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Saturday, 7 February 2009
THE U.K. IS LOST - POLICE RUN FROM ARAB TERRORISTS
THE U.K. IS LOST - POLICE RUN FROM ARAB TERRORISTS
THIS IS A DISGRACE...AND A WARNING TO WESTERN CIVILIZATION!
THEY MUST BE STOPPED!!!
taken from: B'NAI ELIM (http://bnaielim.blogspot.com/)
HAMAS BUDDY "CAIR" (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) IS RUNNING SCARED
In the past seven days, evidence surfaced that the FBI was cutting off its primary contacts with CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations), after CAIR refused to address FBI questions about CAIR’s relationship to Hamas (a designated terrorist organization). Then, five members of Congress sent a letter to other members of Congress entitled “Beware of CAIR,” citing the evidence that the FBI had severed ties with CAIR. CAIR has responded in its predictable fashion – attack the messengers. The commentary below, from the website of SANE (Society of Americans for National Existence), includes the response letter that CAIR sent to Congresswoman Sue Myrick, co-chair of the House Anti-Terrorism Caucus. One line in CAIR’s letter is telling:
“If enduring these baseless attacks from you is part of God’s price for freedom, we embrace them.”
Playing the victim, or in this case, the martyr, is a common tactic among Islamists. In CAIR’s world, any critique or criticism of it, no matter how reasoned or documented, is anti-Muslim bigotry. For CAIR to claim that allegations against it are “baseless” is, well, baseless. Why would the FBI finally make the decision it did to sever ties with CAIR if there was no basis for doing so? Why would the Justice Department list CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial if there was no basis for doing so? Why would an FBI agent, testifying under oath during that trial, label CAIR as a front organization for Islamist extremism if there was no basis for saying so? The answer is they wouldn’t.
Updated: CAIR, the unindicted Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood co-conspirator, is running scared! by SANE Staff, Thu, February 05, 2009, 08:00:AM Available files: CAIR Scare Letter to Cong Sue Myrick When Representative Sue Myrick learned that the FBI had severed its connections with and ties to CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, based in Washington, D.C., she understood the significance of this event. On the one hand, the US Attorneys prosecuting the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (the largest Muslim charity in the US post-9/11), CAIR Texas officials and others for materially supporting terrorism in the Middle East had taken the unprecedented step to publicly identify CAIR, ISNA, and other such groups as unindicted co-conspirators in the HLF criminal trial. On the other hand, members of the FBI would use CAIR as a sounding board for the "Muslim community" notwithstanding the lack of any evidence that CAIR represents anyone much less a "Muslim community" known largely for its lack of community organization. As a result, Rep. Myrick, who is deeply involved in counterterrorism issues in Congress, wrote a letter outlining this new awareness by the FBI to her congressional colleagues. (See here, here, and here for the fallout from the FBI decision to cut ties with CAIR and Rep. Myrick's letter to her colleagues warning them of CAIR's nefarious beginnings, middles, and ends.) As a result, and almost precisely on cue, CAIR went on the offensive in an abject display of desperation. In the midst of their explanation that they are just a "civil rights organization" defending the downtrodden and oppressed among Muslims in America, they launch into a personal attack on Rep. Myrick, and this organization, SANE. (The letter is available above in pdf format for download at the unique url for this entry.) What CAIR has done here they have done before and will continue to do in the future. SANE, David Yerushalmi, Rep. Myrick, Robert Spencer, Stephen Coughlin, Dr. Andy Bostom, Frank Gaffney, Brigitte Gabriel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Tawfiq Hamid, and many others, have taken on the difficult but critically important task to identify precisely the Enemy Common Threat Doctrine which animates the worldwide jihad against unbelievers and the West generally. This doctrine is of course Shariah or Islamic law. This doctrine commands the faithful to engage in the conversion, subjugation or murder of those who resist Shariah's call for submission to a worldwide hegemony called a caliphate. CAIR's approach to public discourse on this subject, however, is to take writings out of context and to conceal the careful and thoughtful analysis of Shariah and to distort that body of work into a caricature of simple anti-Muslim bigotry. We have responded to this ad hominem approach in broad strokes here but for those interested, the more telling response to CAIR is to simply quote two of the most authoritative and "mainstream" Shariah authorities in the world. The first is the Dow Jones Shariah advisor Mufti Taqi Usmani, who has written a book on how a "good" Muslim ought to behave while living among the infidels in the West. In that book, published in 1999 in English and available on Amazon.com, Usmani wrote:
