Red-Green Anti-Semitism
Jean-Christophe Mounicq | 16.12.2003 16:41 | World
Being a leftist, an immigrant, an Arab and/or a Muslim does not automatically put one on the side of the angels. One has the right to question Leftists and Muslims on their anti-Semitism. European and Muslim media should stop characterizing Israel as a Nazi state. This is not only a question of justice. It is a necessity if one doesn't want the new anti-Semitism to spread and the worst to come.
The recent outburst of anti-Semitism in Europe has little to do with the sad history of European prejudice. The new anti-Semitism is not due to a resurgence of far-right activism or neo-Nazism. Recent anti-Semitic acts have been proven to be of Muslim-Arab origin and have more to do with the Islamization of Europe. On 2 December, the World Jewish Congress brought more evidence of this green anti-Semitism by making public a disputed report kept under wraps by the European Union.
If European authorities are not facing up to anti-Jewish sentiment among Muslim immigrants in Europe, it is partly because this new anti-Semitism capitalizes on the "politically correct" anti-Israeli bias currently in vogue in the EU, a bias promoted by many European politicians.
European politicians also have trouble admitting that it is bolstered by the steady and uncontrolled immigration of Muslims since the 1960s and the spreading of Radical Islam by and among immigrants. This is another result of political correctness which impeaches any criticism of the sources of anti-Semitism. Being the result of political correctness linked to leftist bias of the media, the new anti-Semitism may also be qualified as Red.
Contemporary political correctness defines any limits on immigration as racism. Any political leader, intellectual or "normal" citizen, who suggests that immigration should be controlled through the application of law or who advocates repatriation of illegal immigrants is denounced as a racist. It is sometimes even considered outrageous to suggest that immigrants should obey the laws of their host country. "We cannot obey this law because it is incompatible with the Koran" is a claim heard more and more often from Muslims. "Native Europeans" often seem ready to abandon their principles to avoid conflict.
Airplanes full of illegal immigrants sent back to their native country have been compared, by French intellectuals, journalists and political activists, to the trains that carried Jews to Dachau. Thus a former French interior minister, Jean-Louis Debr�, who carried out this policy, was portrayed as a Nazi despite being of Jewish origin himself. This attitude was termed as "Reductio ad Hitlerum" by philosopher Leo Strauss. The sophism might be caricatured as: Hitler loved dogs; X loves dogs; thus X is a disciple of Hitler.
Any criticism of the culture of any immigrant is also viewed as racist. The only permissible criticism seems to be that which is directed against Western civilization. Bad Westerners are portrayed as the only violent colonizers and evil invaders of all history.
Anyone who dares to recall certain facts -- Mohammed was a warrior, conquests by Muslims were made by the sword, violence is allowed and sometimes recommended by the Koran -- is viewed as Islamophobic. The Muslim world, which suffered from the Crusades and has been colonized, is "good." And their law and customs are "good" too.
Few dare to mention that Muslims have also colonized, tortured and slaughtered millions, that the Turks were responsible for the first genocide of the 20th century with the extermination of 1.4 million Christian Armenians, that during World War II many Muslim leaders including the Great Mufti of Jerusalem, al Hadj al Husseini, helped the Nazis to constitute Muslim SS divisions, and that Christians still today are stigmatized and repressed throughout the Muslim world.
As many books written by French teachers show, young French Muslims frequently deny the fact of Nazi genocide against Europe's Jews. Muslim clerics, frequently backed by their governments, continue to disseminate the medieval forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," also a favorite of such salubrious organizations as the Ku Klux Klan.
Political correctness also insists that communism, socialism and leftist radicalism are good. Conservatism and the Right are bad. They created Fascism and Nazism (when actually both are forms of totalitarian Socialism). Bush and Sharon are from the Right. They are evil. Their countries are both capitalist and rich. Thus bad. Rich Israelis and Americans from the right are attacking poor Palestinians and Iraqis. This leads to the portrayal of Israeli and American leaders as "Nazis."
The condemnation of Nazi Germany, a totalitarian and powerful state with a strong army, brought into vogue the condemnation of any national state. "With the Six Day War, the Israelis demonstrated their capacity for power. For the anti-Semite, the Jews once considered weak and stateless came to be viewed as strong and nationalist," writes Gilles William Goldnadel in Le Nouveau Br�viaire de la Haine (new breviary of hate). The Israeli state built around one religion and defended by a strong army became the hated state.
