For a long time in many European countries there have been present strong anti-Israeli prejudicies sometimes verging on border (or crossing the line) of ani-semitism. I have myself witnessed them quite a few times and tried to embrace the mecanism that caused them and that was completly unclear to me.
Finally I have come to some conclusions that I want to share with you.
Europe (specially Western one) has to a great extent abbandon its Christian values on which society was created and Judeo-Christian philosophy that created the concept of individual in ancient times and in enlightment gave way to individual rights without - in XIX century - loosing the feeling of strong identity and values in societies (sure there were problems and extremisms and rebellion against those values sometimes with pitible results but still with maintaining the feeling that those values were there and one might rebel but it didn't change their presence even in times when they were mostly in people's consience and hard to step across on ground.
To a great extend - at least in France and UK - this is the thing of past. They are post-Christian societies with strong guilt over colonial past based partly on facts, often on legends (mind you - I don't even remotely try to defend colonialism but the intrinsic, collectual guilt taught over decades after colonialism ceased and linked with poor knowledge of history and with damning one's society's own values without inspecting them just because they were there in times percieved as bad is something definitely different; of course Livingstone was to some extend imperialist, he was also fighting against slavery, was ministering to needy, was trying to couch support for them against Arab traders, was scientist and so on, we can't put people like that into one label drawer signed "bad colonnialism" and throw away the whole past without even trying to think about what was there on stake and what is now in danger). In the rush to get rid of this guilt and compensate for colonial past many technocrats in Europe embraced the idea of multicultural societies with minorities being treated as victimised in a way understood per se. Again - nothing wrong with minorities, immigration and multiculturalism if we don't loose from sight the mainstream society insisting that it is "bad" the way burgois were treated in revolutionary France by girondists or anybody owning something by Soviet communists. Unfortunately these normal, in many cases right, in many wrong, members of society have been treated (and continue to be) as people who should be ashamed of having their values, past, history, religion....
The new socio-engineering came to picture with specially leftist seeking the way to change European societies. Leftists found themselves unusual ally - radical Islamism. Those talking again and again about rights of minorities (talking, rarely doing something about it) - about women, gays, other sexual minorities, atheists (not a minority anymore I dare say) allied themselves with ideology fiercly anti-feminist, anti-gay, anti-freedom and considering atheism (or any other religion for that matter) as mortal sin that should be faught with weapon if necessary. What a strange allience!
I remember coming upon a rally in support of Palestine in Dublin where together with Palestinian activists marched gay-supporters and I was very tempted to come and ask them do they know that Israel recognises same-sex marrieges if came to existence abroad (and definitely does not punish homosexuality) while in Gaza just for coming out (or even supporting the rights of gay-minority without coming out) they would have faced death sentence. The leftist supporters of radical Islamism, preaching the rights of minorities, choose to turn blind eye on forced marriages, polygamy, women's genital mutilation and "honour murders" - all taking part in Europe.
Yet the mix of society that gave up its Judeo-Christian values (to a large extent, not completly thanks goodness), the technocrats trying to cut on democracy and push some important decisions out of public opinion eyes, the strong leftists and radical Islamism plays a definite and main role in anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism of contemporary Europe. It not only victimises middle-classes in European societies insisting that they are "guilty", "racist" and "islamophobic" by nature; it also victimises all Muslims who would actually like to accomodate traditional European values (and after all it was generally accepted that immigrants do not trupm on hosts' values claiming that their are superior and have to gain upper hand) and who would like to lead peaceful, middle-class life in new countries. They are pushed to the hands of radicalists from whom they sometimes escaped by the authorities of the very countries they have escaped to.
The result is that the polarisation of stances is growing. The alliance of leftists with radical Islam (hurting all moderate whatever their religion or lack of it) is so absurdal that it requires common enemy to be able to conveniently shut the radical differences as sceletons in closets. Here comes Israel. It is democracy with strong embedding in Judaic values and despite overwhelming secularism of her society not ashamed of her values, past and culture. Defending them in fact. It is honouring individual rights and choices yet does not create the "all goes" culture. It has not embraced the kind of forced "political correctness" that leads to, as they say in my country, "spilling baby with bath water" meaning openess to not correction of things that were bad or getting rid of them and keeping what was good but throwing away everything just for the sake of throwing it away.
With deeply established in Salafism and Wahhabism (main sources of Islamic radicalism) anti-SEmitism and leftists despise of true Western, democratic values what an ideal common enemy allowing to forget (for a time at least) about fundamental differences between radical Islamism and leftism.
Nevertheless this strange alliance reminds me about one between Nazis and German aristocracy who was very happy to support Hitler in 1933 expecting to be able to use him for their own purposes. As it turned out it was exactly the other way round. And I believe leftists (despite their deep contempt for history) should remind themselves this lesson as they are exactly where German aristocrats were in early 1930s.
The result: turning blind eye by police in UK for demands to bomb or nuke Denmark after the publication of few satiric jokes (I remind they were re-printed in Egypt without incident but that was not widely advertised in Europe). Turning blind eye on cases of vandalising synagogues and still higher protection required for Jewish schools, turning blind eye on demands to destroy legally established country, courts recognising polygamy and payments for multiply wives in UK and France, possibility to buy "Mein Kampf" (banned in most of continental Europe, freely distributed in Ireland, easily available in UK), distribution of XIX century tsarist pamflet "Protocols of the Elders of Sion". Israel is a scapegoat of a very real struggle in European societies and the favourite one to point fingers on by both - radical Islam and widespread leftism, partly to make people turn away from the sins of both those forces against them. And you know? Unfortunately it works......
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