…because it increasingly seems that the first 3 digits must be one, nine, and three.
Denis MacShane, a British member of Parliament, writes:
Hatred of Jews has reached new heights in Europe and many points south and east of the old continent. Last year I chaired a blue-ribbon committee of British parliamentarians, including former ministers and a party leader, that examined the problem of anti-Semitism in Britain…Our report showed a pattern of fear among a small number of British citizens — there are around 300,000 Jews in Britain, of whom about a third are observant — that is not acceptable in a modern democracy. Synagogues attacked. Jewish schoolboys jostled on public transportation. Rabbis punched and knifed. British Jews feeling compelled to raise millions to provide private security for their weddings and community events. On campuses, militant anti-Jewish students fueled by Islamist or far-left hate seeking to prevent Jewish students from expressing their opinions.
More worrisome was what we described as anti-Jewish discourse, a mood and tone whenever Jews are discussed, whether in the media, at universities, among the liberal media elite or at dinner parties of modish London. To express any support for Israel or any feeling for the right of a Jewish state to exist produces denunciation, even contempt.
Read the whole thing. This link comes via Neptunus Lex, who notes:
Once again, the children of Israel are the canaries in the coal mine of Western Civilization.
Traditional anti-Semitism was motivated in part by the feeling that Jews were “different” from their surrounding societies. But a lot of the modern hate of Israel–much of which has bled over into outright anti-Semitism–is motivated by the belief that that country is too similar to the societies in which its European and American opponents reside. Many leftists oppose Israel not in spite of the fact that it is an economically-successful, technologically-advanced, Enlightenment-based capitalist democracy, but because of these factors. These are the same things they dislike about their own societies.
Note also this statement in the MacShane document:
…the bulk of the West’s university intelligentsia remains hostile to the Jewish state.
Western democracies, and particularly the U.S., have invested heavily in universities in part because of a belief that higher education tended to reduce prejudice and to encourage more universalist attitues. It is not at all clear that things have in practice worked out that way.
Previous What Year is This? post here.
This time, thank God, the Jews have Israel, and Israel has nuclear weapons.
A diaspora of the Jews in Europe to Israel would only strengthen Israel. I hope it does not come to that.
Anti-capitalism and anti-semantism have always gone hand-in-hand. Historical anti-sematism arose in main part from anger over the Jew’s dominate role in pre-capatilistic finance and trade.
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foolow the leader:
London Mayor Ken Livingstone, Apologize Now For Antisemitic Comments
Ken Livingstone Mayor of London Dear Mayor Livingstone: At a time when violent antisemitic attacks on British Jews increased 42% last year, reaching greater levels than in France, where just days before Holocaust Memorial Day Jewish gravestones were desecrated with swastikas while at the same time there was a spate of violent attacks against Jews in North London, where Jewish students feel increasingly intimidated on university campuses for openly expressing their support for Israel, and when young people in the UK increasingly display a lack of understanding of the Nazi Holocaust, your slanderous comments against a Jewish reporter and the State of Israel have fueled an already dangerous environment. A city that 60 years ago courageously fought off the Nazis in the Blitz and that today is vying to host the Olympics should not have a Mayor who uses his office as a bully pulpit for bigotry. I therefore join the Simon Wiesenthal Center in demanding that you apologize for your
Richard Littlejohn – who is not a filmmaker but one of Britain’s most famous and widely read columnists – is correct in all his observations. Columnist Melanie Phillips, who is Jewish, has written on the same subject: how the left hates the Jews and how eager they are, for some reason that defies logic, to ally themselves with the islamics.
The Jews are not only well-integrated in Britain, but have made tremendous contributions in every area of endeavour, from big business to the arts and show business. Virulence against Jews in Britain is indeed a manifestation of a bizarre alliance between the left and islam. This is all the more puzzling when one considers that islam is militantly opposed to so many of the left’s main preoccupations: equality – not to say elevation to superiority – of women; and the promotion of gay rights.
Lex, you mean – alia of the European Jews to Israel (i.e. – emigration)?
Anecdote suggests that many British and European Jews are indeed moving to Israel as well as to the USA.
I mean that the Jews of Europe denied what was before their eyes in the Thirties and most of them were murdered.
So, whatever the technical term may be, I mean that the Jews of Europe would be smart to move to Israel, or failing that, to the USA or possibly Australia.
Things are going to get worse in Europe.
The “bizarre alliance” between the Left and radical Islam is not bizarre at all. It is the logical endpoint of Leftist thinking: Alliance with the most militant enemy of my enemy (capitalism, the West, Christianity, the USA, Big Business, The Pentagon, whatever), alliance with the radicalized “victim” of the West whose violence is justified and morally pure, alliance with the “authentic” anti-Westerner who is willing to put into violent action the empty verbalizing of the bogus Leftist psuedo-revolutionary who only wishes he had the courage and willpower of someone like Muhammad Atta. There is no other possible outcome. There is nothing bizarre about it.
I mean that the Jews of Europe denied what was before their eyes in the Thirties and most of them were murdered.
This is an interesting statement because it leads to the question: What was obvious? For most European Jews in the ’30s, even in Germany, the obvious was their daily lives, which weren’t necessarily bad. Hitler wasn’t obviously going to start a war or try to kill all the Jews. The Great Powers would stop him if he tried. Europe was civilized, after all. Hitler was worrisome, and times were tough economically, but things were tough everywhere then. Relatives of mine, Jews, visited Germany in the summer of 1938 to visit their relatives. They weren’t expecting war. Among the German relatives, the ones who fled the Nazis didn’t do so until quite late. They had a lot to lose by leaving, and in that situation most people won’t leave their native country unless they think they will lose everything or be killed if they stay. The looming certainty of war, which seems obvious to us now, is an artifact of hindsight. I would hesitate to live in parts of Europe now, but I don’t think there is anything obvious about what’s going to happen there.
Actually, Lex, you’re right. It’s a logical alliance. The BBC is simply crazy about islam and if you want to see daily examples, go to http://www.biased-bbc.blogspot.com . The BBC is compulsorily funded by the British public and the punishment for owning a TV set (even if you wouldn’t watch the BBC on a bet) without a licence will land in you court and possibly in prison. The majority of women in prison in Britain are there because they didn’t pay their TV licence (out of their welfare cheques).
This give the Beeb itself licence to do anything it damn well pleases without reference to the market because it is going to get its vast income whether anyone watches it or not.
There was an interesting thread over on Biased-BBC the other day on the contortions they go through, even on the news, which is supposed to be neutral, ha ha, to avoid using the word “terrorist”. Many and laughable were the examples people sent in. And, of course, there was the BBC reporter who burst into tears as she was covering Arafat’s funeral.
Hitler came to power on an explicitly anti-Jewish program.
People figured he must not mean it.
There was no countervailing force to protect the German Jews. They were not armed. There was no foreign power committed to protecting them. They had to rely on the good will or at least indifference of the Nazi government. There was no deterrence in play.
They were alone and unarmed in a state run by a lawless dictator who had repeatedly proven himself willing to use violence and who had expressly threatened the Jews in public and in writing for his entire career.
It is hard to accept that someone really hates you and wants you dead, even if he says so. But if that person keep saying it, and acting increasingly like he means it, and you are in no position to defend yourself or retaliate in any meaningful way, you have some hard decisions to make.
Lexington Green says: “It is hard to accept that someone really hates you and wants you dead, even if he says so.”
Piercing.
You might want to read this post as well (authored by Helen at EU Referendum):
It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over