I am in receipt of your esteemed letter. Whatever you have written about Jehad can be summarized as this “If a non-Muslim state allows for preaching Islam in its country, Jehad against it does not remain lawful.” If this is what you mean, my humble self does not agree with it. Obstruction in the way of preaching Islam does not mean only a legal obstacle, but greater power or domination of a non-Muslim state against Muslims is by itself a great obstacle in the propagation of Islam. There are no legal restrictions in most of the countries today on preaching Islam, but since their grandeur and authority is established in the world, it has led to developing a universal feeling which forms a greater obstacle than the greatest legal binding in the way of free propagation of Islam. For this reason the most important purpose of Jehad is to break this grandeur so that the resulting psychological subordination should come to an end and the way of accepting the Truth become smooth. As long as this grandeur and domination persists the hearts of people will remain subdued and will not be fully inclined to accept the religion of Truth. Hence Jehad will continue. The Qur'an said in Sura Tauba:
Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.Here, killing is to continue until the unbelievers pay Jizyah [subjugation tax on non-Muslims] after they are humbled or overpowered. If the purpose of killing was only to acquire permission and freedom of preaching Islam, it would have been said “until they allow for preaching Islam.” But the obligation of Jizyah and along with it the mention of their subordination is a clear proof that the purpose is to smash their grandeur, so that the veils of their domination should be raised and people get a free chance to think over the blessings of Islam. Imam Razi has written the following commentary on this verse:
The purpose of “Jizyah” is not to let the unbelievers stay in their contumacy against Islam but sparing their lives to give them a chance for a time during which they may hopefully get convinced of the truth of Islam and embrace it. So when an unbeliever is given time wherein he would be observing the respect and honour of Islam, and hearing the arguments of its validity, and also observing the baselesness of disbelief, these things would convince him to turn towards Islam. This, in fact, is the real purpose of legalizing Jizyah.
According to CAIR and it's national leadership, the most important and authoritative Shariah authority for them and their Muslim Brotherhood associates is Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Mr. Qaradawi is well known for his fatwa ordering the mujahideen of Afghanistan and Iraq to murder American combat soldiers and civilian contractors. He has also issued a fatwa authorizing the suicide-murder of any Jew in Israel--man, woman, or child. He is quoted from Al-Jazeera t.v. as follows: Oh Allah, take your enemies, the enemies of Islam. Oh Allah, take the Jews, the treacherous aggressors. Oh Allah, take this profligate, cunning, arrogant band of people. Oh Allah, they have spread much tyranny and corruption in the land. Pour Your wrath upon them, oh our God. Lie in wait for them. Oh Allah, You annihilated the people of Thamoud at the hand of a tyrant, and You annihilated the people of 'Aad with a fierce, icy gale. Oh Allah, You annihilated the people Thamoud at the hand of a tyrant, You annihilated the people of 'Aad with a fierce, icy gale, and You destroyed the Pharaoh and his soldiers — oh Allah, take this oppressive, tyrannical band of people. Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one. If CAIR were interested in a real discussion of these matters, as they suggest in their letter to Rep. Myrick, they have lacked neither opportunities nor platforms. Instead, they engage in the rankest form of ad hominem and issue statements denouncing "terrorism" and the murder of "innocents" and the need for "justice" in the world. But anyone who has spent any time studying this Shariah propaganda understands it for what it is. All of the Shariah authorities, including OBL (who is not himself a Shariah authority), issue the same pronouncements because, per Shariah, jihad is not "terror"; the "killing of infidels" is not the "murder of innocents"; and "justice" is only achieved, as Mufti Usmani and Sheikh Qaradawi tell us ever so clearly, when Shariah-Islam rules the world and CAIR and its minions can shed their western disguises and apply Shariah's rule of law without apology or ruse and dominate all others who continue to resist Shariah-Islam. NB: Full disclosure: CAIR isolates on David Yerushalmi because he is representing several African American Muslims who are suing CAIR in federal court for racketeering, fraud and other crimes. See here.
taken from : B'NAI ELIM (http://bnaielim.blogspot.com/)
THE PHILOSOPHER WHO GAVE THE IDF MORAL JUSTIFICATION IN GAZA
The philosopher who gave the IDF moral justification in Gaza
By Amos Harel
Tags: Hamas, Gaza, IDF, Asa Kasher
When senior Israel Defense Forces officers are asked about the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians during the fighting in the Gaza Strip, they almost all give the same answer: The use of massive force was designed to protect the lives of the soldiers, and when faced with a choice between protecting the lives of Israeli soldiers and those of enemy civilians under whose protection the Hamas terrorists are operating, the soldiers take precedence.
