European and American media blame Israel and find excuses for the killers.
If the murdered Jews lived in the West Bank, they are automatically featured as people occupying someone else's land, and to blame for what happened to them. Such accusations even fall on murdered young children, including babies.
Immediately after the massacre of the Fogel family in Itamar in 2011, many newspapers reported that "five settlers" were killed. Some "pro-Palestinian" websites in Europe went even farther; one reported, "Five terrorist Zionists eliminated."
If the murdered Jews lived outside the West Bank, it was harder to belittle them directly, but it did not stop those who said that the murdered had good reasons to kill. Some journalists cite "Palestinian" organizations' press releases claiming the bloodshed was in response to "crimes" committed by the Israeli army. Others, suggesting that the killers were guided by "despair," included the criminals among the victims.
After the November 2014 massacre at a synagogue in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof, the French daily, Le Monde, published an article entitled, "Six Killed in Jerusalem." In the article, the murderers shot dead by police were included in the victims' body-count.
CBC News in Canada did worse. The headline of the report on the attack read, "Jerusalem police fatally shoot 2 after apparent synagogue attack."
Despite the massive atrocities committed by the Islamic State in Iraq and in Syria, despite the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime in Syria, despite the existence of atrocious dictatorships, this disproportionate pile-on against Israel has a name: the hatred and demonization by racists of an entire country and an entire people.
Demonization works because it uses all sorts of political stereotypes. All the false and collective allegations used to demonize Jews in Europe for centuries are used again. Israel is described as an "imperialist," "colonialist" and "militarist" power, and Israeli Jews are portrayed as ruthless agents of this power. The "Palestinian" killers of Israeli Jews, including civilians and babies, are presented as "freedom fighters" and heroic members of an "oppressed people."
Forgotten is that the "Palestinian people" and the "Palestinian cause" are a mythic narrative invented by the KGB and Nasser's secret service propaganda machine in the 1960s.
Jews in Europe have long been accused of every conceivable evil; now Israel and Israeli Jews are accused of blood libels, the gratuitous murder of innocents. Killers of Jews in Europe were often glorified and described as killers of people who were strangers to the land they lived in. Crimes committed by Jews were used to incriminate all Jews. When Jews were slaughtered, they were often designated as deserving the blame for their fate.
Historians of anti-Semitism explain that in Europe, frequently the hatred of Jews was so common that it made the unacceptable acceptable.
The historian Leon Poliakov noted that, "Without the incessant incitement to hatred of Jews throughout Europe, without the trivialization of the hatred, the attempted extermination of an entire people would not have been possible."[1]
The late scholar Robert Wistrich said that demonization of Israel and Israeli Jews leads to the same kind of hatred. He added that a trivialization of hatred is accepted all the more if it is based on an old hatred: "What did happen could happen again."[2]
Ideas of extermination proliferate in the Middle East; most people do not pay attention.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and Israeli Jews. For many journalists, that is a detail not worth mentioning. Hamas has an even more genocidal goal, the destruction of Israel and all Jews. "The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones , and each tree an stone will say, 'O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." For many journalists; that is also a detail not worth mentioning.
Official Palestinian Authority television constantly calls for the destruction of Israel. It also glorifies killers of Jews as role models; most commentators just look the other way.
The Iranian regime claims non-stop that its main objective is the elimination of Israel and Israeli Jews. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has just published a book, Palestine, detailing his plans to destroy Israel. For most commentators, the book is apparently of no relevance; it does not matter.
Leaders of Western countries have the same view. They fund the Palestinian Authority (PA), and therefore finance official PA Television. They know that much of the money given is used to pay and train killers of Jews, but evidently they do not care.
They just signed an agreement with the Iranian regime that will allow Iran soon to have nuclear weapons and to receive billions of dollars to finance and arm terrorist groups dedicated to the full destruction of Israel, and Israeli Christians, Muslims and Jews. But evidently leaders of Western countries do not care about that, either.
They are, in effect, acquiescing to genocide; but so long as business can be done with Iran, apparently that is fine with them. If genocide occurred, they would be ready to cheer from the sidelines.
Some journalists and columnists see what is happening and are sounding an alarm. But they are a minority, especially in Europe, where courage seems to have vanished along with a number of Jews.
Some political leaders still have ethical values and shout their indignation. None of them is European. Nearly all of them are American. They understand that silence means consent and that at certain moments in history, it is imperative to take a stand.
What is at stake in enriching Iran and arming it with nuclear capability is more than the fate of Israel and Israeli Jews: it is also the fate of America, even if it does not wish to realize that yet. It is also the fate of Western civilization.
As migrants continue to pour over the borders of Hungary, Italy and Greece, and from there to spread out into the rest of Europe, the continent is becoming increasingly and irreversibly Muslim. Europe is lost to Islam.
Seven decades after Auschwitz, barbarity is fast gaining ground again.
In September, the U.S. Congress may vote -- or try to weasel out of a vote -- to approve or disapprove of the agreement with Iran. Either way, U.S. President Barack Obama has vowed to push the deal through. His decision will have consequences far beyond what we see now. One thing is certain: they will not be good.
[1] Leon Poliakov, Harvest of Hate: The Nazi Program for the Destruction of the Jews of Europe, Schocken Books, 1979.
[2] Robert Wistrich, From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel, University of Nebraska Press, 2012.
