Understanding Europe

It has taken me two years and four months to write this editorial. More specifically, it has taken two years and four months after the events of September 11, 2001, to finally understand why Europe acts as it does and why Jews are begin beaten in the streets of London, Paris and Berlin.

To be perfectly honest with you, I pray I’m wrong, because if I’m right, things will only get worse for our people in Europe. Anti-Semitism in Europe today didn’t just “spring up.” It is the byproduct of a conscious policy of appeasement followed by the business and government elite of Europe designed to pacify the Islamic fundamentalists in Europe and to pander to Europe’s large, indigenous Islamic vote. In effect, Europe’s Jews are being sacrificed on the altar of European expediency.

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In late November, the Financial Times (London) uncovered the results of a suppressed “Report on European Anti-Semitism” that had been prepared by the Vienna-based Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia. Its findings confirmed that Europeans of Muslim descent (specifically radical Islamists and young Muslims) were responsible for the majority of anti-Semitic crimes across Europe (in addition to some left-wing extremists and anti-globalization activists). The report was suppressed “because it risked offending the sensitivities of Europe’s largest minority, the Muslim community,” but indications abound that there were other less altruistic reasons for the cover-up.

This is a particularly bad time for Jews in Europe. In December 2001, the French ambassador to the United Kingdom (in dinner party conversation) referred to Israel as “that shitty little country.” In Greece, last April, major newspapers ran a false story alleging that the Israeli military was selling organs ripped from the bodies of dead Palestinians. In Germany and France, Jews are being physically attacked and warned to cover “outward signs of their faith.” Holocaust-denial literature is suddenly a subject for debate. In November, Islamic bombers destroyed two synagogues in Istanbul, Turkey. A Jewish school near Paris was firebombed and the list goes on. Anti-Semitism is not new, but when a European Union survey shows that 60 percent of Europe’s population is convinced that Israel is the greatest threat to world peace (greater even than Iran and North Korea), something else is pushing European hot buttons and it’s not the Jewish minorities of Europe.

First and foremost, the European business community (especially France and Germany) has substantial and entrenched financial interests in the Arab world and it is loath to lose those investments if the only obstacle is Israel. For this elite, business is business. Sacrificing Israel through pro-Arab positions is a better financial deal than risking the billions already invested in the Arab world. From their cold business perspective, the unfortunate anti-Semitic backlash on European Jewry resulting from their pro-Arab (read anti-Zionist) policies is “acceptable collateral damage” when weighed against the alternatives.

Another explanation is that the European political elite is cognizant of the fact that this large European Muslim minority votes. With 23-28 million Muslims in Europe (40 percent of whom reside there illegally), numbers speak louder than words. And these numbers are expected to double within the next 20 years as the Muslim birth rate in Europe is three times higher than that of non-Muslims. This would account for the reason why the International Monetary Fund, CBS the BBC and even the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) itself were all able to document the P.A.’s misuse of almost $1 billion in funds while the European Union failed to acknowledge it.

A final explanation has to do with European security, or more specifically European insecurity. While the European intelligence community pursues Islamic terrorist cells with a vengeance, their governments are very careful to downplay these efforts to the European public. The reason is simple. Germany estimates that there are currently 30,000 Muslim fundamentalists in the country who are prepared to use violence, including a concentration of 5,000 Hezbollah members in Berlin alone. Islamic fundamentalists may even run in Germany elections under the Islamic banner. In France, estimates are even higher.

With an awareness that the September 11th plot was hatched on European soil amid a vast pool of Muslim zealots operating like a fifth column in Europe and roaming freely through its capitals, European decision-makers have decided to downplay anti-Semitism in Europe (especially those who perpetrate these acts), remain silent on Arab Muslim suicide bombings in Israel and invariably support pro-Arab policies at home and at the UN to keep Islamic terrorism from rearing its ugly head in Europe. Burying reports that could open Pandora’s Box is a part of that strategy. In effect, there is no downside to upsetting Jews (or Israelis) by publishing reports that show them as “victims,” but there may be serious repercussions in publishing reports showing radical European Muslims as the “perpetrators” of such crimes in Europe. So rather than provoke the demons, it is easier to “deep six” the report.

The tragic irony in all this is that, in the end, Europe will not escape the ravages of international terrorism anymore than it escaped the Nazi blitzkrieg. History has already determined that terrorism cannot be appeased; it can only be destroyed. Nevertheless, European appeasement has now led to an open season on the Jews of Europe and a split in the Euro-American alliance. However, it will not end there. The Islamic menace that struck America on September 11 is alive and well, as it ponders its next move from the gabled tenements of Europe.