Rising Anti-Semitism is Becoming Too Common

 

The best means of starting such an article is to quote some well-known and respected Rabbi, so we are going to quote Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, who is the President of the Conference of European Rabbis, who says that terrorist attacks on Jews in Europe and “attacks on religious practice” show that “anti-Semitism is back in vogue.” His entire talk on the subject can be heard at the end of this article. He refers to a number of surveyed Jews with one of the more troubling ones being taken by the European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency, published in December, which found that forty percent were considering leaving their home countries because they no longer felt safe. We have been on this bandwagon having recognized the rising anti-Semitism; well, to be honest, before we even started writing at Beyond the Cusp. Myself in particular used to try and call people’s attention to the rise in levels of hostilities against Jews and the people who most ridiculed me as imagining things or seeking the bogey man where none existed and a plethora of other equally insulting references back in the late 1960’s and through well into the mid to late 1990’s, until I simply gave up and buried my efforts in writing here. Now I find that the majority who get the message are the non-Jews. I often wonder if my fellow Jews are supposed to be so smart, why will they so often not listen to reason and instead attempt to pass any unwanted information off by attempting to belittle the messenger. I seem to remember a similar reference by Shakespeare with something in Hamlet where he changed the note calling for his own death replacing it with a note calling for the execution of the bearers of the letter, which happened to be two fools named Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. I always felt sorry for those two as they were the classic innocents who die all too often in plays, novels, stories and even, on occasion, in the real world.

 

President of the Conference of European Rabbis Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt

 

While most of what we can reference about the rise in anti-Semitism in Europe comes from cold statistics, studies, news reports and other means by which the facts have been related; this is simply cold empirical evidence which lacks any real feelings beyond being upset at the return of this hatred to Europe so soon after the end of the Nazi reign of death which should have had a more lasting effect on the people, but apparently it did not. On the other side of the pond, what many British call the Atlantic Ocean, I have had more interplay with the numerous and varied forms of anti-Semitism. Growing up I resided in a community which was heavily Catholic and the majority of the Catholic kids went to the local Catholic school system. This made the period around Easter particularly difficult for the Jewish kids, especially the boys, as there would be numerous fights where the Jews were accused of murdering Jesus. My earliest run-in with this was when I was five and I came home and asked my mother who was Jesus and when did I kill him. To this day, I do not remember what her answer was, but I seem to remember that she got upset and it was not until later that I began to understand why. She was not upset with me as much as she was that I had to go through something such as this unnecessary hatred. But I learned that Easter was a time to wear my running shoes as there were four times as many Catholics as there were Jews in my neighborhood.

 

This ratio remained fairly consistent, if not optimistic, as many places I have resided across the United States I may have been the only Jewish family for many miles with the longest distance likely when I lived in north-central Wyoming. These varied living conditions and locations allowed me to meet quite a number of very colorful people and also more anti-Semites than I care to admit. I also met something which still makes me ponder why it is such that people who admittedly had never met a Jew could hate them and hold them responsible for so much of the evil they see in the world. Such a conclusion is senseless simply if one takes the numbers. Jews are approximately 2% of Americans and 0.2% of the world population and yet so many believe that the Jews control the world, are responsible for all the conflicts, control the media, banks, businesses from retail to stock market to manufacturing to almost anything you could imagine, and believe that they have some special power which allows the Jews to hypnotize people into assisting them even against their will. There are many who believe that all Jews are wealthy, and not just a little wealthy, but exorbitantly to the point of avarice wealthy, something I was able to disabuse them of rather quickly when informing them I was a Jew and obviously not wealthy. If Jews had so much power, I would always ask, then why have we found ourselves at the wrong end of so many events throughout history. That was never answered; I just got this deer in the headlight stare as they mulled that over. There simply is no means just due to the degree that the raw numbers spell out for the Jews to do one-thousandth, or is it one-hundred-thousandth of the numerous things they have been accused throughout history. The Nazis claimed the Jews were the Communists while the Communists claimed the Jews were the bourgeoisie and behind the Nazis and both agreed that the Jews required being exterminated. Fortunately, the anti-Semitism I have witnessed in my life has largely not been of the life threatening variety, at least not my life, though there have been a few closer brushes than I care to remember.

