As is normal in Gaza and the West Bank, when Israelis are killed—be they civilians or soldiers—the locals hand out sweets to celebrate. And those exhibitions of odious largesse are photographed and publicized by Palestinian media.
On March 17, an attack by an unknown terrorist killed two Israelis (a soldier and a rabbi) as well as seriously wounding one. Here are some photos from MEMRI taken from a Palestinian news video (go here to see the video) of this disgusting celebration of slaughter.
I asked Malgorzata, “Why don’t the Western media pay any attention to these disgusting displays?” Her response:
The only answer to this is what Majid Rafizadeh, an Iranian dissident who now lives in the West wrote: “The only conclusion one can come to is that Europe would evidently still like to kill the Jews and is happy to support those wishing to kill them.”
Note that although the Western press ignores this (the distribution of sweets occurs after every killing of Jews by terrorists), these videos and photos are proudly posted by Palestinian state media. They are happy about the murders and proud to show the pictures.
All I can add is this: Imagine what the reaction in the West would be if Israeli citizens passed out celebratory sweets every time a Palestinian was killed. I am pretty sure that would appear in places like the New York Times.
Not to worry. I’m sure Linda Sarsour is all over this.
sub
Sadly, I only know about these instances from WEIT. (And thanks for pointing them out.) It’s really bizarre that these celebrations (and the ways in which Palestinians brainwash their children into hating the Jews) isn’t covered in any form of media that I’ve noticed. You would think something so appalling would be covered by the media with gusto.
“You would think something so appalling would be covered by the media with gusto.”
You can bet they would be covering it with great zeal if the roles were reversed and Israelis were celebrating the deaths of Palestinians.
Sadly, based on the evidence at hand, your assessment is true.
I’ve mentioned it too, though not for a long time. I should do it more often.
The thing that disgusts me the most is the kindergarten graduation plays where the kids put on “Kill the Jews” plays and Palestinian Children’s TV that has puppets teaching the kids to hate Jews.
What hope is there of the situation ever being resolved when the kids are taught to hate. It’s like religion. Give me the child and I will give you the man.
An example:
These videos always made my jaw-drop – there is something so horrifically absurd about them that put me in mind of something Chris Morris would have come up with for The Day Today, or for his film Four Lions. Nightmarish.
I think what’s most sickening is the quotidian nature of the anti-Semitism in Palestine, the fact that it’s so everyday and banal, that it’s woven into their school plays and trips off the tongue of every tv and radio announcer.
Yeah. I feel the same. I find it unbelievable that anyone would even consider this sort of play, no matter who the protagonists, appropriate for kindergarteners.
That’s just it. They must think these murderous little skits are as normal as we think our kindergarten entertainments are. Just preparing kiddies for their eventual adult roles.
Yes, you have highlighted these atrocities as well and thanks for doing so.
As you mention, breaking this cycle when it starts at such a young age is almost impossible to break. And year after year, we witness entire generations of young children being brainwashed; the future looks very bleak for the region. It is beyond exasperating.
I’m hoping that Netenyahu will be out at the next election now that his criminal behaviour has been exposed. On the Israeli side he’s a big part of the problem imo because of his alliances with the far right in his country, which is as opposed to a two-state solution as Hamas etc. With a more moderate government in Israel, perhaps tensions will go down and there’s a chance discussions can at least begin again. Because of the tensions of recent years, we’re a very low way from a solution though. Of course, the biggest problem was always the Palestinians, whatever the far-left want to believe, so whatever government Israel has, peace may be impossible.
The cancer of extremism has to be removed from religion. The problem is that whatever religion you’re talking about, the extremists are actually the ones following scripture the closest, so extremism will always return.
Celebrating death is disgusting. Don’t they have a conscience? Does anyone in the streets refuse the sweets? Or would that be a dangerous thing to do?
