Muslim Burdened Europe

"[He had] stood by Israel through thick and thin, through the good years and the bad [but now realized] in truth, looking back over the past 20 years, that Israel has been slowly drifting away from world public opinion."
"Under normal circumstances I would oppose the motion tonight [British Parliament's recognition of a Palestinian state] but such is my anger over Israel's behaviour in recent months that I will not oppose the motion. I have to say to the government of Israel that if they are losing people like me, they will be losing a lot of people."
Richard Ottaway, Conservative, chairman, House of Commons foreign affairs committee, Britain

British House of Commons in London.. (photo credit:REUTERS)

"Premature international recognition sends a troubling message to the Palestinian leadership that they can evade the tough choices that both sides have to make."
Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry statement

"[The British vote is] a step in the right direction. The two-state solution is the solution of the international community."
Nabil Abu Rudineh Palestinian Authority President spokesperson

"The only thing the Israeli government in my view, under the present demeanour of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, understands is pressure."
Jack Straw, Labour Party legislator

The State of Israel has not succeeded as admirably as has the Palestinian Authority in manipulating European public opinion to their side. Or even, for that matter, to maintain an attitude of unbiased non-interference in a matter between two entities, one a state, the other a state-in-waiting, but one whose agenda is forthrightly opportunistic while traditionally belligerently violent in its enthusiasm for asserting its rights to territory in question while denying Israel's heritage and historical right.

"Resistance" is the mantra of the Palestinian Authority and resistance in many forms can be found from its school curricula to its ceremonials in honour of violent terrorists spilling Jewish blood and by so doing becoming admired martyrs for whom streets are named and children reminded that their turn too will come. In this atmosphere of hostility and one that has a long history of speaking with the forked tongue of meekness internationally while deploying deadly weapons internally, the former informs the international community which prefers not to notice the latter.

Britain's ambassador to Israel warns that the 'significance' of the vote's outcome should not be lost on Israel. Negative attitudes within the international community have hardened, he says, since its 50-day war with Islamist terrorist group Hamas. As an Islamist terrorist group Hamas comes by its credentials through actions consonant with Islamist terrorism. And this is the partner that the 'moderate' Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas has presented to the world.

His 'moderate' cover for a terrorist entity representing the future of the Palestinian people, an agreeable enough screen for respectable, law-abiding, justice-prone Europeans. Whose countries, just incidentally, are now overrun with migrants from the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and who are now experiencing problems of their own trying to tamp down the rise of Islamist entitlement within cultures and societies with their indigenous values and laws Islamist Sharia disagrees with.

Exception of a morally just nature is taken with the settlement activity and the approval of additional Jewish housing construction in East Jerusalem, which has "a very corrosive effect on international opinion" according to Ambassador Gould. Israel is very attuned to 'international opinion' and there is very little Israel does that accords with approval from the international community. Israel seeks to accommodate its needs, its security of its people and in the process is unendingly abused by the international community.

Which seems to believe it has a perfect right to set terms and conditions for Israel's existence. Israel, strangely enough, seems to feel otherwise; that it is master in its own house and will continue to make decisions that benefit its existence. Such as responding to ongoing and never-ending attacks by Palestinian terrorist groups like Islamic Jihad and Hamas and 'militant wings' of Fatah, the governing Palestinian Authority. Hence the second Gaza war, in an effort to secure the security of its people.

As for the construction in East Jerusalem, any self-respecting government must see to the necessity of housing its people, and Israel has latterly experienced an increase in immigration statistics. The very countries of Europe where Jews have lived for hundreds if not a thousand years and more are becoming increasingly difficult for Jews to live in, with safety. As the Muslim demographic of these countries grows, so does the strident anti-Semitic rhetoric, occasionally morphing into violence.

Israel, for all the good it does her, condemns the inaction and complacency of Europe in doing nothing to counter the virulent anti-Semitism that is driving European Jews out of their homelands. Israel exists on the world stage as a haven for Jews everywhere, to find themselves among other Jews as a measure of some existential comfort. Even as Jews are themselves as different from one another as any other human population with influences from the cultures in which they have thrived for so long.

But no more.