Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube/Diller distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. His bi-weekly column appears regularly in newspapers around the globe. His website, DanielPipes.org, is one of the most accessed internet sources of specialized information on the Middle East and Islam.
By Daniel Pipes
The Jerusalem Post
December 10, 2003
Anti-Semitism in Europe was for nearly two millennia a Christian phenomenon; now it is basically a Muslim one.
That is the basic message of an officially-commissioned study by the European Union (EU) which became notorious in recent weeks when the EU itself quashed the 104-page draft version. The Financial Times, which broke this story, reported that it did so "because the study concluded Muslims and pro-Palestinian groups were behind many of the incidents it examined." This focus on Muslim and pro-Palestinian perpetrators, the Financial Times went on, "was judged inflammatory."
One person familiar with the draft study concluded that "The decision not to publish was a political decision." But beyond the politics of this dispute, the draft study – titled "Manifestations of anti-Semitism in the European Union" and now released by the EU itself, though with a disclaimer – confirms the historic change in the locus of anti-Jewish sentiments and actions.
Focusing on a sample monitoring period one month in duration (May 15-June 15, 2002), the study hammers home the key role of Muslims in forwarding anti-Semitism:
From the perpetrators identified or at least identifiable with some certainty, it can be concluded that the anti-Semitic incidents in the monitoring period were committed above all either by right-wing extremists or radical Islamists or young Muslims mostly of Arab descent.
The problem includes violent attacks:
Physical attacks on Jews and the desecration and destruction of synagogues were acts often committed by young Muslim perpetrators in the monitoring period. Many of these attacks occurred either during or after pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which were also used by radical Islamists for hurling verbal abuse. In addition, radical Islamist circles were responsible for placing anti-Semitic propaganda on the Internet and in Arab-language media.
Observers point to an ‘increasingly blatant anti-Semitic Arab and Muslim media ‘ including audiotapes and sermons, in which the call is not only made to join the struggle against Israel but also against Jews across the world.
In many instances, this aggression is connected to anti-Zionism:
The threatening nature of the situation, in particular for the Jewish communities, arose because in most of the countries monitored the increasing number of anti-Semitic attacks, committed frequently by young Arabs/Muslims and by far-right extremists, was accompanied by a sharp criticism of Israeli politics across the entire political spectrum, a criticism that in some cases employed anti-Semitic stereotypes.
Of the EU's then-15 member states, four stand out for their deeper problems:
A group of countries was identified with rather severe anti-Semitic incidents. Here, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK have to be mentioned. They witnessed numerous physical attacks and insults directed against Jews and vandalism of Jewish institutions (synagogues, shops, cemeteries). In these countries the violent attacks on Jews and/or synagogues were reported to be committed often by members of the Muslim-Arab minority, frequently youths.
The report recognizes what a major shift this entails:
That anti-Semitic offenders in some cases are drawn from Muslim minorities in Europe – whether they be radical Islamist groups or young males of North African descent – is certainly a new development for most [EU] Member States, one that offers reason for concern for European governments and also the great majority of its citizens.
This study and its attempted suppression point to two important facts: the unpleasant reality that exists on the streets of Europe and the EU's deep reluctance to face that reality.
Neither of these facts is new; this author wrote back in 1992 that for world Jewry, "Muslim anti-Semitism is an increasing problem, and in large part this has to do with the ever-growing population of Muslims in the West;" and the EU's unwillingness to confront the pattern of anti-Jewish hostility emerging from Muslim religious, media, and educational institutions is also decades old.
Unless Europeans find the strength forthrightly to address this problem – and all indicators suggest that is unlikely – there is reason to expect a general Jewish exodus from Europe, perhaps along the lines of the general Jewish exodus from Muslim countries a half century ago.
Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum.
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Concealing the results of the referenced EU poll findings is to deny the truth. No different than denying other truths of Europe's troubled past Anti-Semitic history. Forgetting is denying. The world can little afford to forget the Holocaust or to deny its Anti-Semitic roots.
The appropriate response is NOT to accept or anticipate that the result would lead to a mass exodus of Jewish European nationals, but rather that a stand be made on behalf of all reasonably intelligent people everywhere. Many Jews in Germany, France, Hungary, Poland and other uropean countries went to their deaths in concentration camps truly believing they were just as German, French, Hungarian or Polish as they were Jewish.
Muslim, or for that matter Skin-Head Anti-Semitism must be emphatically put down, and never be acknowledged as acceptable under any circumstance, much less than an obtuse strike at Zionism.
In Chicago, and most likely a great many other cities with major Jewish populations in America, circa 1928 to 1944, JEW BAITING was officially recognized as problematic and if not out-lawed was frowned upon as non-acceptable behavior, which resulted in greater tolerance of all minorities.
Humanity might not have learned the entire lesson of such hatred, as evidenced by this study. But if people of the third world expect to live as civilized, tolerant and responsible people, notwithstanding their differences, they must acknowledge that hatred, incitement and suicide-murderous behavior is not a means to a glorified end. It is just THE end. Their end!
The politicians, the magistrates, the leaders of the mostly secular European countries with large Muslim populations must insist and create an atmosphere of assimilation into their societies, those people who swear off this hatred and Jew-Baiting. And not allow hatred and discrimination or it's very incitement to be acceptable in a public forum.
Imams, who fester this incidious behavior in the interest of controlling their congregant's illegal behavior are as guilty as those who would hire others to commit their own crime. Thus, if you glorify and "martyr", and pay a brain washed individual to strap explosives to his body for the purpose of going out to kill innocent people in the name of...what? ...G-d?; are you not as guilty as they? If you approve and watch it happen, are you not as guilty as they? If you allow and don't act to disallow it to happen, are you not as guilt as they? The world needs to get to the root of the problem. The paradox will end with the acknowledgement that we'll all just have to give up jingoistic codism for hatred. Perhaps the Imams and all religious leaders will command their flocks to to just say no to hatred. To swear off Anti-Semitism. To swear off Jew, Muslim, Black, or any other minority baiting in the interest of a better good for mankind.
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