This idea explains why Israel is viewed by 59 percent of Europeans as the country which most endangers world peace. Repeated by Islamists and leftists, the "green-red" alliance, Anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic remarks are widely spread during leftist anti-globalization rallies that are always pro-Palestinian. The revealed European report noted that: "Often this generated a combination of anti-Zionist and anti-American views that formed an important element in the emergence of an anti-Semitic mood in Europe.
The consequences are that "Jewish communities are once again victims of hostile acts in an atmosphere of relative indifference," writes Goldnadel. The latest fire in a French Jewish school in Bondy illustrates this point. French authorities have firmly condemned such acts. But they have not dared to denounce those responsible, young French Arabs, and have taken no action to prevent any further acts.
Rabbi Marvin Hier is right to say that "shocking poll results, showing that European popular opinion is that Israel is the greatest threat to world peace, bigger than North Korea, Iran and Afghanistan, defies logic." But is it "a racist fantasy?" Today, racism is only apparent when one suggests that a Muslim or an Arab country is dangerous.
Ancient anti-Semitism is still alive in Europe. The recent declarations of German General Reinhard Gunzel and German Parliamentarian Martin Hohmann demonstrate this clearly. Hohman called the Jews "a nation of perpetrators responsible for millions of murders in the name of socialism and Bolshevism" because Marx, Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev were Jewish. Never mind that Lenin and Stalin were not Jewish and murdered thousands of Jewish communists.
This old anti-Semitism from the Right is progressively disappearing. The new anti-Semitism comes from the Left. Eerily echoing the voice of the defunct Soviet Union, anti-Israelism today is the most powerful modern vector of anti-Semitism. Since World War II, anti-Semites have attacked the Jewish state as a substitute for the Jewish people. One may notice that intellectuals from the Left who propagate anti-Israelism and political correctness are often Jewish themselves. But the overwhelming numbers of anti-Semitic acts in Europe are of Arab-Muslim immigrant origin.
To avoid debate on these facts, as the EU is doing, is counterproductive. On 19 November, one French Jewish disc jockey was murdered by an Arab Muslim. The murderer was proud of "having eliminated one Jewish scum from the earth." To prevent any debate, French authorities said the Arab was "psychologically disturbed." Maybe. But are other crimes from "less psychologically disturbed" Muslims needed before Muslims and the Left are called to task?
If European authorities are not facing up to anti-Jewish sentiment among Muslim immigrants in Europe, it is partly because this new anti-Semitism capitalizes on the "politically correct" anti-Israeli bias currently in vogue in the EU, a bias promoted by many European politicians.
European politicians also have trouble admitting that it is bolstered by the steady and uncontrolled immigration of Muslims since the 1960s and the spreading of Radical Islam by and among immigrants. This is another result of political correctness which impeaches any criticism of the sources of anti-Semitism. Being the result of political correctness linked to leftist bias of the media, the new anti-Semitism may also be qualified as Red.
Contemporary political correctness defines any limits on immigration as racism. Any political leader, intellectual or "normal" citizen, who suggests that immigration should be controlled through the application of law or who advocates repatriation of illegal immigrants is denounced as a racist. It is sometimes even considered outrageous to suggest that immigrants should obey the laws of their host country. "We cannot obey this law because it is incompatible with the Koran" is a claim heard more and more often from Muslims. "Native Europeans" often seem ready to abandon their principles to avoid conflict.
Airplanes full of illegal immigrants sent back to their native country have been compared, by French intellectuals, journalists and political activists, to the trains that carried Jews to Dachau. Thus a former French interior minister, Jean-Louis Debr�, who carried out this policy, was portrayed as a Nazi despite being of Jewish origin himself. This attitude was termed as "Reductio ad Hitlerum" by philosopher Leo Strauss. The sophism might be caricatured as: Hitler loved dogs; X loves dogs; thus X is a disciple of Hitler.
Any criticism of the culture of any immigrant is also viewed as racist. The only permissible criticism seems to be that which is directed against Western civilization. Bad Westerners are portrayed as the only violent colonizers and evil invaders of all history.
