A reliable source in Finland reports that the speaker of parliament, Ben Zyskowicz, was attacked by a man shouting antisemitic slogans in Helsinki, June 1. He is a popular politician and the only Jewish member of parliament. Zyskowicz refused to press charges saying that going to court in such matters is futile.
This event in a relatively small, far-away country about which people know little will not make international news. But it isn’t an isolated incident.
Reports from Holland say that Jewish funeral processions are being heckled by bystanders. One shouldn’t exaggerate. Thousands of people live their lives unaffected by such problems. Still, many other such incidents can be listed. Here’s what it shows: Jews who are publicly known as such or who wear jewelry or clothes that identify themselves as such are no longer safe in Europe.
Politicians fly to expensive hotels to hold conferences on “tolerance” and “anti-hatred.” Big public relations’ campaigns are held on these topics. But all this has nothing to do with reality. Extremist groups and ideologies–including Islamism–along with endless incitement against Jews and Israel, including in the most “respectable” media, are creating an atmosphere where antisemitism is permissible, even fashionable.
Absolutely zero is being done about this at a time when, otherwise, the smallest accusations of religious or racial bigotry provoke hysteria. And those building this hatred, often by lies and hatred directed at Israel, claim they are innocent by manipulating definitions of antisemitism.
In Holland, a sociologist conducted a poll that showed that half of Muslim students are antisemitic. The response? He has been taken to court by Muslims accused of a “hate crime.”
Even in the United States, according to FBI statistics, attacks on Jews far exceed those on Muslims. Many of the attacks are staged by Muslims. Yet even Jewish groups like the Anti-Defamation League ignores the systematic inculcation of antisemitism in many mosques and Muslim schools. And here’s the latest from Ireland. And the United Kingdom.
It would be excessively alarmist to say that this is a return to the 1933 and 1945. Rather, it is a return in a new form to the period between around 1000 and 1933. And that’s bad enough.
Note: the reference in paragraph 2 about a small, far-away country of which people know little is to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s remark when sacrificing Czechoslovakia in 1938.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; The West and the Middle East (four volumes); and The Muslim Brotherhood.
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