Everyone knows everyone in Gaza etc. Israel relies heavily on turned informants because it’s very hard to successfully penetrate such societies with undercover ‘outsider’ operatives. The Palestinians shoot collaborators [or assumed collaborators] in the public square, without trial, after Friday prayers, near a busy mosque. Maximises the message.
If you’re offered cake you’d ask for more. Especially as suspicion taints entire families.
I think that’s an important point. Handing out sweets is clearly a means of social control as well as a sign of a profoundly corrupted society.
Good points.
Palestinian Airlines: A good example of corruption.
It’s owned by the Palestinian authority, has four small 30 yr old planes [Fokker & Dash – total seats 300 with all planes flying] & they didn’t fly at all for [I think] seven years – started up again around 2012, but kept all the ‘staff’ ’employed’. Flying or not the company has a constant employee roster of 400 people with the Minister of Transportation near the top & there’s various well paid directors sitting on the board…
There are a few small airlines knocking about on specialist routes who usually outsource maintenance & the like – maybe have twenty employees, but 400? Impossible to run at a profit when you have more employees than airplane seats! A state sponsored money laundry & front operation the same as the old Mafia flower shops & restaurants gig.
I do not know but would say that citizens here should ask the media these questions. Now that everyone has the platform, the internet, they should ask. Why not use these platforms for good instead of what they are mostly used for which is negative stuff, hate and propaganda. Or just ask yourself the question, What sells?
The internet platforms, Facebook, Google, with youtube, and twitter make money from using your data and advertising. Why can’t the richest platforms in the world keep really bad stuff off the internet today. Because they don’t have to and it makes lots of money. So there you go — everyone is happy and rich. That the Palestinians celebrate and sell candy after an Israeli is killed does not sell.
This behaviour is utterly reprehensible and to be condemned without reservation.
I do not accept, though, that the explanation for the failure to report this in western media is because “Europe would evidently still like to kill the Jews and is happy to support those wishing to kill them.” I do not doubt for a moment that anti-semitism is a serious problem in modern Europe and – at any scale – it needs to be confronted and defeated but I do not believe that most Europeans are anti-semitic, still less that they would like to kill Jews.
Apparently it is endemic in the UK Labour Party, the main parliamentary opposition.
It’s leader Jeremy Corbin openly supports Palestinian causes. There is a lot of anti Semitic activity in Europe and not given the attention it deserves in my opinion.
Corbyn is loathed by the majority of Labour MPs and regarded with irritation and contempt by many Labour voters. It’s the strange bureaucratic structure of the party that handed so much influence to one nasty old far-leftist twerp, and that thus allows him to hand pick a cabal of racists, apologists and opportunists. Don’t overestimate the influence or reach of the nasty wing of Labour. We’ll get those fuckers out soon enough.
How do they tolerate him?
I read that some time previously he was along with other unpleasant folk actually barred from membership of the UK Labour Party and yet here he is now the leader of the opposition.
How does he survive unless he has so many devoted accolades that he is unassailable .
Terrible!
It’s a dismal, depressing little tale.
Labour changed the rules for how leaders were elected relatively recently. The new rules meant that the votes of labour party members, ie. registered supporters, became significantly more important than they used to be, and since the half a million or so of registered supporters tend to be much further to the left than the average Labour voter, they were very keen on the one truly far-left candidate in the field, which was Corbyn. So he got in. And those registered supporters, even though they are politically outnumbered thirty to one by overall Labour _voters_, simply reelected Corbyn when there was a challenge. And their power is such that no-one else has bothered challenging Corbyn. They know they’ve no chance of winning, not unless the person in question comes out with a manifesto even further to the loony left than Corbyn.
Combine that with a certain spinelessness, as well as the lack of any really convincing candidates to oppose him and you have something like the story.
He has so many devoted acolytes that he is unassailable.
He originally got in through a grass roots movement amongst the Labour membership. Many Labour supporters, who had become disillusioned by the antics of recent leaders such as joining in illegal wars with the USA, pandering to the corporations and financial institutions and so on, saw Corbyn as a breath of fresh air. Therefore he got in to power.