Anyone who dares to recall certain facts -- Mohammed was a warrior, conquests by Muslims were made by the sword, violence is allowed and sometimes recommended by the Koran -- is viewed as Islamophobic. The Muslim world, which suffered from the Crusades and has been colonized, is "good." And their law and customs are "good" too.
Few dare to mention that Muslims have also colonized, tortured and slaughtered millions, that the Turks were responsible for the first genocide of the 20th century with the extermination of 1.4 million Christian Armenians, that during World War II many Muslim leaders including the Great Mufti of Jerusalem, al Hadj al Husseini, helped the Nazis to constitute Muslim SS divisions, and that Christians still today are stigmatized and repressed throughout the Muslim world.
As many books written by French teachers show, young French Muslims frequently deny the fact of Nazi genocide against Europe's Jews. Muslim clerics, frequently backed by their governments, continue to disseminate the medieval forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," also a favorite of such salubrious organizations as the Ku Klux Klan.
Political correctness also insists that communism, socialism and leftist radicalism are good. Conservatism and the Right are bad. They created Fascism and Nazism (when actually both are forms of totalitarian Socialism). Bush and Sharon are from the Right. They are evil. Their countries are both capitalist and rich. Thus bad. Rich Israelis and Americans from the right are attacking poor Palestinians and Iraqis. This leads to the portrayal of Israeli and American leaders as "Nazis."
The condemnation of Nazi Germany, a totalitarian and powerful state with a strong army, brought into vogue the condemnation of any national state. "With the Six Day War, the Israelis demonstrated their capacity for power. For the anti-Semite, the Jews once considered weak and stateless came to be viewed as strong and nationalist," writes Gilles William Goldnadel in Le Nouveau Br�viaire de la Haine (new breviary of hate). The Israeli state built around one religion and defended by a strong army became the hated state.
This idea explains why Israel is viewed by 59 percent of Europeans as the country which most endangers world peace. Repeated by Islamists and leftists, the "green-red" alliance, Anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic remarks are widely spread during leftist anti-globalization rallies that are always pro-Palestinian. The revealed European report noted that: "Often this generated a combination of anti-Zionist and anti-American views that formed an important element in the emergence of an anti-Semitic mood in Europe.
The consequences are that "Jewish communities are once again victims of hostile acts in an atmosphere of relative indifference," writes Goldnadel. The latest fire in a French Jewish school in Bondy illustrates this point. French authorities have firmly condemned such acts. But they have not dared to denounce those responsible, young French Arabs, and have taken no action to prevent any further acts.
Rabbi Marvin Hier is right to say that "shocking poll results, showing that European popular opinion is that Israel is the greatest threat to world peace, bigger than North Korea, Iran and Afghanistan, defies logic." But is it "a racist fantasy?" Today, racism is only apparent when one suggests that a Muslim or an Arab country is dangerous.
Ancient anti-Semitism is still alive in Europe. The recent declarations of German General Reinhard Gunzel and German Parliamentarian Martin Hohmann demonstrate this clearly. Hohman called the Jews "a nation of perpetrators responsible for millions of murders in the name of socialism and Bolshevism" because Marx, Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev were Jewish. Never mind that Lenin and Stalin were not Jewish and murdered thousands of Jewish communists.
This old anti-Semitism from the Right is progressively disappearing. The new anti-Semitism comes from the Left. Eerily echoing the voice of the defunct Soviet Union, anti-Israelism today is the most powerful modern vector of anti-Semitism. Since World War II, anti-Semites have attacked the Jewish state as a substitute for the Jewish people. One may notice that intellectuals from the Left who propagate anti-Israelism and political correctness are often Jewish themselves. But the overwhelming numbers of anti-Semitic acts in Europe are of Arab-Muslim immigrant origin.
To avoid debate on these facts, as the EU is doing, is counterproductive. On 19 November, one French Jewish disc jockey was murdered by an Arab Muslim. The murderer was proud of "having eliminated one Jewish scum from the earth." To prevent any debate, French authorities said the Arab was "psychologically disturbed." Maybe. But are other crimes from "less psychologically disturbed" Muslims needed before Muslims and the Left are called to task?
Jean-Christophe Mounicq
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