Posted on 05/30/2002 3:56:23 PM PDT by blam
US convinced Europe's Nazis are on march again
By Toby Harnden in Washington
(Filed: 30/05/2002)
The belief that there has been a recent upsurge in anti-Semitism in Europe is now so entrenched in America that denying it is almost seen as akin to suggesting the Holocaust did not happen.
Parallels between early 21st century Europe and the Nazi era are being drawn almost daily by American politicians and newspapers across the political spectrum. By bracketing the past and present so firmly, Americans are expressing their deep discomfort at what they see as an enduring continental European hostility to outsiders.
There was widespread derision when President Jacques Chirac declared recently: "There is no anti-Semitism in France."
Although Americans acknowledge that many of the recent anti-Semitic acts have been carried out by Muslim immigrants, the attacks are seen as a phenomenon that infects European societies. Walter Reich, a George Washington University academic, wrote in the liberal Los Angeles Times of the "ugly beast of anti-Semitism racing across the Jewish graveyard known as Europe", adding: "Not since the Third Reich has there been anything like it."
The New York Times, also on the Left, wondered in an editorial whether "six decades after the Holocaust, we are witnessing a resurgence of the virulent hatred that caused it" and pointed out that Europe's "cultures are drenched in a history of anti-Semitism".
In a country that has shaken off its segregationist past and prides itself on being a racial melting pot, the idea of a single ethnic group being a target profoundly offends people's sensibilities.
The concern is not limited to the Left. David Pryce-Jones of the conservative National Review announced: "The Thirties are coming round again in Europe." Jack Kemp, a leading Republican thinker, drew attention to "a hateful anti-Jewish climate in Europe not seen since the end of the Third Reich".
These views are largely shared by the White House, although the Nazi comparison has not been made publicly. President George W Bush said he rejected "the ancient evil of anti-Semitism" practised by "those who burn synagogues in France".
Increasingly, anti-Semitic attacks in Europe, along with the growth of anti-immigrant parties, and particularly the strong political showing of Jean-Marie Le Pen, are being cited by Americans as evidence of a transatlantic cultural gap.
Reports of the French ambassador to London calling Israel a "shitty little country" and the poet Tom Paulin calling for Brooklyn-born settlers on the West Bank to be shot have been widely circulated on the internet and are regularly quoted in Washington.
My great-grandparents left Germany in the 1890s, and the next three generations had to go back -- my great-uncle was in World War I, where he survived a poison gas attack, my father was in World War II (and had the honor of serving in Patton's Third Army), and I was in the peacetime US Army Europe.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.