Why Europe Hates Israel

FREEMAN E-MAIL LIST ^ | November 29, 2001 | By Bret Stephens, an editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe.

[dennisw]

 

 

 

Commentary  November 29, 2001

Why Europe Hates Israel

By Bret Stephens, an editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe.

BRUSSELS -- Yesterday, a Belgian court heard arguments from
lawyers representing 23 Palestinians, survivors of the 1982 Sabra and
Chatilla massacres near Beirut, that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon should be prosecuted in Belgium for crimes against humanity.
Though Mr. Sharon almost certainly will never sit in a Belgian jail,
the trial could hardly be freighted with more significance.

More than a half-century after the Holocaust, a Europe awakened to
the importance of human rights is looking to sanction the leader of
the world's only Jewish state for a crime that was actually committed
by a Christian Lebanese militiaman, later employed by the Syrian
regime of Hafez Assad. And yet blame for the massacres seems to be
apportioned to Mr. Sharon alone. Why?

Sensational Indictment

The short answer is the Belgian legal system, whose well-meaning
laws lend themselves to this sort of opportunistic and sensational
indictment. A slightly longer answer is that many Europeans are
sincerely convinced that Mr. Sharon really is a war criminal, as a
BBC documentary attempted to show last summer.

                               But the real answer is that
                               European governments today are,
                               by and large, tacit enemies of the
                               state of Israel, much as they
                               might protest that they merely
                               take a more "evenhanded"
                               approach to the Arab-Israeli
                               conflict.

                               Consider a few recent examples.
                               In April, France voted to censure
                               Israel at the U.N. Human Rights
                               Commission in Geneva -- while
abstaining from a vote of censure against China. During his
diplomatic foray to Tehran in September, British Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw offered that "one of the factors which helps breed
terrorism is the anger which many people in this region feel at events
over the years in Palestine." The European Union has so far refused
to follow America's lead by freezing the assets of terrorist groups such
as Hezbollah and Hamas, with the European Commission's external
relations spokesman, Gunnar Wiegand, arguing that "Hezbollah could
play a major role in regional stability."

That Europe today should be hostile to Israel may seem a bit of a
mystery, not least given the usual sympathy of aims between
democratic states. The explanation comes in several parts. First, as
historian Howard Sacher points out, Europe's left sees in Israel's
political evolution a betrayal of its utopian ideals. It's easy to forget
that in the years following the establishment of Israel, many
Europeans looked to it as a model socialist country. They admired its
largely state-run economy and especially its collectivist kibbutzim.
Hundreds of young European leftists, most of them non-Jews, flocked
to these farms in the 1960s, looking for the kind of workers' paradise
they could not find on the other side of the Berlin Wall.

This fondness, however, evaporated after the 1967 war, when Israel
went from being the Middle East's underdog to its Goliath, holding a
colonial-like mandate over the lands that came into its possession.
Partly under the sway of Soviet propaganda, partly in keeping with
the fashion of radical chic, European leftists abruptly transferred their
allegiances to the Palestinians and the PLO, which in the 1970s drew
the likes of current German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer to their
meetings. Meanwhile, successive Israeli governments veered to the
right. "The era when Yitzhak Rabin or Golda Meir could address their
European counterparts as 'comrades' at gatherings of the Socialist
International had passed," says Mr. Sacher.

There was also a shift of attitudes on the European right. With the
exception of Britain, whose notoriously Arabist Foreign Office has
dominated its Mideast policy under both Conservative and Labour
governments, much of the Continental right had at one time looked
on admiringly at "plucky little Israel." Thus, beginning in 1952, the
conservative German government of Konrad Adenauer provided Israel
with critical financial support in the form of Holocaust reparations,
while Charles de Gaulle's France helped to build its nuclear reactor at
Dimona.

But it was also de Gaulle who, in 1967, slapped an arms embargo on
Israel for firing the first shot in the Six Day War. Thereafter, the
hostility increased, partly because France fancied itself a champion of
its former Arab colonies, partly out of simple anti-Americanism. But
the chief reason, of course, was Europe's dependence on Arab oil. As
French President Georges Pompidou put it to Henry Kissinger during
the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, "You only rely on the Arabs for about a
tenth of your consumption. We are entirely dependent on them."

Since then, Europe's reliance on Mideastern oil has abated, but the
habit of reflexively seeking to appease the Arabs at Israel's expense
has not. In 1974, French Foreign Minister Michel Jobert toured the
Middle East, seeking to earn price concessions on oil for France by
mouthing a hard anti-Israel line. In 1980, the European Community
formally recognized the PLO despite the fact that Yasser Arafat had
neither made peace with Israel nor dropped his overt sponsorship of
terrorism. Currently, the EU supplies the Palestinian Authority with
the bulk of its foreign aid, even as much of that money goes
indirectly to funding textbooks describing Jews as monkeys and
vermin.