 

What is distressing about the latest anti-Semitism is that it comes from different sources and yet they appear to be complimenting one another each making the other more virulent. This is of an extreme case in much of Europe as reported often by Giulio Meotti including in his most recent article. The combined anti-Semitism displayed and conveyed by many of the recent immigrants from the Islamic world has found fertile ground in Europe and has amplified the return of anti-Semitism by the native Europeans. One will never know whether the native rebirth of anti-Semitism would have been so virulent had it not been for the Islamic hate-fest against Israel and their spreading of their vile hatred of the Jewish People into Europe where it apparently is being all too eagerly absorbed and regurgitated by many on both ends of the political spectrum. That is one thing which must be stated about Europe, they almost always manage to get the most disparate groups religiously, politically, socially and even across the financial spectrum from the wealthy to the poor, anti-Semitism appears throughout European society when it surfaces. The most disgusting anti-Semitism which is rearing its ugly head both in Europe and across in the Americas is the hatred by people who are in academia and are presumably intelligent people educated to a high degree and yet falling to the most base hatred known to exist, which is probably why it is the oldest, anti-Semitism. When you hear of college professors teaching anti-Semitic propaganda one is left shaking their head and wondering whether these people actually bother to listen to their lies and do they really believe them or is their some reward which we Jews are never told of with an awards ceremony and big paychecks given for the most ridiculous reason to hate the Jews. Yet, there is one form of anti-Semitism which hurts more than any other, that is the self-hatred shown by many Jews against their own people and often for the most shallow of reasons. That is the one form of anti-Semitism which can never be excused as it is the most damaging as it gives fuel to all of the rest of the world’s anti-Semites.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Current Assessments of Arab-Israeli Conflict Unhelpful

 

There are a number of glaring false assumptions about the Arab-Israeli conflict which serve only to minimize the antipathy felt by the aggressor which began the conflict and set it in motion for perpetuity. The most easily identified errors are that the conflict began in 1948 with the founding of the state of Israel, that the conflict is one-hundred years old, that the disagreement is over borders, that Jerusalem is a central core of the problem and a dozen other such falsities. This war started at the oasis of Khaybar outside Medina. For close to a thousand years Jews lived in the oases of Teyma, Khaybar, and Yathrib peaceably with the surrounding communities, both idolatrous and the growing Islamic community in Medina. There was one area of contention between the Jewish communities and Muhammad, the Jews refused to convert and refused to accept him as the final prophet holding to the historic Jewish belief that the period of the Prophets was long ended. In the year 628-9 A.D., Muhammad gathered his forces and invaded the Jewish community at the Oasis of Khaybar defeating them. In less than a decade, the Islamic forces had defeated all of the separate Jewish communities driving them from the area. It is partially because these were the first groups with whom Muhammad warred or due to the stiff resistance and lack of trust as treaties were disregarded when they were considered inconvenient and no longer to one’s advantage that a great animosity was built between the Jews and Muslims that the Jews are chosen for a particular hatred by Islam. Consider the example of the Qurayza Tribe of Jews, who were defeated by Muhammad despite their leader opting to stay neutral when their town was besieged by a Meccan army that was sent to take revenge for Muhammad’s deadly caravan raids. Their sin was not joining the fight to defend Muhammad and his fellow caravan raiders who were within their town. The tribe killed no one from either side and even surrendered peacefully to Muhammad after the Meccans had been turned back. Yet still Muhammad had every male member of the Qurayza Tribe beheaded. The wars between the Muslims and their continued history of periodic particularly harsh treatment of Jews emanate from these battles.

 

Further, the Quran even states, in Sahih Bukhari 52:177, “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say, ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.’” This requires the followers of Islam to war against the Jews, some now interpret this to mean defeating Israel, before their end-times can commence or at least have its time set. This adds to their reasons to fight against Jews which now means Israel. Additionally there are the two spheres which the world is divided among in Islam, Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. Dar al-Islam is the House of Islam, the area under Islamic rule and thus considered to be at peace; and Dar el Harb being the House of War which includes all lands with which Islam is at war that includes everything outside Dar al-Islam, simply put, everywhere else. Another point is that once Islam conquers any territory, it is to then remain under Islamic dominance forever and should Islamic territory be lost, even or especially were it to revert to previous (infidel) ownership thus falling outside Islam, that becomes a mortal affront to the supremacy of Islam. Hamas has in their preamble to the Hamas Charter a quote from their founder, Imam Hassan al-Banna “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” Obviously, throughout history at numerous times the Jews and even Israel was an area of supreme importance and considered to be the ultimate threat facing Islam. But then, we would simply ask ourselves, why should Islam be any different from everyone else. Before you get up and demand what we mean by everyone else, let us give a partial list of everyone else throughout history; the Pharos’s Egypt, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Ancient Greeks, Roman Empire, Byzantines, Islamic Caliphate, Crusaders, English Empire, Rome’s Inquisition, Spanish Empire, Nazis, Communists and others.