The IDF's response to criticism does not sound improvised or argumentative. The army entered Gaza with the capacity to gauge with relatively high certainty the impact of fighting against terror in such a densely populated area. And it operated there not only with the backing of the legal opinion of the office of the Military Advocate General, but also on the basis of ethical theory, developed several years ago, that justifes its actions.
Prof. Asa Kasher of Tel Aviv University, an Israel Prize laureate in philosophy, is the philosopher who told the IDF that it was possible. In a recent interview with Haaretz Kasher said the army operated in accordance with a code of conduct developed about five years ago for fighting terrorism.
"The norms followed by the commanders in Gaza were generally appropriate," Kasher said. In Kasher's opinion there is no justification for endangering the lives of soldiers to avoid the killing of civilians who live in the vicinity of terrorists. According to Kasher, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi "has been very familiar with our principles from the time the first document was drafted in 2003 to the present."
"The norms followed by the commanders in Gaza were generally appropriate," Kasher said. In Kasher's opinion there is no justification for endangering the lives of soldiers to avoid the killing of civilians who live in the vicinity of terrorists. According to Kasher, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi "has been very familiar with our principles from the time the first document was drafted in 2003 to the present."
Kasher's argument is that in an area such as the Gaza Strip in which the IDF does not have effective control the overriding principle guiding the commanders is achieving their military objectives. Next in priority is protecting soldiers' lives, followed by avoiding injury to enemy civilians. In areas where Israel does have effective control, such as East Jerusalem, there is no justification for targeted killings in which civilians are also hit because Israel has the option of using routine policing procedures, such as arrests, that do not endanger innocent people.
Prof. Kasher has strong, long-standing ties with the army. He drafted the IDF ethical code of conduct in the mid-1990's. In 2003 he and Maj. Gen Amos Yadlin, now the head of Military Intelligence, published an article entitled "The Ethical Fight Against Terror." It justified the targeted assassination of terrorists, even at the price of hitting nearby Palestinian civilians. Subsequently Kasher, Yadlin, and a team that included IDF legal experts wrote a more comprehensive document on military ethics in fighting terror. Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, who was the IDF Chief of Staff at the time, did not make the document binding but Kasher says the ideas in the document were adopted in principle by Ya'alon and his successors. Kasher has presented them to IDF and Shin Bet security service personnel dozens of times.
"The article was translated into English and published in a military ethics journal and is still being debated around the world," Kasher said. "The feedback is generally positive, although the message is difficult to digest. In the end, everyone acknowledges that they conduct themselves this way. There is no army in the world that will endanger its soldiers in order to avoid hitting the neighbors of an enemy or terrorist. The media don't understand the nature of international law. It's not like tough traffic laws. Much of it is customary law. The decisive question is how enlightened countries conduct themselves. We in Israel are in a key position in the development of law in this field because we are on the front lines in the fight against terrorism. This is gradually being recognized both in the Israeli legal system and abroad. After the debate before the High Court of Justice on the issue of targeted killings there was no need to revise the document that Yadlin and I drafted even by one comma. What we are doing is becoming the law. These are concepts that are not purely legal, but also contain strong ethical elements.
"The Geneva Conventions are based on hundreds of years of tradition of the fair rules of combat. They were appropriate for classic warfare, where one army fought another. But in our time the whole business of rules of fair combat has been pushed aside. There are international efforts underway to revise the rules to accommodate the war against terrorism. According to the new provisions, there is still a distinction between who can and cannot be hit, but not in the blatant approach which existed in the past. The concept of proportionality has also changed. There is no logic in comparing the number of civilians and armed fighters killed on the Palestinian side, or comparing the number of Israelis killed by Qassam rockets to the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza."
When asked whether the IDF should be guided in its operations in Gaza by the concept that there should be zero tolerance for endangering the lives of soldiers, Kasher responds, "The soldiers' lives are endangered by virtue of their very presence in Gaza, by virtue of the fact that we send them to an area where there are enemy snipers and explosives set to go off in areas where the IDF is present. Sending a soldier there to fight terrorists is justified, but why should I force him to endanger himself much more than that so that the terrorist's neighbor isn't killed? I don't have an answer for that. From the standpoint of the state of Israel, the neighbor is much less important. I owe the soldier more. If it's between the soldier and the terrorist's neighbor, the priority is the soldier. Any country would do the same."
