by Fiamma Nirenstein

Against all odds, after only 70 years since the Holocaust’s massacre of six million Jews, including two million children on European soil, anti-Semitism is dramatically on the rise in thought, rhetoric, and deed. This time around, however, hatred for the Jews has taken a nationalistic, ethnic character that is supported by obsessive incitement, which uses classical styles of anti-Semitism – both religious and political – and transforms the latter into the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. Together, this has led to daily incitement against the state of the Jewish people, Israel, and also extends to Jewish communities in the Diaspora.

In 2016, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) reported 1,661 anti-Semitic attacks, 240 of which directly targeted individuals.1 Data from the Anti-Defamation League describes a situation in which one in four individuals in Western Europe harbors anti-Semitic attitudes.2 However, it is not only a matter of attitudes, but also of an uninterrupted trail of blood: in 2012, a teacher and three children were gunned down in front of a Jewish school by the French-Algerian Mohammed Merah; in 2014, four people were slaughtered at the Jewish Museum in Brussels by Mehdi Nemmouche, an ISIS terrorist; in 2015, four more were left dead at the Hypercacher kosher supermarket in Paris, again at the hands of an Islamic extremist linked to the Kouachi brothers, who perpetuated the Charlie Hebdo massacre two days earlier. Many cruel murders have, with heinous determination, been carried out against individuals solely because they were Jews: Ilan Halimi, Sarah Halimi, Mireille Knoll, etc.

An anti-Semitic post appears in Europe every 83 seconds on Twitter and other social media networks, like Facebook and YouTube. In 2016, more than 382,000 anti-Semitic posts in 20 different languages were uploaded; in June 2018, Berlin allowed a rally “against the existence of the Jewish state,” which was managed by Hizbullah, where signs with the words “Death to the Jews” were seen. Boycotting episodes erupt at sports events, campuses, theaters, supermarkets, and cinemas; important European actors and singers boycott Israel; genocidal terrorist incidents have taken place in Jerusalem, Paris, Toulouse, and Brussels without anyone saying a single word about Jews being specifically targeted.

A study conducted in 2012 by the German-based Friederich Ebert Stiftung Foundation shows that 63 percent of Poles and 48 percent of Germans think that “Israel is waging a war of extermination against the Palestinians,” along with 42 percent in Britain, 41 percent in Hungary, and 38 percent in Italy. According to a survey by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), 48 percent of the European Jews interviewed have heard or read charges that “Israelis behave like Nazis toward the Palestinians.”

The growth of the European Right in our time is observed under a magnifying glass in the international debate because the Right in the past has certainly hosted, nurtured, propagated, and acted on anti-Semitism. However, a more thorough analysis provides us with another picture that we will examine: not only the anti-Semitic and Israelophobic Left, but also the Islamic communities in Europe are becoming more and more radicalized.

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Here are four podcast locations on the problem of Leftist anti-Semitism in NZ:

Apple – https://apple.co/3LPoAiB

🟩 Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3x86Qut

🟥 iHeart – https://ihr.fm/3tziZ9F

🟨 Google – https://bit.ly/3w2HLR5