Friday, December 15, 2017

Muslim Anti-Semitism in Sweden and Germany

Have you signed up with the Resistance yet? Have you rushed out to join the disloyal opposition in the name of democracy? Are you ready to fight against creeping American right wing crypto-Nazism?

If you have, you have a problem. True enough, anti-Semitism exists. In particular, it exists in Europe. Most especially, it exists in European countries that have opened their doors to the largest number of Muslim refugees. But, if you are a citizen of the world, you dare not call it by its name. You dare not connect the word Islam with anti-Semitism and terrorism.

Because that would be uncomfortable. It would be so uncomfortable that the New York Times, in a story reported by Paulina Neuding, goes on for paragraph after paragraph before it mentions that recent outbursts of anti-Semitism in Sweden were not produced by right wing extremists. In truth, most of them were produced by Muslims. The rest were the work of left wing extremists. The last two groups account for 78% of anti-Semitic attacks. Only 5% were the work of the far right. It’s a good reason to go to war against Nazis.

Neuding reports:

This past Saturday, a Hanukkah party at a synagogue in Goteborg, Sweden, was abruptly interrupted by Molotov cocktails. They were hurled by a gang of men in masks at the Jews, mostly teenagers, who had gathered to celebrate the holiday.

Two days later, two fire bombs were discovered outside the Jewish burial chapel in the southern Swedish city of Malmo.

Who knows what tomorrow may bring?

For Sweden’s 18,000 Jews, sadly, none of this comes as a surprise. They are by now used to anti-Semitic threats and attacks — especially during periods of unrest in the Middle East, which provide cover to those whose actual goal has little to do with Israel and much to do with harming Jews.

Both of these recent attacks followed days of incitement against Jews. Last Friday, 200 people protested in Malmo against President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The protesters called for an intifada and promised “we will shoot the Jews.” A day later, during a demonstration in Stockholm, a speaker called Jews “apes and pigs.” There were promises of martyrdom.

Malmo’s sole Hasidic rabbi has reported being the victim of more than 100 incidents of hostility ranging from hate speech to physical assault. In response to such attacks, the Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a travel warning in 2010 advising “extreme caution when visiting southern Sweden” because of officials’ failure to act against the “serial harassment” of Jews in Malmo.

Today, entering a synagogue anywhere in Sweden usually requires going through security checks, including airport-like questioning. At times of high alert, police officers with machine guns guard Jewish schools. Children at the Jewish kindergarten in Malmo play behind bulletproof glass. Not even funerals are safe from harassment.

Jewish schoolteachers have reported hiding their identity. A teacher who wouldn’t even share the city where she teaches for fear of her safety told a Swedish news outlet: “I hear students shouting in the hallway about killing Jews.” Henryk Grynfeld, a teacher at a high school in a mostly immigrant neighborhood in Malmo, was told by a student: “We’re going to kill all Jews.” He said other students yell “yahoud,” the Arabic word for Jew, at him.

A spokesman for Malmo’s Jewish community put the situation starkly. You “don’t want to display the Star of David around your neck,” he said. Or as spokesman for the Goteborg synagogue put it, “It’s a constant battle to live a normal life, and not to give in to the threats, but still be able to feel safe.”

The question that has dogged Jews throughout the centuries is now an urgent one for Sweden’s Jewish community. Is it time to leave?

Did you notice, not a word about the religion or ethnicity of the perpetrators of the anti-Semitic attacks. These Muslims are making it impossible for Jews to live in Sweden.

What are Swedish politicians doing about it? Nothing. What did you think they would do? They say that they do not want to be accused of Islamophobia but, in truth, they are sniveling cowards. They are good feminists and have gotten in touch with their feminine side. They are hiding under their desks and hoping that it will not come for them. To be fair they are also unconcerned about the rapes that these refugees are committing against their wives, daughters and sisters.

You have to force Swedish politicians to acknowledge the threat. They are afraid of speaking ill against Islam—it must have something to do with blasphemy laws:

In an interview in June, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven was asked whether Sweden had been naïve about the link between immigration and anti-Semitism. His response was typical of the way in which leading politicians have avoided giving straight answers about the threat against the country’s Jews: “We have a problem in Sweden with anti-Semitism, and it doesn’t matter who expresses it, it’s still as darn wrong.”

But the problem has grown so dire that it finally forced Mr. Lofven to admit in an interview this month: “We will not ignore the fact that many people have come here from the Middle East, where anti-Semitism is a widespread idea, almost part of the ideology. We must become even clearer, dare to talk more about it.”