Note that his election significantly revitalised the Labour membership and when the parliamentary party forced him into a second leadership battle for being crap at his job (he really is totally useless), the membership perceived this as a challenge by the discredited old order trying to restore their power, they voted for Corbyn again.
Depending on which opinion poll you read, the Conservatives have a lead or they are neck and neck. This is astonishing considering the government has plunged us into a catastrophic constitutional crisis. The reason the Tories are not nowhere is entirely due to Corbyn’s utter uselessness, in my opinion.
It’s far from just Corbyn. The party has an antisemitism problem, and it’s a big one:
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/03/labours-pockets-of-anti-semitism-the-evidence/
https://np.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/94u1i0/ok_this_labour_story_of_antisemitism_isnt_ever/e3onqvn/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=slatestarcodex&utm_content=t1_e64qf36
That’s why I referenced his hand-picked “cabal of racists, apologists and opportunists.”
That’s before we even get into his actual supporters among the public, some of whom think any accusations of anti-Semitism are a giant conspiracy concocted by
– Mossad
– Israeli MPs
– Zionist infiltrators
– powerful Jewish lobbyists
– “Trump-supporting Jews”
– ‘globalists’/’elites’
– masons
– the Rothschilds
– lizard people
– Lord Lucan
– Jack The Ripper
etc.
He barely flinched when a heavily pregnant Jewish Labour MP resigned in protest. He doesn’t give the slightest shit about any of this, partly because he’s a nasty, callous little man but partly because he is also, quite obviously, incredibly stupid.
I’d say he is probably on a par with Trump in terms of intellect. The fact that he looks vaguely professorial has tricked people into thinking he’s clever but he has had less than a handful of political ideas banging around his head for three decades and they long ago calcified into dogmas.
I wouldn’t go quite that far. He at least knows to lay off the tweets.
I wouldn’t go quite that far. He at least knows to lay off the tweets.
Perhaps I’m exaggerating for effect, but he really is an extremely dim man. I don’t think he’s that far off Trump intellectually speaking. He’s so utterly rigid and incurious.
And the Tweets are probably the cleverest thing Trump’s done, even if their content is moronic. He figured quite early on how much impact he could have from this one bully pulpit and thus completely sidestepped the mainstream media and went straight to his supporters. I’m not sure what the distinction is between shrewdness/low cunning and intelligence, but if they are the same thing then it was an intelligent move on his part to weaponise Twitter.
I don’t think it was entirely intentional of course – he’s just a narcissistic gobshite who happened on a perfect medium with which to pour forth his ghastly ‘thoughts’ – but when he happened upon Twitter he quickly realised how powerful it could be. That takes(something like) intelligence. I think his tweets are one of his cleverest tactics.
Actually, yes. I think you are right about the tweets. I withdraw that remark.
I still think Corbyn is intellectually brighter than Trump, he can, at least, read, but there is no question that he is vastly less effective than Trump – he’s vastly less effective than a chocolate fireguard. Also, he is incredibly naive.
I think people are also tricked by Corbyn because he’s been a “life-long activist” and “rides his bike everywhere” etc. Those are all things a smart progressive person does! And he even looks like a smart professor at a progressive university! He must be really smart.
And you’re right about Trump and Twitter. In the past, the President almost exclusively communicated to the public only through statements disseminated by the media or via press conferences shown by the media (and maybe streamed online in some places). Trump has used Twitter as a way to communicate constantly, whenever he wants, and have it talked about not just by every TV channel, but every online media site as well, and spread all over every social media platform. It’s quite brilliant.
Re. Tr*mp & Twitter, in the same way that Hitler seized on the then-relatively-new ability of electronic amplification combined with pageantry for the live audiences, and then boosted that with talkie films of the events.
Professorial? Corbyn? I’ve always thought he looked more like an under-gardener of one of the more nondescript London parks.
I agree.
These scenes are horrible.