 

In all honesty, we are not claiming by any stretch of the imagination that Israel’s only difficulty is with Islam as there are a plethora of others who would love for Israel to disappear. Many groups outside the Arab and Muslim worlds would also be happy for Israel to disappear. We also need to point out not all of the Arab and Muslim worlds actively want to destroy Israel. One of the main forces which in ambivalent at best and animosity at the worst we have Rome, Vatican City to be more precise where the Catholic Church has a long history of following Replacement Theology which turned the Jews from the Chosen People into the Cursed People. Much of Replacement Theology is based upon the Jewish People being dispersed and denied any return to the Holy Lands. The fact that Israel had been destroyed and the Jews apparently thrown from their homelands was all the proof that the Christians, or in this case the Catholic Church, had replaced the Jews as the Chosen People and the Jews cursed. Then we come to Martin Luther who carries Replacement Theology one-step further and claiming that the Catholic Church has sold their souls and were to join the Jews as cursed and his church was the replacement and true faith. This idea of Replacement Theology continued being used by each Protestant Church during the Reformation. The Church of England, Episcopal Church, also took the position of being the singular holy church for the British Isles which led to years of fighting between the Catholics and the Anglicans. Every step along the way, Replacement Theology was utilized by each Protestant Church founder claimed to have the rights to the title of the Chosen People and all previous forms of Christianity and the Jews now being the cursed people. Islam was no exception as when Muhammad came forth with Islam, he declared that he was presenting the final incarnation of Allah’s word and Islam would be the last and only Chosen People as they replaced all the various Christian faiths and especially the Jews, just as the Christians had denoted the Jews.

 

 

Along with each religion, the nation which adopted these various sects of Christianity, the different forms of Islam and the anti-religion Communism all declared their animosity against the Jews. When Israel was reformed by David Ben Gurion declaring Israel founded, all the aforementioned religions had a total conniption-fit expressing their protestation in various means. Most Christian faiths declared this not to be the real return of the Jews and in no way made them once again the Chosen People with the Catholic Church even declaring Israel as an abomination while much of the Islamic world and the Arab League declared total genocidal war of cleansing of the Zionist Entity. The thing which is interesting is how the Arab Islamic worlds ignore the reestablishment of the Jewish homelands of Israel by referring to Israel as the Zionist entity such that they can claim that this is not the reestablished Jewish or Israelite homelands. This is also why they also claim that the Jews of today are not related to the Jews from antiquity despite genetic proof of their having Middle Eastern DNA markers and many families have traceable histories back many centuries even beyond one millennium. They even doubt those Jewish families who have never left Jerusalem except temporarily after Christian and Islamic expulsions always to return as soon as they were able.

 

What makes much of the efforts in the modern era since 1948 to solve the various forms it has taken adjusting to changing conditions and models presented is that they take that the entirety of the problem either began in 1948 with the founding of Israel, it started with the treaties and conferences after World War I or it began with the onset of modern Zionism. These are all completely wrong, as Islam had been at active war with the Jews throughout their history at various levels. People will point to periods where Jews thrived under Islamic rulers but most of these rulers did not follow strict Sharia, the Quranic defined statutes of law. The other difficulty is that despite periods where Jews were treated fairly well, these were always limited periods similar to the periods under European rule in the various nations where Jews were accepted for periods always eventually to come under critical treatment and even actively murdered often by burning at the stake, hanging, boiled in oil and the many various tortures of the Inquisitions. Islam began with mistreatment of the Jews either demanding the Jizya, a special tax levied against non-Muslims for the privilege and protection living under Islamic rule. This tax varied depending on the requirements of the governance, the greater their need the greater the Jizya often leading to a condition which becomes unlivable. This war against the Jews began, as we pointed out at the beginning, in the year 628-9 A.D. and continued, as has the Christian warfare against the Jews, intermittently ever since or as the anti-religious forces of Communism and Nazism have constantly since their inception.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Lone Wolf Terrorist to Waves Over Europe as the World Turns Over

 

 

