Protesting Israel's Existence

"[Some German demonstrators demonstrated an] explosion of evil and violence-prone hatred of Jews."
"Never in our lives did we believe it possible that anti-Semitism of the most primitive kind would be heard on the streets of Germany."
Dieter Graumann, president, Central Council of Jews, Germany
(Surely the good man means 'heard again on the streets of Germany?)

"Maybe 100 of them decided to cross the street. They came around and swarmed around us saying rude stuff at us like 'Kill the Jews' and 'Hitler was right'."
Jake Birrell, anti-Israel-bashing pro-Palestinian protester, Calgary

Jake Birrell, is punched in the face as tempers flared between pro Palestinian and pro Israeli protesters during a Palestinian rally over conflicts in the Middle East on Friday, July 18, 2014. Photo courtesy Jewish Free Press

"I was trying to get men off my little brother and I was punched in the face by a man in my left cheek and my left [side], and then punched in the back of my head and then had my hair pulled."
Samantha Hamilton, Israel supporter, Calgary

"Not a single organizer was involved in any of the fights that happened and we absolutely denounce any sort of violence that happened."
Saima Jamal, Calgary pro-Palestinian demonstration organizer

The violence, said Ms. Jamal, was regrettable. She herself had no idea about what had happened, nor did she personally hear any anti-Semitic slurs. Being known by the company you keep, however, is a double-edged identity package. The 'pro-Palestinian' protests have a purpose; to demonize Israel as a brutal, racist state, inciting people to lay blame where it is simplistically easy to do so, and which appeals to the lowest common denominator of wrenched-hearts for the underdog.

Demonstrators in Toronto protest against Israeli military action in Gaza Saturday, July 19, 2014. CTV News

That lowest common denominator has another facet, one more directly sinister, but whose purpose is well hidden by the slandering affectation of compassionate lefties finding a 'side' they can line up behind, while the die-hard anti-Semites among them can express their vitriolic hatred without fear of accusation that they are racist mind-thugs, and often more than that, since like Hamas using civilians as shields, the left also represent a useful shield.

Over the past week thousands of protesters have taken their umbrage against Israel to the streets in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam, along with other European cities that were once a charnel house for the Jews who had for centuries lived among them. Some of those demonstrations have been clear enough that they express a wholesale anti-Semitism that the conflict in Gaza with the IDF responding to countless rocket attacks in Israel provides a handy screen for.

What is called a "radical fringe" among pro-Palestinian protesters in Paris clashed violently with police, targeted Jewish shops to be destroyed and looted, threw smoke bombs and stones and bottles at riot police. Managing in the general melee that ensued to still cause considerable damage to eight synagogues in France, within one of which a ravaging crowd threatened the lives of the Jews gathered within. Young French Jews, part of the Jewish Defense League, came to the rescue.

Along with Europe's largest, long-established Jewish population who have for generations considered France their home, the country now also has Europe's largest Muslim population, and in the land of 'Equality, Fraternity and Liberty', fraternity has gone missing, threatening liberty, while equality has long since been dispensed with. Citing security concerns elevated by lusty declarations by anti-Israel demonstrators whose chants of "Death to Jews!" and "Hitler was Right!" some protests were banned.

And in Calgary which is distinguishing itself as a hotbed of pro-Palestinian activity equating with anti-Israel demonstrations organized and led by students and others connected to the University of Calgary, about 1,000 fervently compassionate Palestinian-rights activists came out for the second of their weekly organized marches. And there too, the same Jew-hating chants were heard, strangely coincidental.

This is not 'rude stuff'. This is the stuff that leads people to implicitly believe what they chant in a unison of shared contempt for human life when it is directed toward the world's most familiar subject of racial hatred.

Where are the human-rights protests passionately decrying the rocket blasts from Gaza into Israel, the cynical manipulation of Hamas in placing its citizens in the line of fire they incite by forcing Israel to protect its own civilians to respond to the assault sites deliberately placed by the Islamist fanatics in crowded civilian enclaves to produce maximum casualties and maximum propaganda value?