Given all this, many Jews have been led to conclude that what's at
work here is a thinly veiled form of anti-Semitism. But while there
might be some truth to this, it's easily exaggerated. Mr. Straw, of
German-Jewish descent, is clearly no anti-Semite, and the one bright
spot of Jacques Chirac's presidency has been his efforts to
acknowledge the sins of France's suppressed Vichy past.

Underlying Guilt

Underlying European policy is an uneasy sense of guilt. In the
immediate postwar period, Europe's guilty conscience worked in
Israel's favor. But in the postcolonial spirit of the '60s, the balance of
guilt switched to the Arab side: It was they who were being oppressed;
and it was Europe that, with its previous support for Israel, had
helped inflict the oppression. So Europe pressures Israel to withdraw
from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, heedless of the dire security
consequences that such withdrawal would entail. That Israel has so far
refused to accede to this pressure stands as an infuriating rebuke to
modern Europe's fundamental conception of itself as the virtuous
defeated, free to pass judgment while absolved of the moral
responsibilities of wielding actual power.

Whatever the case, a foreign policy based on a combination of
left-wing disillusionment, French opportunism and all-around
cravenness cannot yield good results. With the U.S. State Department
increasingly leaning toward the European line on Israel, it's well that
the basis of that policy be properly understood.

 

 

 

[onyx]

I knew you'd remember! You are nothing but a Muslim shill, a disruptor, and, altogether a fraud.

[AGAviator]

You're a sputtering illiterate. I'm having a dialog with someone who's rather unsuccessfully having a dialog with me.

Now off to your crusades, and try not to slaughter too many Orthodox or Jews on your way. Remember, "God wills it."

[Lent]

You're a sputtering illiterate. I'm having a dialog with someone who's rather unsuccessfully having a dialog with me.

A Muslim shill who also has delusions of grandeur! LOL!

[Lent]

So you're a Musli shill who hates FR. LOL! Knew it all along.This is the perfect hatred of America which suites your tastes. Did you contribute?

Palestinians love Bin Laden

A Compendium Of Palestinian Authority Hatred Of America: 1997 And 2001

Itamar Marcus and Ruthie Blum September 14, 2001

Palestinian Media Watch Special Bulletin

Introduction

For years, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has actively promoted hatred of the United States among its people. The recurring theme: the US is an imperialist, colonialist usurper of land and human rights, enemy of the Arab world, killer of Arab children, and supporter of Israel. Yasser Arafat has repeatedly referred to Saddam Hussein as his "brother" and has linked an Iraq victory over the US to a Palestinian victory over Israel. During a period of US-Iraq tension, the editor of the PA official daily wrote that America would pay for its war against Iraq with "45,000 bodies of American soldiers [who] will return to the US like airmail .The Arab mothers will not be the only ones crying..." The PA Mufti has called for Allah [god] to destroy America and "paint the White House black." [See compendium below for full quotes and sources.]

This active antipathy to the US espoused and preached by the PA leadership has created a Palestinian society imbued with hatred toward America. It is in this atmosphere that Palestinians took to the streets in spontaneous celebration of the horrific terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

Quickly realizing that there could be nothing more odious to television viewers in democracies than the sight of Palestinian festivities over the deaths of Americans, the PA took two measures. First, PA Minister of Information Yasser Abed Rabbo demanded of foreign bureau chiefs that they cease broadcasting the celebrations, and threatened the lives of their staff. Second, they orchestrated public displays of sympathy for America. Photos of Arafat donating blood appeared in the press, alongside photos of Palestinian children carrying signs (in English) expressing solidarity with "fellow" victims of terrorism.

During the weeks prior to the attacks, PMW noticed an increase in the anti-American vitriol and incitement appearing in the PA press, including calls to attack the US.

The following selections are from 1997 - when PMW first began monitoring the Palestinian media on this topic - and from 2001, prior to the attack. This compilation demonstrates the consistency of Palestinian ideology.

Part 1: 1997

1. PA Mufti calls for destruction of America

Arafat appointed Mufti of Palestine has called on Allah (God) to destroy America, which is controlled by Zionist Jews "Oh, Allah, destroy America as it is controlled by Zionist Jews...Allah will avenge, in the name of his Prophet, the colonialist settlers who are the descendents of monkeys and pigs... "

Ikrima Sabri, the Mufti of the Palestinian Authority, (from weekly sermon in the Al-Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem). Voice of Palestine, July 11, 1997.

2. The U.S. and Israel are the source of terrorism in the world. Palestinian rejection of the US list of terrorist organizations, which included Islamic and Palestinian organizations..

