The appeasement of Islam by traditionally liberal elements in western Europe has escalated so dramatically and egregiously of late, that what would have been unthinkable not long ago is now greeted with complacent and ready acceptance. Spengler’s “Decline of the West” is being manifested in a European rush to self-abnegation.
Other than French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy’s legislative attempts to reign in radical Islamists and overt displays of religiosity in France’s public life, and the European Union’s temporary cut-off of funds to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, western Europe is rolling over in total submission at every level of society in order to pander to Islamist coercion, Muslim votes and Arab money.
The supposedly neutral Swiss have nominated Jean Ziegler to the UN’s new Human Rights Council. The nomination of Ziegler by his native Switzerland virtually assures his election in June. Among Ziegler’s “accomplishments” was the establishment in 1989 of the “Muammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize” four months after the Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 that Khaddafi had sanctioned. In 2002 this “prize” was awarded to French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy and to Ziegler himself. In the past Ziegler has used his UN office to direct a global boycott campaign against Israel on grounds that “Israel violates the right to food”. One can understand why the United States voted against this “Human Rights” Council.
In another “neutral” country, Sweden, the Swedish Chancellor of Justice, Goran Lambertz, decided not to go ahead with a prosecution on an incitement to violence charge after calls to “kill the Jews” were made at the Grand Mosque of Stockholm. Swedish radio programmer Dagens Eko had unveiled the contents of an audio cassette of a lecture there and a charge of racial incitement was filed with police. Lambertz explained his decision to close the file with the following astounding statement. “The lecture did admittedly feature comments that are highly degrading to Jews, among other things they are consistently referred to as the brothers of apes and pigs. But such statements should be judged differently – and therefore be regarded as permissible - because they were used by one side in an ongoing and far-reaching conflict where calls to arms and insults are part of the everyday climate in the rhetoric that surrounds this conflict". I don’t know where Lambertz gets his news but I’ve never heard of a rabbi or Israeli leader either call Muslims apes and pigs or call anyone to “kill the Muslims”. I guess this has nothing to do with the fact that there is an election in Sweden which has 400,000 Muslims out of a population of 9 million and only 16,000 Jews.
In Britain, the Anglican Church decided to divest itself of investments in certain companies doing business in Israel such as Caterpillar. Rowan Williams, the head of the Church, used remarkably contorted logic to explain that this was not an anti-Israel move but that the Church only wanted to signal its “concern” over Caterpillar tractors being used by Israel to demolish the houses of Palestinian homicide bombers. Williams went on to explain that the Church was responding to a “request” for such a signal from one of its bishops in Jerusalem. (It should be pointed out that the Anglican Church in Canada refused to join this divestment.) Surprisingly there was no request for a signal to the Arab states to stop supporting and endorsing homicide bombers. This move came shortly after the largest body of British university lecturers decided to boycott Israel and soon after London’s socialist Mayor “Red” Ken Livingstone called a reporter a “concentration camp guard”.
I could go on and on but I’ll finish with one last example that speaks volumes of the hypocrisies of Europe. FIFA, the supposedly nonpolitical organization that governs world soccer, has condemned Israel for an air strike on an empty soccer field in the Gaza Strip that was used for training exercises by Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. This strike did not cause any injuries. But at the same time FIFA has refused to condemn a Palestinian rocket attack on an Israeli soccer field last week which did cause injuries. In perhaps the most ironic controversy concerning FIFA recently, German politicians have demanded that Iran should be banned from participating in the forthcoming World Cup (which starts in Germany on June 9, 2006) because of repeated Holocaust denials and threats to destroy Israel by the Iranian president. FIFA’s President Sepp Blatter refused, saying "We're not going to enter into any political declarations. We are not in politics." After that statement, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced he would likely attend Iran’s opening match against Mexico on June 11. The place of the match? Nuremberg.
Israel, and indeed the Jewish world, is used to being singled out for unjust criticism and subjected to startling double standards by the United Nations, the European Union, much of the Western media and numerous academic bodies. Responses have always come in speeches, learned articles, and rallies. Perhaps it’s time to kick it up a notch.
Perhaps, just perhaps, it’s time for Israeli and Jewish businessmen to stop doing business with Swiss banks. Maybe even pull their accounts. And just how much credibility would the Swedes have if their Nobel prizes, 25% of which are regularly won by Israelis or Jews, would suddenly be rejected by the winners? And what would happen if the great investment houses of New York, London and Paris bearing names such as Goldman, Sachs; Lazard Frères and Rothschild would suddenly exclude the Church of England and British professors’ pension plans from their investment syndicates?
I wonder also how many corporate sponsors of World Soccer Championships have healthy Israeli or Jewish financial stakeholders and how would these games go on if they suddenly decided to pull their sponsorships. After all, many of Intel and Microsoft’s major products were developed in their Israeli labs or in concert with Israeli partners; interactive digital television technology came out of Israel; Motorola’s Israeli partnerships developed the latest mobile phone technologies. Arab-American psychologist and Ismalist critic Wafa Sultan said on Al-Jazeera that Israelis and Jews earned the world’s respect through hard work and knowledge not through terror.
Maybe all that hard work and knowledge should be taken out for a test drive and to see how much muscle it has. I have a feeling it’ll have a lot.
After all, the Islamic theocratic tyrants, the anti-Semites, and all their fellow travelers accuse Israel and the Jews of controlling everything. Well, maybe Israel and the Jewish world should stop trying to convince them otherwise. Reason and truth hasn’t worked so far. Maybe they should start flexing whatever muscle they have and see where it goes. There may not be much to lose anymore. The road to Auschwitz began with the appeasement at Munich.
Oh yes. That brings up one other little bit of “muscle” whose time may have come to be exercised. Since Iran is making no bones about wiping Israel off the map with nuclear power..…maybe we should finally find out just what kind of surgical and strategic arsenal the only functioning democracy in the Islamist Middle Rim of this small planet really does possess? Now wouldn’t that be a show?
-30-