Simultaneously, this:
“Europe would evidently still like to kill the Jews and is happy to support those wishing to kill them.”
is an utterly absurd, hysterical thing to say, and is unworthy of reiteration on this website.
This quotation of the words by Majid Rafizadeh are from his article in which he wonders why European Union is trying to appease Iran in spite of Irans known goal of wiping Israel from the map and Iran’s financing of terrorist groups perpetrating terrorist attacks on Israelis. Yes, I agree that they may sound hysterical but many times I’ve tried to find an explanation of: 1)huge sums European Union and individual European states given to anti-Israel organizations; 2) huge anti-Israel demonstrations organized in European capitals; 3) voting against Israel in the most absurd resolutions in U.N. which are typically introduced by hostile to Israel Arab states; 4) silence of Western media when it comes to atrocities commited by Palestinians against Israeli Jews. There is more but these 4 points should be enough. I’ve never managed to find any answer.
Israel gets billions of dollars from America (the so-called foreign aid) as well as huge sums from other countries and donations from non-Israeli and non-Jewish organizations and private people. Also, I watch and read enough of western media to say that it properly and prominently covers the Palestinian terror. These are well-known facts. How can you disregard them?
I think it’s because the Jews are the most widely reviled minority on earth and, as can be seen with the constant carping about Israel’s behaviour, there is a prejudice against them.
On the other hand, at least some of the focus on Israel can be explained by the fact that we judge ‘our own’ more stringently than we judge those we don’t know much about and with whom we have little in common.
Thus a liberal democracy like Israel is criticised more fervently by other liberal democracies precisely because it is the kind of country we can relate to, that we can understand.
If this sounds outrageously unfair I’d like to point out, without wishing to particularly get into this same argument again, that WEIT focuses almost entirely on criticising the left- and the ‘woke’ rather than the far-right or Trump or reactionaries, fascists, neo-Nazis, etc: and I presume WEIT’s overwhelming critical focus on the left is for much the same reason that liberal democracies tend to focus their criticism on fellow liberal democracies.
Well, at least in Eastern Europe Jews were never treated as “our own”. With all the horrible suffering Polish people experienced from the hands of Nazi Germany the sentiment “at least they solved our Jewish problem” was quite prevalent. Of course, there were heroic Poles who saved Jews but they were a tiny minority. The same goes for other East European countries (with an exception of Bulgaria). The affinity with liberal democracy is not as strong here as in Western Europe. But still, the attitudes are the same: support for people who are ready to kill Jews and who announce it quite openly. Maybe Europeans do not want to kill Jews – the trauma after Shoah may still be vivid – but outsourcing killing to others? Possibly.
My mother is Czech and fled the Communists in 68. She didn’t get to see her family again for another thirteen years, and when she did her father was laid low by a stroke and died a few months later.
I have contact with eastern Europe so I’m well aware of the extent to which that part of Europe is curdling – Orban in Hungary, the ‘holocaust’ laws passed in Poland, the recrudescence of the blood and soil nationalists, and with it the inevitable slow turning of the collective gaze on the Jews. I am very worried about the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. That doesn’t mean that I think the whole of Europe is plotting to kill all Jews. Or wants to outsource the killing to someone else.
If you want to look at us that way that’s up to you but you have many more allies here than you have enemies I can promise you.
I live in Poland. I’m observing all this directly. I’ve seen and read outpourings of sympathy towards Iran when there recently was an American-Polish conference about Iran in Warsaw. I hear and read sentiments: “What a pity Hitler didn’t finish them off” and others in the same vein. Of course, I know that there are many people in Poland who are as horryfied by it as I am. And then I look at UN and see that the support to states and people who want to kill Jews is unwavering – and this support comes also from governments of European states and from EU. What explanation do you have? A general animosity towards Jews and demanding higher standards from Israel may explain some of it but definitely not all.
I’ve given you my explanation. I think it’s a combination of virulent, insane genocidal anti-Semitism, hostility towards disproportionate Israeli abuses of power and the fact that we demand higher standards of our allies.