Why is it almost every terrorist is said to be operating completely independently from any of what seems to be obvious ties to the rest of humanity. They are workplace violence, a frustrated individual, or any other denotation possible or; if no other excuse will pass the smell test, they are the lone wolf acting completely in a vacuum from any influence. Then the news leaks out after a few days and continues over a few weeks until we finally find out it actually was violent extremism committed by a lone wolf who was acting out his disturbed visions that have nothing at all to do with Islam and he was just parroting something he saw on the Internet when he was screaming “Allahu Akbar” but they are looking through his computer and apartment and there was literature which was anti-Semitic and prayed at the neighborhood Mosque but that does not link their actions to Islam which is the religion of peace. Then in Europe, Canada or the United States they warn that there will be extra security guarding Islamic places and anyone even considering even looking askance at any Muslim will be prosecuted. As noted in the pie-chart below, there are over four times as many hate crimes committed against Jews than there are against Muslims and against the other religions the factor is even higher. The facts are that over half of all religious based hate crimes are committed against Jews but the news and the media and the White House all act as if there was a hate crime epidemic against Muslims to the point that they require entire departments of Federal, State, County, City and neighborhood watch groups out in force to protect Muslims from the wave upon wave of assaults. Even after the September 11, 2001 terror strikes against the two World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon and but for the heroic actions by the passengers downing the airplane risking and losing their own lives to save others there would have likely been further tragedy in Washington D. C. and there was less than a two percentage point rise that year and an actual slight decrease the following year out of the total religiously based hate crimes committed with the number of hate crimes against the Jews significantly higher in those years as well of approximately the same four times the frequency and victims. You could never tell this by the media and White House and Attorney General’s Office. To find the reality one need check with the Federal Bureau of Investigation figures or happen across an article which has the information. These numbers were all for the United States, we should not even need to talk about the problems in Europe where being Jewish means hiding every vestige of your religion or remaining within the limits of your community as the Ultra-Orthodox Jews do as there is something to be said for safety in numbers. In most European countries the rate of crimes targeting Jews in particular have doubled and tripled with many Jews choosing to flee Europe with many seeking refuge in Israel as they are safer in Israel than they are in Europe. Believe it or not, the figures prove that even including acts of terror, not only Jews but any Israeli of any religion is safer in Israel than in Europe, and yes, safer than in the United States from being the victim from any act of crime or terror.

 

 

 

 

Aside from the hyperventilating over nonexistent persecution of Muslims, there is the refusal by the President of the United States to identify Islamic extremism and the violent terrorism it spawns by numerous streams of incitement which has been perfected in its delivery and constantly evolving to use modern social media to great success and society’s detriment. In Europe the problem extends much further than simple terrorism. It would behoove the United States, Canada and the rest of the Western World to learn from the problems being faced by many places throughout Europe in accommodating and adjusting the influx of “refugees” in adjusting and living within the norms expected by European culture. Should the Europeans fail in accommodating and assimilating their flood of immigrants from the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) then their entire societal model will necessarily change and not necessarily for the better. Europe has enough problems one of which may have directly led to the threat of Islamic inundation leading to an Islamic revolution taking over numerous, if not the majority, of European governments and after electing themselves into a controlling majority in a ruling coalition then proceeding to alter the Constitutions to fit closer and closer to Sharia and subjugating the indigenous population causing flight out of Europe likely to the United States and Canada or possibly South America with the Jews also leaving potentially to Israel. Europe holds the third largest Jewish population after Israel and the United States. Watching the problems in Germany, Scandinavian Nations and select other areas of Europe and remembering the riots which broke out in numerous Islamic suburbs where cars were set alight and police initially attempted to escort firefighters and equipment in to extinguish the fires but when they came under assault of bricks, rocks, bottles and other projectiles and even shooting in some instances that the French government and authorities simply decided to ride out the storm and wait for the riots to work their course and die down which eventually they did. The real crimes occurring has been the refusal of the governments to actually enforce any laws when it comes to the “refugees”, or should we call them by their actual true title, invaders while the police stand down unless some indigenous person should resist the “new” culture taking Europe by storm while the media remains mum because there is no longer a free and independent press, only the leftist drivel approved by Merkel or whichever leftist leader is strangling the media, handcuffing law enforcement and demanding the people smile and enjoy the new normal. If not already, continue these policies for the next six months and we can put a fork in Europe because it will be done.