Neuding adds that the leftist Swedish press often foments anti-Semitic sentiment:

… the Swedish press often crosses the line into vilification of the Jewish state and regularly insinuates that events in the Middle East are directed by powerful Jews in the West. This risks stoking already dangerously high anti-Jewish sentiment.

What can be done about it? Neuding proposes this:

It is also vital for Sweden to adopt a coherent strategy to combat radical Islamism. The country has become one of Europe’s richest recruiting grounds for Islamic State fighters. Five people were killed in an Islamist attack in downtown Stockholm in April, and Swedish Islamists have been involved in other deadly attacks in Europe, including in Paris and Brussels.

One aspect of this strategy must be for the authorities to regain control over immigrant neighborhoods, where organized crime is rampant. In addition, Sweden has had a laissez-faire attitude toward religious schools, tax-funded through a voucher system. This has allowed extremists to exert influence over the minds of young people. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to fund radicalization.

The government should also do more to counter attempts by foreign clerics to radicalize its Muslim community with a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, including the insidious idea that the Holocaust is a lie. In Sweden, as in other European countries, radicalization of Muslims is often funded and organized by foreign entities.

So far so good. Unfortunately, Neuding felt obliged to close her article with a reference to the man who led the world in cowardly submission to Islam. That would be Barack Obama. Isn’t Sweden’s failure to address the real problem coincident with Obama’s failure to acknowledge the threat Islamist anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism posed.

After suggesting that Sweden failed to see the Islamist roots of anti-Semitism, Neuding writes this piece of swill:

During his state visit to Sweden in 2013, President Barack Obama didn’t hesitate to call out the country’s anti-Semitism problem. Speaking at Stockholm’s main synagogue, he included a subtle but unmistakable criticism of the attitude among Swedish politicians: ”We will stand against anti-Semitism and hatred, in all its forms.” Swedish leaders should heed his words.

Apparently, our president's stentorian declamations produced absolutely no effect. They were empty words. If they empowered anyone they empowered Islamist anti-Semitism.

Of course, it’s not just limited to Sweden. In Angela Merkel’s Germany, protest marchers are now chanting: Death to the Jews.


Muslim demonstrators in Berlin shout “death to Jews” and “Jews, remember Khaybar, army of Muhammad is coming again” during weekend protests.

After two days of silence, German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned antisemitic demonstrations that took place in Germany during the weekend. “We oppose all forms of antisemitism and xenophobia.” she told reporters on Monday. “The state has to use all available legal measures” against such acts, she added.

Merkel’s condemnation failed to address the issue of the Muslim demonstrators shouting “death to Jews” and “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is coming again” in Arabic — alluding to the annihilation of the Jewish population of Khaybar, an oasis in Saudi Arabia, at the hands of Muhammad and his conquering army. The main demonstration took place at Berlin’s historic Brandenburg Gates, just a stone’s throw away from the Holocaust Memorial.

What did Angela do about the protests? Nothing, of course:

While Chancellor Merkel promised to “use all available legal measures”, the leading German newspaper Die Welt reported that no action was being taken against those who chanted “death to Jews” in Berlin over the weekend, claiming the local police were ‘helpless’.

As it happens, Muslim anti-Semitism in Germany has become the rule, no longer the exception. Ulf Poschardt writes in Die Welt:

With the migration of tens and thousands of refugees from the Middle- and Near East, antisemitic attitudes have received new and powerful resonating spaces. Not a week goes by in which Jews — who are not wearing Kippah — are attacked, spat at, kicked and humiliated. “Jew” is a “normal” term of abuse in underprivileged neighborhoods.

Kids with Jewish roots deny these or must change schools after a process of tortuous bullying. This is relativized in a macabre way by teachers and parent representatives, who blame it partially on the situation in the Middle East.

It’s all happening near the place where Barack Obama declared himself to be a citizen of the world. And it has all been orchestrated by Obama’s most important European supporter, Angela Merkel.

3 comments:

WaltC said...

History plays on a loop. And even those who do remember the past seem doomed to repeat it.

whitney said...

That whole article was maddening. And then ending with talking about Obama. I don't think cognitive dissonance is a strong enough phrase for what's going on in these people's mind. Or delusion or schizophrenia. Maybe there needs to be a whole new term. The worst part is it really makes me hope for things to get really really bad so they got a dose of reality.

Sam L. said...

It's happening pretty much all across western Europe. Eastern Europe mostly does not accept Islamic immigrants and "refugees". When the governments won't let the police and the media identify them as "youths" or not at all, the governments are betraying their own citizens. Of course, that happens here, too, just not because the government is requiring it, but because the media hates the citizenry. We learn to read the words the media leaves out. One of the many reasons many of us have no trust or faith in the media.