"We reject the definition of Palestinian and Islamic organizations as terrorist organizations [by the U.S.]. The U.S. and Israel are the source of terrorism in the world. "

Sheik Hamed Al-Bitawi, Head of the Palestine Association of Religious Scholars [and the PA's appointed Manager of the Nablus Municipal Religious Courts] Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, 10.11.97

3. The US, bloodsuckers and barbaric culture will disappear from history. History will forget the United States, but will remember Iraq and Palestine.

"...History does not remember the United States, but it remembers Iraq, the cradle of civilization, and Palestine, the cradle of religions. History remembers every piece of Arab land, because it is the bosom of human civilization. On the other hand, the murderers of humanity, the creators of the barbaric culture and the bloodsuckers of nations, are doomed to death and destined to shrink to a microscopic size, like Micronesia. " [Hafez Al-Barghuthi, editor, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 15, 1997]

MORE HATRED BY PALESTINIANS

[onyx]

You think you're a match for Lent? ROFLMBO!

At times, TravisMcGee has "entertained" a conversation with you, but he's caught-on to your dog and camel show too.

[AGAviator]

I think Travis is a big enough boy to speak for himself. You don't have to put words into his mouth.

[AGAviator]

With your usual deluge of words and pictures you've still not explained how saying that America shouldn't support a theocratic nation which denies civil rights to its native inhabitants, is being anti-American.

[Lent]

Since I don't agree with your premises what is there to discuss? How does it feel to use up so much bandwidth on a site you think "stinks" oh Musli shill?

[AGAviator]

So you show a load of pictures and text to waste far more bandwidth than I do, and can't even prove your premise. Since it's irrelevant to the issue, you must secretly want to give the Islamics more free publicity.

You think Islamics "stink," don't you, Thumper? So why are you always discussing them at the drop of a pin?

[Lent]

I like FR, you hate it Musli shill. You're wasting everyone's time Musli shill who doesn't even live in the U.S. and yet parades around like an American. Fraudulent is right.

[onyx]

Go back to playing with yourself --- every one else has left the building.

[NixNatAVanG InDaBurgh]

>>>>PATRIA ONE<<<<<<

Alas poor Pat, his campaign went splat, he went flat, and that was that. Now his supporters, the National effing Alliance and all the braindead Van Guard perveyors of racial purity who thought he agreed with them, who thought they had a winner, found in actuallity, a self-centered, thieving, lying, soul-selling, mean, vindictive, hypocritical, race baiting, rabid dog laying himself down and wallowing with the fleas of Marxist Liberal doggies. Now they are left trying to recruit people into their movements, which are mostly BM, by using the respect he once had that is now less than meaningless. Less than relevent, Patrick J. ONE, is, was, and always will be a loser, just like the copycat Nazi roleplayers that frequent these threads with their heinous lies and venomous hatred for anything THEY consider *un-American. So I guess Free Republic is so far beyond their comprhension since Pat only played to the stupid, they have convinced themselves this is a fertile feeding ground.
I have been half tempted to start cutting and pasting the entire Saudi informational website to our little Pat, since *it* seems to have gotten most of its praise of the most supremely corrupt regime in the Near east from that sorry site which purports to tell us Americans how really swell the sons of despots are and how much *good* they have done throughout the world.
Pick your terrorist group in any country you can find, and I will guarantee that the Saudis not only back them, they STARTED them.
Next on my list is Egypt.

[verboten]

Lent says:
Here's your heroes the Palestinians. Back in action:

Sir you are engaging in the most vile debate tactics. Nowhere has AGAviator said his heroes are Palestinians. Moreover, you make several logical fallacies in this argument:

You properly assert:

Some terrorists are Palestinians

And you conclude, all Palestinians are terrorist.

Having established all Palestinians as terrorists you then assert that anyone who agrees with what a Palestinian says about any topic is a terrorist.

I suggest you study this site. This will help you to avoid fallacies in your debates.

But suffice it to say that your argument falls apart from the get go. Not all Palestinians are terrorists. And just because Hitler agrees the sky is blue does not make it a lie.

[Lent]

Sir you are engaging in the most vile debate tactics. Nowhere has AGAviator said his heroes are Palestinians. Moreover, you make several logical fallacies in this argument:

Yes, they are his heroes. If you don't see his justifications for his heroes then you've got reading and comprehension problems.

Some terrorists are Palestinians

And you conclude, all Palestinians are terrorist.

Take your pick of Palestinian terrorist organizations.