The decision regarding the magnitude of force used to protect the lives of the soldiers is up to the commander in the field. "The commander must be skilled in gauging the appropriate use of force," Kasher said.
FATIMA HAJAIG AND THE HISTORY OF ANTI-JEWISH CONSPIRACIES
Fatima Hajaig and the history of anti-Jewish conspiracies
Milton Shain
05 February 2009
Professor Milton Shain traces the thread linking European anti-semitism to much modern 'anti-Zionism'
The recent alleged comments by South Africa's Deputy Foreign Minister, Fatima Hajaig, about Jewish money controlling America and most Western European countries throws into sharp relief the complicated nexus between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. After all, it was at an anti-Zionist rally in Lenasia that Hajaig allegedly launched into a diatribe that would have befitted the toxic views of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad or former Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahatir Mohamad.
Ahmedinejad shares the delusional views attributed to Hajaig, while Mahatir Mohamad some years ago similarly informed 57 heads of state at the Organisation of the Islamic Conference held in Malaysia that the Jews have "control of the most powerful countries". "This tiny community," he told his gullible audience, has "become a world power." Hajaig is in good company; the conspiratorial cast of mind is widespread and has a long pedigree.
Dating back to the late middle ages, anti-Jewish conspiracies took on their most virulent and sinister form over 100 years ago in the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forgery referred to by the historian Norman Cohn as a "Warrant for Genocide". The Protocols was hugely popular in inter-war Germany and was widely employed by the Nazis in their propaganda as they prepared for the destruction of European Jewry. Put simply, Hajaig's alleged comments are old hat. But we do have to take heed. Ideas have consequences, especially when uttered by a government minister, albeit a junior one.
Hajaig's thinking and that of others of her ilk share common delusions. Simplistic conspiracies provide a convenient explanation for complex problems. So-called Jewish money power accounts for everything, and intractable problems are reduced to imaginary financial machinations. Hajaig's legitimate concern for the plight of the Gazans is conflated with a palpable and crude Jew-hatred.
Such slippage on her part - and indeed many others - has led some commentators to describe anti-Zionism as a hygienic form of antiSemitism. This is problematic. Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism cannot axiomatically be equated. It is possible - albeit arguably naïve in the wake of our past century and the realities of Israel's 60 years of existence - to object to the idea of Jewish peoplehood and a Jewish State. But the inordinate attention devoted to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict does raise questions of motivation.
Why did the war in Chechnya receive so little coverage? Why did the masses not regularly march in the world's capitals during the Russian siege and almost complete destruction of Grozny, the Chechen capital? Why did they not march when Nato planes bombarded Kosovo? What about the estimated five million deaths over the past 10 years in Central Africa? Only last week, we saw hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced by the conflict between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan army without a peep from our foreign ministry or from the Congress of South African Trade Unions.
Fewer than 10 000 people have been killed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since World War 2 - a mere fraction of the 25 million people killed in other internal conflicts during this time. Yet Israel has been condemned by the United Nations and other international organisations more often than all the other nations combined. Can this excessive and skewed attention be explained by the region's geopolitical importance? Is it because three Abrahamic faiths converge in the region? Or is it simply a case that Jews are news? Perhaps the explanation is more sinister.
For some observers, it is simple anti-Semitism; the "longest hatred" has mutated into a new form. Much anti-Zionist rhetoric, the argument goes, is riddled with anti-Jewish motifs that go beyond the bounds of normal political conflict. It is particularly powerful today in the Muslim world, where, historically, hostility towards Jews lacked the vitriolic character of Christian hatred in the medieval period.
From the thirteenth century, however, humiliation and degradation of Jews began to characterise Muslim-Jewish relations. European colonialism and its Christian influences further undermined the Jewish condition, especially in the Arab world. Anti-Semitic calumnies such as the "blood libel" entered into Muslim discourse in the 19th century amid the looting, rape and killing of Jews in numerous cities and towns.
Against a backdrop of Zionist settlement and the complicated question of "the right to the land", Arab nationalism and the growth of Islamism fuelled hostility. A vast anti-Jewish Arabic literature now makes use of texts such as Hitler's Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Extremist groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas have appropriated ideas of a world Jewish conspiracy in what they consider to be a holy war against "Satanist Zionism".