What I don’t think is that there is some secret animus among every European that means we want all Jews to die. It’s just a completely daft claim, and I don’t see how it helps anything at all to say it, even if I was to assume for the sake of argument that it was meant as a joke, as Darrelle suggested here.
I’m sorry, but your explanation is not sufficient. Just now in UNHRC a report gained support of EU as an institution. In this report Israel is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Why? Since almost a year a bloodthirsty mob organized by a terrorist organization, Hamas, is trying to breach the border of Israel. Hamas leader, Yhaya Sinwar, encourages them with words “We will break the border. We will tear their hearts”. Hamas is using thousands of women and children as human shield. Under this shield members of Hamas are burning tires, throwing granates and other projectiles, they are shooting and destroying the border fence. During all this time some 180 Palestinians were killed by IDF – 80% of them were Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives. Unfortunately, some civilians were killed as well. A normal person would marvel (and people who are expert in military matters marvel all the more) that in the middle of this mayhem, with thousands of people rioting, IDF managed to kill so few and mostly real combatants. Now this is said by United Nations that it was a war crime. Defending the state boirder and Israeli civilians living a few meters from the border is a war crime. And EU supports this report (well, we will se definitely how they vote on Friday, until now it was just oral support without voting). So, if defending the country and its citizens is a war crime, what do they want? They want for Israel to stop defending itself and the result will be killing of Jews. Do you see why I think your explanation is not sufficient?
I don’t really know what else to say. I guess we’ve hit bedrock.
I think a factor you did not mention is the smooching of the ‘PC’ brigade with Islam and moslems. The media are wary to be called islamophobic, and they are much informed by the Muslim/Palestinian agenda.
In Western Europe, traditionally the support for the ‘all Jews should be killed’ trope could be gauged by the support for extreme right wing parties.
Paradoxically, the renewed support for right wing parties now is mainly fuelled by their anti-Muslim stance (in view of the smooching by the left and spinelessness of the centre regarding Islam)
Yes, that’s a part of it too, true.
…a p.s. to my last post. I think it’s hard for people like me to grasp just how scary it must be to be Jewish and living in eastern Europe at a time like this. I still think the quotation is absurd, but I don’t want you to think that I don’t have any sense of how frightening things must be right now.
But, please, remember that this explanation you find so hysterical was not given by me: it was an Iranian dissident who is not a Jew and does not live in Eastern Europe. He most probably knows much more about Iran than about a situation of a Jew in Europe.
I disagree. I think it is warranted. I am fairly sure that Majid Rafizadeh does not believe that it is literally true nor expects others to believe so. It is a rhetorical tactic similar to bitter satire intended to provoke in order to make the issue visible and perhaps to invoke shame in some people who should be ashamed of themselves.
It seems especially appropriate to me coming from a member of a culture in which hatred of Jews is very common, a culture very closely related to the one in which the murder of Jews is celebrated by passing out candy to all. And really, there is some truth to “Europe . . . is happy to support those wishing to kill them.” Because many people in Europe do support Palestinians which wish to kill Jews, over Jews. Of course that is just as much true in the US and elsewhere too.
It didn’t just say that. It also said ‘Europe wants to kill the Jews’. This is an insane thing to say, and the kind of hysterical bullshit that would be swiftly dismissed if it came from a politically unfavoured faction on this website.
Was George Carlin too hysterical for you too?
If he’d said anything like that _and meant it_ then…yeah. Definitely.
Do you mean to say that you believe Majid Rafizadeh truly thinks that Europe would still like to kill the Jews? I suppose it’s possible, but I doubt it.
Ah, he was doing a stand up bit. Okay.
Yes Saul, that’s precisely what I said. Oh wait. No it’s not. It’s as if you are addicted to indignation.
Then I don’t know what you’re saying. You’re the one who compared him to George Carlin.
Okay. I don’t know if this is in good faith or if you give a shit, but from my first comment in which I explained my interpretation of Majid . . .
