Dreading An Old Scourge

The forever-resurgent scourge of anti-Semitism is once again stalking world Jewry. More specifically, European Jews who have lived in various countries of Europe historically, their residence part of their heritage, their presence in Europe enriching the local culture. The disruption of World War II when six million Jews were exterminated by Nazi Germany through its dedicated death camps installed in those countries of Europe the German command felt with reason, would be least likely to care, shocked Jews who felt themselves integral to those countries which then betrayed them.

libertynews.com -- Jihad in France: radical Muslim mob attacks police in Paris

No less was Europe itself shocked when the full extent of its collaboration with its Nazi overlords was revealed as a post-war trauma. Which made for a temporary climate of public repentance, while anti-Semitism took a step back in public permissibility. The direct result of the horrendous experience of the Holocaust when lunacy and hatred cost so many innocent lives through Germany's fascist "Final Solution", was the solution of Zionism made real; the creation of the State of Israel.

As Jews were slaughtered by methodical means the German genius for enterprise made possible, the State of Israel must innovate and invent means by which it may at this time in history, protect its people from the mechanical onslaught of incessant missiles, from the stealth incursion of terrorists seeking to slaughter Jewish citizens of a Jewish state whose covenant is first and foremost to provide a haven for Jews seeking shelter from hatred.

Although Jews have lived for millennia in parts of the world beyond the Middle East, it is only relatively lately that Arab populations displaced by wars and oppression have flocked to the same countries in Europe to which Jews returned to live as citizens, post WWII. Jews and Muslims lived in some semblance of tolerance for millennia throughout the Middle East, southeast Asia, and North Africa. Basically, until the rise of militant Islamism and viral jihad.

The burgeoning Muslim populations of Europe have brought with them an antipathy to Jews not entirely unwelcome to the traditional anti-Semites of Europe. Since this latest conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the terrorist group's public affairs mechanicals have gone haywire, producing no end of morbid photographs of dead babies and infants geared to send Muslims into paroxysms of rage and the usual expressions of violence.

The Islamist Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is in his favourite position, accusing Israel of racism and genocide, his latest broadside accusing Israel's counterattack against Hamas rocket fire as "barbarism that surpasses Hitler." Concern for the fate of Turkish Jews is not misplaced at this juncture. Violent demonstrations at Israel's mission in Turkey offer a hint of what awaits Jews there.

Dutch Muslim social worker Mehmet Sahin was forced to flee for his safety and that of his family when he confronted anti-Semitic Dutch Muslims on national television. The imam from the mosque he and his wife attend, accused Mehmet of "being a Jew", so he fled into a witness protection program. "It was never like this before, but today 'Jew' has become a dirty word in our community", he explained.

In Manchester, England, a shop selling Israeli cosmetics has reported threats to burn down the shop and beat up or kill its staff. On its Facebook page a kindly note was posted that reads like this: "I hope he burns in hell like the rest of the Jews". In Paris, rioters targeted synagogues and those within. Jewish neighbours withstood days-long sieges of violence, looting, shops' destruction and intimidation.

"Thirty one [of an estimated one thousand French citizens who embarked for jihad in Syria] have died and some others suffered trauma, but the majority have returned to France and melted into the population", French President Francois Hollande recently admitted to a delegation of authorities from the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Authorities, Mr. Hollande added, had no idea where the ticking human time bombs were now located.

In The Hague, its mayor refused to order the arrest of ISIS supporters who threatened Jews, the same day that ISIS tweeted photos of beheaded prisoners in Iraq. Dutch Jews are fearful of being targets of hate, and they are left to their own fearful devices, wondering if they should remove the identifying Mezuzahs from their doorposts.

An imam in Berlin called for the murder of all Jews. Green Party members have joined far-right and Muslim extremists to chant "gas the Jews" on the streets of Germany. Jewish citizens of Malmo, Sweden are subject to constant anti-Semitic harassment. In Belgium a doctor refused to treat a Jew, because of his distaste of Israel's actions in Gaza. While Israel's military set up a field hospital on Gaza's border to treat injured Palestinians.

Just as well that Jews the world over have Israel as their last-stop, last-gasp haven. Where they can stand united and defend themselves against terrorist groups committed to their destruction even while their Arab-Muslim neighbours who once marched to war against the tiny state, contemplate that should Israel be destroyed by the murder-lusting psychopath jihadis, their turn would be next.

In Canada, Jews have the assurance that the three major political parties, the governing Conservatives, the Opposition NDP and the traditional Liberals all support Israel's right to exist and its right to defend itself from its enemies who do whatever they can to visit harm upon the state and its people. There is, however, one party that extols itself as even-minded and principled; citing its collaboration with Green parties around the world.

This is what the Green Party of Canada's leader, Elizabeth May, recently wrote with pride: "In the context of conflicts around the world we are anything but moral relativists. In the case of the current Israel-Gaza conflict, it is critical that Canadian foreign policy follows the established principles of international law. Pursuing peace cannot be discarded as unrealistic. It should be possible for all Canadian political parties to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization and to demand that it stops sending rockets into Israel.

"It should be possible for all our political leaders to continue to press for a two-state solution, one that defends the right of the State of Israel to exist and also calls for a secure Palestinian state It is simply not credible to say that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's siege of Gaza is legal and meets humanitarian standards, as the other three party leaders do.

"The death toll among Gaza's civilians provokes the conscience of the world. Hamas is to blame for provocation, but to imagine that Israel is blameless is untenable." Just as well that Hamas is only guilty of provocation. Difficult to imagine that any Green Party leader would ever consider Israel to be blameless in its commitment to the defence of Jewish longevity.

And for this woman to claim a monopoly on conscience and concern for the deaths of innocent Gazans is the height of hypocrisy, as though politicians from other parties and Jews themselves don't evince the very same lament for the needless waste of human life.