 

Terrorist Group Profiles

http://www.terrorism.com/terrorism/Groups2.shtml

  Abu Nidal Organization (ANO)
  Abu Sayyaf Group
  Al-'Asifa
  Al-Fatah
  Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya
  al-Jihad
  Anti-Imperialist International Brigade (AIIB)
  Arab Revolutionary Brigades
  Arab Revolutionary Council
  Armed Islamic Group
  Black September
 Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP)
  Fatah Revolutionary Council
 15 May Organization
  Force 17
  HAMAS (Islamic Resistance Movement)
       HAMAS Special Profile
  Hizballah (Party of God)
       Hizballah Special Profile
  The Islamic Group (IG)
  Islamic Jihad
  Jihad Group
  New iihad Group
  Organization of the Oppressed on Earth
  Palestine Liberation Front (PLF)
  Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
       Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Special Profile
  Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)
  Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
  Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC)
  Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Command (PFLP-SC)
  Popular Struggle Front (PSF)
  Revolutionary Justice Organization
  Revolutionary Organization of Socialist Muslims
  Talaa'al-Fateh
 Vanguards of Conquest

Problem with you is you don't realize once a people are nazified there is little hope for them unless the people experience what the German people did in Dresden, Berlin, etc., i.e. saturation bombing. Maybe the lot of them should be transfered to the vast Arab Islamic lands since the Jews were kicked out of Arab Islamic lands it would be a nice transfer of populations like what happened in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Greeks and Turks, etc.

Having established all Palestinians as terrorists you then assert that anyone who agrees with what a Palestinian says about any topic is a terrorist.

Oh aren't you clever? Of course you aren't. Their leadership , media, mullahs, teachers, are all nazified by virtue of their Pan Arab Islamic agenda. This is unfortunate but is a principle of life. So take you phony fallacies and stuff them up your jowls.

[Lent]

Hey "verboten". What was your name last time you were on this site? You guys are the biggest con-men I've seen. If you like your PalPots so much go hug them. Watch out though they may ask you to strap on a body-bomb for allah your other hero. Are you up to it?

[Lent]

HERE'S ANOTHER ONE OF YOUR LOGICAL FALLACIES YOU DOLT. TWO IN A ROW IN THE LAST SEVERAL HOURS:16 dead in Haifa suicide bus bombing. Buzz-off with your logical fallacies.

[Lent]

The "Republic not an Empire" crowd on Free Republic are a bunch of frauds, cowards, and the majority of them (if not all) are anti-Semites. In the meantime we're witnessing, in the last 24 hours the kind of carnage which these half-wits implicitly and explicitly support.

[AGAviator]

The tactics you're seeing are the only tactics they know.

The most fundamental principle America stands for is that all men are created equal. Then America has a Bill of Rights which lists 10 freedoms America stands for. Then America has a Statue of Liberty that says we welcome oppressed people from all over the world.

These people instead advocate supporting an apartheid-like foreign regime, trashing the Bill of Rights, and turning away people who wish to come here to make a better future for themselves. We continually view gleeful advocacy of attacks on suspicion and speculation, annihilation of cities with nuclear weapons, mass murder, mass internments and deportations, trials without evidence, liberal use of torture, occupations of countries or their complete destruction, and undeclared wars against a substantial portion of the world.

This crowd is pushing for this country to throw out everything out America stands for and still expects people to support what they call "America."

None of these things are what America stands for, yet they persist in lying and claiming they support this country and its values.

The only thing they truly stand for are America's intervention in a Middle Eastern region which is contrary to its principles, and the consequences that have followed from its savage occupation of the people who have lived there for millenia.

Some of the things we may see near-term are firearms confiscation, surveillance everywhere, and crackdowns on people for relatively trivial breaches of laws. After all, it will be for our own protection.

Israel has elected a war criminal who has promised to intensify the violence his country is in, although like this crowd he is too stupid to recognize this. America has supported the likes of this war criminal for 50 years and now this crowd wants us to follow this war criminal down his road.

[AGAviator]

its savage occupation its client's savage occupation

[meridia]

I had believed, in the end result, that the ONLY *intervention* in the Mideast would be one where both sides were given one of two options: Either BEHAVE, or BEHAVE, and if you don't like either of the options, then you must suffer the consequences.

The only reason that the USA would do ANYTHING is that the Islamist Empire as conceived in the sick minds of sociopaths like bin Laden constitutes an attack on MODERNITY, itself. THAT, I believe, is not going to be permitted. Never! I can foresee that very problematic times like ahead, and I perceive that many will lose their lives. Terrorism is NO longer a tenable activity on this planet, and it will be eradicated. However, unless I totally misunderstand you, I agree that both sides are highly mistaken if they believe that Americans, at large, care anything other than for the status and the future of America. I mean obviously that won't "show" at high levels of diplomacy, or face-2-face amongst the commoners. The Islamists, in my mind, are TOAST - as they comprise a clear & present danger to the Future of Western Civilization, and their love of death too dangerous... the CONTINUANCE of Western Civilization and the safety of the American nation is what will concern Americans this next decade. And anyone who gets in their way will be shocked at the reaction...