“I am fairly sure that Majid Rafizadeh does not believe that it is literally true nor expects others to believe so. It is a rhetorical tactic similar to bitter satire intended to provoke in order to make the issue visible and perhaps to invoke shame in some people who should be ashamed of themselves.”
My interpretation of Carlin, which I know is not particularly controversial, is that, comedian or no, he very often did just that.
Saul, I gotta say, I am usually with you on your criticisms of this site but I think you are off base in this instance. And your attitude is off-putting. Of course, perhaps I am reading your attitude wrong. There is always that risk with this type of communication.
I don’t understand why I should have afforded this quotation the license of assuming it was meant as satire, not unless there’s some good reason to believe so. So there’s that.
And the fact that you find it “hard to believe” that it could possibly be serious is proof of what an absurd claim it is. If your first assumption is ‘that’s such an extreme claim he couldn’t possibly have meant it’ then it kind of says it all. I notice I’m not the only person here who thought it was over the top either.
I’m sorry I’ve put off an ally by the way. That’s frustrating, because I look back at what I’ve written, and apart from the admitted snark re. Carlin I don’t think I’ve been offputting. I think you are reading me wrong.
I don’t find it hard to believe because I think it is so over the top that he couldn’t actually, really mean it. I find it unlikely because of the context in which he said it, who he is and other things that he’s said before.
I’m not Jewish, I’ve got no close Jewish relatives or friends so I don’t understand exactly what it means to be on the receiving end of anti-Semitism. But I do know what anti-Semitism is. I find it both perplexing and repellent. Especially when I get a whiff of it from fellow “Westerners” (no I don’t mean you!). It is prevalent in our societies and seems to be having a resurgence. I really don’t understand how some folks can get so worked up by a statement like this by Majid Rafizadeh or how his statement could be deemed as completely beyond the pale given the truth of current antisemitism. Disagreeing with it is one thing. I think sometimes people sort of forget that many Palestinians and many Muslims truly want Jews to be dead. And that there really are many people in Europe and the Americas that both support those very same folks that want Jews dead and also exhibit a degree of antisemitism themselves. Just how seriously should this be taken? Seems pretty damn serious to me. Given an issue this deadly serious why should Majid’s statement be condemned so vigorously? Because some Europeans might be offended? Seems to me that the only ones who should be offended are those that contribute to the problem. Those are the people it’s aimed at after all.
I’m not sure if you’ll read this darrelle but here goes:
I don’t think we diverge particularly on this issue. I think our positions are pretty similar politically speaking from what I can sniff out. And from what I have sniffed out in the past, if you’ll excuse the unnecessarily noisome metaphor.
And I’m not going to get into all the myriad frustrations I have with this website, which I still visit every day in spite of them. Like you said you share some of those frustrations so I’d just be preaching to the choir, and I so rarely post here(even though the quality of commenters is higher than anywhere else I know) any more because
a. it’s the same issues over and over that are written about, and I’ve spent the last decade criticising the illiberal left, so I have almost nothing left to say, especially now that my priorities have shifted post Brexit/Trump, and
b. I only end up getting into arguments with the more right-leaning(or anti-left, I don’t know if there’s a difference) readers.
My main difference with you on this is that I just don’t think this quotation has any actual helpful function. If I was to contextualise it as you have, and I concede that you might know more about this guy than I do, it would still seem like a ridiculous thing to say. What good does it do to make such a flagrantly untrue claim, even if I were to accept that it was intended as satire? What is its function as such?
And I don’t think it’s “beyond the pale”, that’s a misinterpretation. I just think it’s an extremely…silly…thing to say.
…Just like I would think it was extremely silly if an African American used similar words to describe the intentions of America’s white population. And this is part of the point: African American activists HAVE said things exactly like that, similar blanket statements about all of the white people in America. And I sincerely doubt that WEIT would have reprinted those quotes approvingly.
I think the same kind of thing when said by African Americans about white Americans is silly too, and divisive. So I think the same rules apply here, to this quote.
