Reports of spiking anti-Semitism in several European countries have analysts again asking whether Europe’s increasingly marked diplomatic hostility toward the Jewish state is a function of something more than geo-strategic and humanitarian evaluations.
A recent report in the Jerusalem Post described among other things “outrageous” anti-Semitism in Belgium. A recent Belgian primer on “Holocaust Remembrance” was given over to asserting – via tutorials and cartoons – that Israeli Jews were committing the equivalent of the Nazi genocide against Palestinians. Meanwhile Hungary has seen a resurgence in politically mainstream European anti-Semitism. Budapest this week committed to trying to do something about the unfortunate situation.
Neo-Nazi political parties have joined parliaments not just in Hungary but also in the Ukraine and Greece.
Soeren Kern – a senior fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute and at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group – suggested a few weeks ago that a recent and controversial E.U. directive boycotting Israeli communities beyond Israel’s 1948 armistice lines was not innocent of anti-Semitism:
Member of the Knesset for the Jewish Home Party, Ayelet Shaked, told the European politicians attending the conference that she feared the evacuation of West Bank settlements and the creation of a Palestinian state would only lead to increased missile attacks against Israel:
“Europe’s forcing us to cede land, in order to achieve the type of agreement it sees fit for the Middle East, will only mean that these missiles will continue to rain down on Israel not only from Gaza, but from Qalqilya and Ramallah [Palestinian cities in the West Bank] as well.
If Europe thinks Jews will return to the days where we were forced to mark our products, you can forget it. Delegitimization of parts of Israel by Europe is the new anti-Semitism. The old anti-Semitism led to the destruction of our people in gas chambers. We will not allow the new anti-Semitism to hurt us.”
Earlier this year Tel Aviv University’s Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, in conjunction with the European Jewish Congress, published a report documenting a 30 percent worldwide spike in anti-Semitic incidents.
Researchers found 2012 had seen 50 attacks against Jews with a weapon, 89 without, 166 direct threats on lives, and 373 cases of vandalism. France had the dubious honor of leading the list with 200 anti-Semitic incidents. At a press conference about the report, EJC president Moshe Kantor said the surge in anti-Semitism “was influenced by a large growth in violence in France, particularly following the terror attack on the Ozar Hatorah School in Toulouse,” in which Islamist gunman Mohamed Merah killed a rabbi and four children.
The report described three factors behind the surge: the “copycat” effect caused by the Toulouse terrorist attack, an “escalation in the activities of the extreme right-wing and the strengthening of parties with a clear anti-Semitic agenda” in Europe, and a short spike in attacks caused by Israel’s Pillar of Defense operation late last year against Hamas in Gaza.
This video on Greece’s neo-Nazi movement – entitled “Golden Dawn’s Message to Enemy Jews – “You Cannot Stop Us!” – was uploaded by YouTube user HitlerWasRightHeil. The user’s YouTube channel, “Zion Crime Network,” features a Star of David and a Communist hammer-and-sickle and has accumulated nearly 28,000 views.
[Photo: corsarule / YouTube]