PrintFebruary 19, 2009
The hatred that never dies
The hatred that never dies was alive and well this last month in the streets of London.
The Gaza War was notable for the horrible scenes that erupted in European and British streets. Who can forget the sight of British bobbies running for their lives in London as mobs of screaming Muslims chased them with impunity.
The long awaited Israeli response to the relentless Palestinian Arab aggression by the Hamas regime in Gaza led not to understanding and support from the world but instead to mass anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hysteria.
The international mainstream media did not accept the overwhelming justification of Israel's need to defend its citizens from the Hamas and Islamic Jihad missile blitz. Instead, it piled on one false Hamas propaganda claim after another without verification.
Journalists and editors in the print and electronic media simply abrogated their responsibilities in checking facts. They left their readers and viewers with inflammatory stories that have since been proven mostly false, but which led to a consequential outpouring of blind hatred towards the Jewish state.
Few, if any, politicians in Europe supported the efforts of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in eliminating the Hamas thugs and their missile squads who deliberately aimed their rockets at Israeli civilians. Instead Hamas continued to do what comes naturally -- shoot and then hide behind human shields hoping that fellow Arabs -- women and children -- would be killed in order to win propaganda points against Israel.
Many European and British politicians and media talking heads characterized the IDF as acting no different from the atrocities the Nazis committed, despite the Herculean and highly principled attempts by the Israelis towards avoiding Arab civilian casualties. This particular grotesque condemnation reeked of the most sinister hypocrisy.
The Europeans turned their continent into one gigantic Jewish graveyard both before and during the Holocaust. They have smarted at their guilt since the end of World War 2, but now they have fallen over themselves in attempting to shake off their discomfort by rushing to accuse the Jewish state of committing the same horrors upon the Palestinians that the Germans and their many European allies perpetrated against the Jews.
That this is a vile distortion of the truth matters not to them. Perhaps also there is the transcendent real fear of not upsetting the volatile Muslim minority in their midst. They have created the Frankenstein monster and now it consumes them, body and soul.
Europe and Great Britain are disintegrating. Having allowed enormous numbers of immigrants from the Arab and Muslim world to enter, it now fears alienating the ever growing power of these same immigrants who are unwilling to become Europeans or Brits first and foremost. Rather, the new immigrants wish to impose their belief systems, including Islamic Sharia law, upon their host countries.
The British government was quite happy to allow crowds of marchers carrying Hamas and Palestinian Arab flags to fill the streets of its cities while calling for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews. But when, an Israeli flag was seen, the police immediately forced its removal stating that it was a provocation to the anti-Jewish mobs.
The British government has now reached a nadir in its reputation as the defender of free speech and democratic values. The Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, produced a film called Fitna, which exposes the assault upon women within Islam and the manner in which radical Islam is destroying the West and its civilization.
The British government gave up the hallowed rights it has always claimed to represent and barred Mr. Wilders from entering Britain to present his film to the House of Lords. Why did they take this unprecedented and degrading step? Because a Muslim member of the upper chamber by the name of Lord Ahmed warned them that if the film was shown by Geert Wilders he, Lord Ahmed, would bring 10,000 potentially violent British Muslims to London and the House of Lords in a mass demonstration.
British resolve crumbled whereupon Lord Ahmed boasted to the Pakistani regime of his great success. This latest capitulation to Islamic extremism may yet mark the demise of Great Britain's cultural survival as a democratic and free nation - Magna Carta and the patriotic song, Rule Britannia, notwithstanding.
The British conservative newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, published an article by Philip Johnson pointed out to the Daily Telegraph's readers that, "Britain was once renowned around the world for defending people's right to speak out. Not any more." He continued:
"The very people who in 1989 were demanding the murder of Salman Rushdie for writing a book are today leading the charge against a Dutch MP for making a film. The fundamental difference is that 20 years ago, the government supported free speech; today, it has cravenly surrendered. It is simply not good enough to say that Wilders should not be heard because he might provoke a backlash from those who do not like him or his views. That is not upholding the law. That is appeasement."
Wilders writes that he would have included the following words during his House of Lords presentation:
"But there is still much work to be done. Britain seems to have become a country ruled by fear. A country where civil servants cancel Christmas celebrations to please Muslims. A country where Sharia Courts are part of the legal system. A country where Islamic organizations asked to stop the commemoration of the Holocaust."A country where a primary school cancels a Christmas nativity play because it interfered with an Islamic festival. A country where a school removes the words Christmas and Easter from their calendar so as not to offend Muslims. A country where a teacher punishes two students for refusing to pray to Allah as part of their religious education class. A country where elected members of a town council are told not to eat during daylight hours in town hall meetings during the Ramadan. A country that excels in its hatred of Israel, still the only democracy in the Middle-East. A country whose capitol is becoming ‘Londonistan.'"
Europe is awash with terrorist cells waiting to embark upon violent jihadist outrages. Many have been identified and their members arrested. But a cancer like this always metastasizes and many more cells remain hidden.
Along with the Islamist terror there is always the accompanying specter of anti-Semitism. Even in Sweden, which remained neutral during the Second World War, the Arab-Israeli conflict obsesses its media. But, as in Britain and in too many European nations, the misinformation and blatant disinformation churned out by a dysfunctional media has disfigured public attitudes. Swedish politicians with few exceptions have thus decided to support Hamas and condemn Israel.
As usual it was the Left which attacked Israel's military campaign against Palestinian Arab aggression. Charges were leveled at the Jewish state by Leftists such as Hans Linde who, ignoring the dictatorial and repressive nature of the Hamas regime, was quite happy to accuse Israel of being a racist and non-democratic state.
As calls for boycotting Israel were flung about within Europe, a minority of Brits and Europeans displayed sanity and an understanding of the suffering of Israeli civilians adjacent to the Hamas occupied Gaza Strip. But they were, and are, pitifully few in numbers.
So the Islamist juggernaut rolls on consuming one free nation after another. Within Britain the number of anti-Jewish incidents has skyrocketed, according to the Community Security Trust (CST). From the start of the Israeli retaliation to the Hamas missile blitz, over 250 anti-Jewish attacks have been recorded, which is the highest rate since records began. Though it is believed that most of the perpetrators were of Muslim origin, nevertheless the implications are deeply troubling.
The hatred that never dies is back oozing throughout the Continent of Europe and washing over the face of Britain. The Jews of Europe and England endured the hostility of the Church for centuries. Now Judaism's second daughter religion, Islam, is spewing its venom in the very continent where Christianity appears to be dying.
Victor Sharpe is a freelance writer and author of Politicide: The attempted murder of the Jewish state.