Best wishes and no hard feelings old bean.
Saul,
I do understand your criticism and don’t completely disagree. Where I do disagree comes down to 2 things. 1) The intensity of opprobrium and 2) in general I think provocative statements like this can be warranted depending on circumstances and context. Very much like the “rude atheist” vs accommodationist arguments, I’m on the “rude atheist” side of the argument. I think satire, provocation, rudeness, etc. can be of some utility and can be warranted depending on circumstances.
I’d also point out that Majid didn’t say “all.” That’s an interpretation that others have added. Yes, I know it is a common criticism when people make sweeping, not specifically qualified statements. I get that. But it’s also very common usage and very commonly people don’t intend it to be universal.
When I said “off-putting” earlier I did not mean permanently! I simply meant in that particular conversation. My respect for you has not diminished simply because of this little disagreement!
Take Care
Cheers Darrelle
👍
As a European, I find these words sad but true. I have personally severed contacts with a person after finding out that she would approve annihilation of Israel. Maybe she did not really mean it, maybe it was just talk, but it was not talk I’d have in my living-room.
Tonight I am going to a dance concert by a dance company called Batsheva, which is being picketed for the crime of being Israeli by the Boulder Democratic Socialists of America, of which I am a founding member. Maybe soon a former founding member. If they do not know any better, how can we expect Palestinians who are actually being persecuted to behave any differently? After all, as Tom Lehrer noted, “And everyone hates the Jews.”
“The only conclusion one can come to is that Europe would evidently still like to kill the Jews and is happy to support those wishing to kill them.” Israel enjoys wide support from the USA and Europe. To say that Europe happily supports murderers of Jews is to distort reality.
Well, it’s not as great a distortion as you seem to imply. Granted, all of Europe is definitely an exaggeration. But there are plenty of people in Europe, the US and many other places, that do support Palestinians that openly favor the killing of Jews and do it, if not happily, at least self-righteously. And not just ignorant lay folk.
I don’t “seem to imply” it. There is a difference between “some of Europeans” and “Europe”. Of course I am aware of anti-Semitism in Europe and other relevant issues. But no, the second Holocaust is not coming any time soon. Certainly not as long as Israel exists. And Israel is strong and safe.
It’s a figure of speech Alex. You straightforwardly proclaimed it a distortion of reality. With no more qualification than Majid. Now you qualify it, that of course you are aware of anti-Semitism in Europe. Is your statement any less of a distortion of reality than Majid’s? If you meant it was just a moderate distortion of reality then what’s the point? Pretty much anything anyone says is a distortion of reality to one degree or another.
Darrelle, do you want to say that if I admit that there is anti-Semitism in Europe then the difference between Majid’s view and mine becomes insignificant and thus my post was pointless? “Anything is a distortion of reality to some degree” – well, in a certain sense, yes, but so what? Our posts have the same goal – to point out different distortions and to discuss them, including their very existence. But thanks for responding to my post, and good night…
Cheers Alex, I hope you have a good evening.
Alex’s statement is much less of a distortion of reality than Majid’s. I don’t see how you can see it otherwise.
“…Europe would evidently still like to kill the Jews…”
Someone who had been one of my closest friends for 20 years broke off the friendship with me when I started a relationship with a Jewish woman. One of the last things he screamed at me was “Maybe the Arabs will find their own final solution!”
He is an Englishman, a leftist, educated with a Masters degree, who has never even met any Jews, let alone been disadvantaged by them in any way at all. Yet he is so furious at Israel that he is prepared to say that the loved ones of one of his closest friends should be slaughtered in the streets simply for existing.
The weirdest thing is that even if the most vile and ridiculous of his accusations about Israeli crimes were true, it wouldn’t go anywhere near justifying or explaining the degree of his anger.
By contrast, when my girlfriend would introduced me to her friends in Israel as her “friend from Germany” no one ever said anything or flinched or even showed any flicker of judgment in their eyes — and this includes old folk who fled Germany as children.