 

The only thing left to do is get any relatives remaining in Europe out and safely back to somewhere where the rule of law and sanity still reign. Depending who wins the election coming up in the United States and if they implement policies as have the self-destructive liberal politicians, who have more power than sense, then the results will mirror Europe. If Pierre Trudeau in Canada continues to pursue the same policies now destroying Europe and they are adopted by the United States, as they have both already taken the first baby steps, then followed to their logical end, we will see similar results as in Europe. The result will be that the Free World will have invited the barbarians into the house and yet they will wonder why the walls are crashing down around them. Of course it will do little good to save the remnants of Europe if the same policies are to be followed throughout the Western World, as then both populations can contemplate where to retreat to next. Wherever it is the ultimate civilizational suicide will be complete and the Islamic world will be armed with all the nuclear weapons and other military capabilities which used to be the defenders of Europe, the United States and Canada and the rest of the Western World such that there will be no safe place to hide. Maybe Alaska will become a country after all just as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “If you [Europeans] committed this big crime, then why should the oppressed Palestinian nation pay the price? This is our proposal: give a part of your own land in Europe, the US, Canada or Alaska to them so that the Jews can establish their country.” Alaska may be the place but not for the Jews of Israel but for the remnants of Western culture outside of Israel.

 

Of course this would make the Israelis the true underdog they have always been despite what the media likes to portray. The Palestinian Arabs are just the shock troops for the Arab world and are being mercilessly used by the Arab Muslim world as expendable attack drones which can be thrown at Israel ceaselessly as to the Arab world the Arab Palestinians are seen as inferior mindless tools for killing as many Jews as they can before they are exterminated either by an Israel driven past their breaking point, which may not even be possible, or by their Arab “betters” who would have no use and would refuse them any dignity or allow them to reside in any lands the rest of the Arab world wins if they should ever defeat Israel. Of course almost everybody would claim that saying such about the Arab world is insane but they would not correct such content as it has been this same Arab world which had assisted in funding and providing school books, maps, teaching aides, media presentations, propagandas in social media, on television, in children’s programs, on the radio and throughout the Arab Palestinian society with the intent on fostering the martyr’s code and the concept of virgins in heaven and money for the family left behind. They have made a culture where murderers are the heroes and death in the way of Jihad is a blessing and suicide is glorified and turned from a sin to a meritorious way to die as long as Jews are also murdered. Their society pays people imprisoned for life for mass murder a higher salary than the average Arab worker and even more than their kleptocratic politicians. The society they have produced has youths as young as eleven and twelve taking a screwdriver, a kitchen knife, almost anything and attempting to stab armed soldiers and even after having been shot in the legs attempting to simply injure rather than kill and they lunge from the ground repeatedly. Fortunately most are disarmed and treated for their wounds in Israeli hospitals often receiving aid before the IDF soldier they stabbed as the gunshot wound is a more serious wound and the most severely wounded get first treatment, as insane as that might sound. Israel is a moral society with standards which are sometimes baffling but if pressed many will agree they are the correct thing for any civilized humane society to follow. We are pressed by Torah to treat the stranger amongst us as a brother and this is how we get to the idea of treating one who would just as soon murder us in our sleep before our own soldier simply because the terrorist is the one most needing our care. We also place a guard on them and do not place them in a room where others might be placed in jeopardy by the young terrorist. But when a society starts facing a minimum of three stabbing assaults every day one tends to forget to shoot to injure, especially those who are not soldiers or police but rather citizens who are licensed to carry a weapon and are armed and facing a threatening situation and even many of these people initially aim simply to injure but when the assailant continues to lunge and try to stab you there reaches a point where you shoot to end the threat. Then the world condemns Israel for shooting Arabs wantonly as if it is done as a spirt. We will see how Europe handles what is coming their way thanks to Angela Merkel, the European Union and the Islamic State and similar groups who are using the generosity of European governments to infiltrate and place terror organizers throughout Europe and soon there will be blood in the streets of Europe. We will witness how long and how many indigenous Europeans have to be stabbed to death or have boulders thrown through their windshields and side windows potentially injuring or murdering their child in the passenger seat before Europeans take to the streets and answer this threat the way Europe has answered similar threats, which that was not pretty either (ask Charles “The Hammer” Martel from the battle of Tours or the King of Poland Jan III Sobieski who was instrumental in breaking the siege of Vienna both of which we discussed here which was a predictive article about the threat facing Europe today from October 6, 2014). There is a crisis building in Europe of their governments’ own making and how it will end will depend largely on the Europeans themselves and should they ever regain control of their governments they might consider having children in sufficient numbers to continue a healthy balance in their population as this will be the reason the government bureaucrats will give for allowing the invasion of the civilization snatchers. Now those of us on the sidelines of Europe can only wait and pray for the best, whatever that ends up becoming.

 

Beyond the Cusp