Such invective takes on the features of delusional Christian antiSemitism at its height. Jews are characterised as a malignant disease, bent on global domination. They are evil incarnate. The Hamas Covenant cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion with approbation, while liberally employing that forgery's tropes. Jews are accused of financial manipulation, media control and of fomenting the two world wars. Indeed, they are even depicted as the force behind the Rotary Movement and the Freemasons, perceived as sinister by Hamas.
After its election victory, Hamas placed on its official website two Hamas suicide bombers' video testaments. "My message to the loathed Jews," noted one, "is that there is no god but Allah. We will chase you everywhere! We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood - and our children's thirst with your blood."
This mindset merges effortlessly with Holocaust denial, similarly delusional, but initially the preserve of the far right. Thus it is hardly surprising that at the 2006 "Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision" conference in Tehran - which brought together notorious far right "revisionists" (denialists) and Islamists - the nexus between the white supremacist and anti-Semitic far right and radical Muslim extremists was patently apparent. One-time Ku Klux Klan leader, David Duke, the French "revisionist" Georges Thiel and the Australian Holocaust denialist Colin Tobin rubbed shoulders with Islamist clerics and Iranian President Ahmedinejad.
That our deputy foreign minister allegedly shifted from a Palestinian narrative of the Middle East conflict during her Lenasia speech to blatant anti-Semitism should not have come as a surprise. Exposing one's real motivations in this arena is simple. It was certainly evident at the World Conference Against Racism and Xenophobia in Durban in 2001, where the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was on sale, despite being banned in this country.
Such rhetoric from a government minister as Hajaig's reported Lenasia speech should not be accepted in a country that values tolerance, religious pluralism and cultural diversity.
There is no room for crude prejudice in a democratic South Africa. And there is certainly no room for a rabid and vitriolic deputy foreign minister whose ranting can only be labelled anti-Semitic.
Professor Shain teaches in the Department of Historical Studies and is Director of the Isaac and Jessie Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Cape Town. This article first appeared in the Cape Times, February 2 2009
ANTI-SEMITISM BACKFIRES
Israel Viewpoint Anti-Semitism Backfires
STEPHEN KRAMER Jewish Times Israel Correspondent
Anti-Semitism is a doubleedged sword. Obviously, it hurts Jews and can be murderous to them; less obviously, it may harm its perpetrators. For example, Hitler elevated the goal of ridding Europe of its Jews to the point that valuable railroad cars were used to transport Jews to the ovens, instead of utilizing them to help the failing German war effort. In contemporary Europe, where anti- Semitism is quietly encouraged by some governments and acquiesced to by all, the surge in the Muslim population threatens the historic European mindset and culture. In the Middle East, the government-induced fixation with Israel and the Jews is preventing the more moderate regimes from defending themselves against a violent Iranian takeover, a la Lebanon and Gaza. There was no anti-Semitism per se until the Christian age. Up until that time, Jews had enemies, but the antagonism against them was generic and typical of the conflicts between warring peoples. The New Testament built a fundamental and everlasting enmity against Jews, beginning with the crucifixion of Christ. The columnist and rabbi Smuley Boteach wrote, "Yes, original Jewish culpability begins with the greatest lie ever told, that the Jews were responsible for killing G-d incarnate . . . ." In Matt: 27: 22- 25, it is written: " 'What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?' Pilate asked. They all answered, 'Crucify him!' 'Why? What crime has he committed?' asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, 'Crucify him!' When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. 'I am innocent of this man's blood,' he said. . . . All the people answered, 'Let his blood be on us and on our children!'"
Pilate, Boteach wrote, '"was the cruelest proconsul ever sent by Rome to Judea and crucified tens of thousands of innocent Jews for the most minor infractions." The New Testament put the onus on the Jews for crucifixion of Jesus. Matthew, St. Paul, and St. Augustine added to the narrative against the Jews, while John, the author of the book of Revelations, even called Jews the children of Satan.
Things got even worse in the Middle Ages, with anti-Jewish edicts, blood libels, the Crusades, expulsions, the Inquisition, the Reformation, pogroms, and more. The worst of the abuses against Jews occurred among Christians in Europe, but Mohammed's enmity against the Jews, for failing to convert en masse to Islam, stoked similar sentiments among the Muslims, who classed the Jews (and Christians) as 'dhimmis,' subservient to the Muslims and subject to onerous regulations, taxation, and pogroms.