Why is it that Israelis have learned not to personalise or attach national blame to the worst crimes ever committed, yet leftist lunatics are still frothing at the mouth about Israel supposedly having been “founded on terrorism” 70 years ago?
Yakaru , gosh! What a terrible tale and almost impossible to believe (I do however absolutely) I cannot begin to imagine how anyone could behave in such an abominable fashion.
You have my sympathies. This individual obviously never deserved your friendship.
Robert Ladley.
Thanks, Robert…
For me it was an interesting barometer for the degree of rage that a great many on the left have. I would never have believed it if I hadn’t encountered it first hand. Corbyn and his supporters would love to see a massive military incursion into Israel and would say the Jews deserved it were it to happen.
Yakaru, I agree with Robert Ladley. There is a strange, not entirely sane hatred for Israel emanating from the Left. It is as though there is an overwhelming urge to hate something and Jews are the handy, traditional object of it. This kind of unhinged hatred is not directed at any other group on the planet. I am not Jewish, but I find it beyond repulsive. It is where politics shades into psychiatry.
Well I’m English and I know lots of other English people from all parts of the political spectrum (well, not the extreme right). I’m confident that none of them would react as your English ex-friend did.
This is not to deny there are anti-semitic English people, just to balance your anecdote.
Europe does not want to kill the Jews. Yes there are people in Europe who want to do that, but it is ridiculous to claim that Europe as a whole wants to do that.
Saying that Europe would like to kill Jews is inflammatory and unsupported.
Not sure why anyone would say or believe something so extreme.
Why not? There are facts supporting it. However odious the behavior of most Palestinians it, it was Europeans, not Palestinians, who made a serious try to kill all Jews less than a century ago. This try was 50% successful, and the reason it was not 100% successful was the intervention of non-European powers (USSR and USA). Now, the richest and most powerful European countries are ambiguous in their attitude to Israel and embracing mass immigration from the most antisemitic cultures on Earth.
Some people think that happened only because Hiltler with his delusions was able to obtain absolute power in Germany.
He obtained absolute power because a large part of the German electorate either wanted the Jews annihilated or didn’t give a damn what would happen to them.
Of course the celebrations with sweets are far less disgusting than the terrorist murders that prompted them.
This is uk.reuters.com:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-israel-palestinians-violence/palestinian-kills-israeli-soldier-in-west-bank-knife-and-gun-attack-idUKKCN1QY08N
It’s a short article about the incident. It includes one line on the candy:
“In southern Gaza, the attack was announced over mosque loudspeakers and Hamas activists handed out sweets to passersby in celebration.”
It includes a few other brief paragraphs, including one on the US response:
“Jason Greenblatt, the White House’s Middle East envoy, said on Twitter: “We condemn today’s brutal attack by a Palestinian terrorist.””
It somewhat poignantly closes with a very brief summary of the situation in Gaza:
“Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinians seek to establish a state there and in the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed in 2014.”
To me, this is the most common take in the West – that the situation is just bewildering, and the best we can do is this sort of simple enumeration of events. They did not delve into the Hamas vs Palestinian Authority conflict, for instance. It is just too complicated, and may never be untangled.
If somebody said 1939 that „Europe wants to kill Jews” many decent people would think it was a hysterical statement, they would assure that nobody they knew wanted to kill Jews, that this was a provocative and divisive statement which should never have been uttered. Well, it’s enough for a criminal minority to get power, to intimidate the majority and to start killing. When the killing starts anywhere there are always many volunteers and the majority is silent.
Of course, it’s highly improbable that such criminal minority would get power in Europe. But the liberal leaders of today’s Europe support Iran which openly states that it wants to kill the Jews in Israel; they close their eyes on Iran’s finansing and arming Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad – organizations which already kill the Jews; they refuse to stop payment for ”pay and slay” scheme by Palestinian Authority which results in more terror attacks on Israeli Jews. They may not want to kill the Jews but their actions show that they have nothing against Jews being killed in Israel.
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