Modern anti-Semitism dates to 1879, when Wilhelm Mahr, a German, coined the phrase "anti- Semitism" as a tool against Jews, whom he claimed were devouring German society. This new "ism" maintained that Jews couldn't save themselves from their evil ways even by assimilating into their country's culture. Mahr founded the League of Antisemites to fight the Jews to the death, or at the least, to be expelled from Germany. From Mahr to the rise of Hitler took less than fifty years.
In Europe, anti-Semitism has never lost its allure. Post-WWII Europe briefly favored recompensing the Jews for the Holocaust, to the extent that the United Nations "officially"
established the right of Jews to a national state in Palestine. But the favorable attitude soon soured. Today, even the majority of Germans, whose parents and grandparents were responsible for the slaughter of six million Jews during WWII, feel no special empathy or obligation towards Israel, the Jewish nation. European governments tend to appease or ignore anti-Semitism, rather than condemn it, such as the recent anti-Israel riots that swept across Europe during Israel's retaliation against Hamas.
The Scandinavian countries, Spain, Belgium, Holland, and Greece are the most anti-Semitic European countries. Most of the others are not far behind. They have welcomed Muslim immigrants from Africa and Asia and allowed millions of illegal Muslim refugees to remain in their countries, with little effort to assimilate them to European culture and mores. In fact, there is a conscious plan to allow Muslim culture to permeate Europe without European values being transmitted to Islamic countries. I'm referring to the EAD (Euro- Arab Dialogue), which gives Muslim culture a privileged place in Europe.
At the same time, European leaders have allowed the cancer of reactionary anti-Semitism to flourish amidst their native populations. With the Muslim contingents in their countries burgeoning because of their high fertility rate, European governments face a two-headed menace: rising Islamic demands for Sharia law and special privileges, versus a bigoted, xenophobic segment of the population that hates both Jews and Muslims. In the next few decades, the liberal, intellectual ruling class of Europe may capitulate to the Muslims "democratically," without a fight - they show signs of that already. A clash between the Muslims and native European patriots may prevent a Muslim takeover, or follow it; in either case, an exodus of European Jews is probable. Europe, as we know it, is definitely in for some changes.
The damage from fomenting anti- Semitism is more overt in the Muslim countries. Take Egypt, the largest and most powerful Arab country, and Saudi Arabia, the wealthiest Arab country. They, like all Arab countries, have used anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism as their main tools to keep their masses distracted from the excesses of the ruling class. So long as Israel and the Jews could be pointed to as the cause of all the distress afflicting the average citizen, the ruling class of each country was insulated from their collective anger. Now there is the pressing problem of Iran, whose ambition to rule the Muslim- Arabian world dates back to the 7th century CE.
Iran has deployed a proxy army (Hizbollah) in Lebanon and another (Hamas) in Gaza, plus it has made Bashar Assad's Syria into a puppet state. With these two terror forces and Syria's missile arsenal, Iran threatens to destroy Israel. But Egypt and Saudi Arabia are equally threatened by Iran's brand of militant Islam. Both countries need help from Israel (and America) to fend off Iran, which soon will attain its goal of possessing nuclear weapons. When Iran possesses even one atomic bomb, it will most likely bully its neighbors and enemies by threatening to use its new weapon. Or, Iran might supply a nuclear device to a terror ally in an attempt to deflect the disastrous consequences of using the weapon itself.
Nevertheless, the Egyptian and Saudi rulers can't overtly support Israel against Iran or its allies, because they have built their regimes on the foundation of anti- Zionism and anti-Semitism. Nor can any of the other Sunni Arab countries threatened by Iran admit that Israel is a bulwark for them. Instead, they must continue to vilify Israel publicly even if they cheer Israel on against Iran and its proxies privately.
Anti-Semitism is a useful tool for governments to funnel the anger of their downtrodden or discontented masses away from their ruling classes. But this strategy doesn't come without a price. Europe is in danger of succumbing to a Muslim takeover within two generations, while its antipathy towards Israel blinds it to the danger of Iran's growing appetite for power and influence - which stretches beyond the Middle East towards Europe and Russia. The Arab states are even more directly threatened than Europe is by the prospect of a bullying nuclear-armed Iran, but they can't stuff the anti-Semitic genie back into the bottle to join with Israel in a united front. With these trends in mind, it seems that the cultivation of anti-Semitism is a double-edged sword.
Stephen Kramer can be reached at Sjk1@jhu.edu.
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