Truth and the Jews

[JerrySeinfeld]

Needing to wake up, West just closes its eyes

February 26, 2006

BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

In five years' time, how many Jews will be living in France? Two years ago, a 23-year-old Paris disc jockey called Sebastien Selam was heading off to work from his parents' apartment when he was jumped in the parking garage by his Muslim neighbor Adel. Selam's throat was slit twice, to the point of near-decapitation; his face was ripped off with a fork; and his eyes were gouged out. Adel climbed the stairs of the apartment house dripping blood and yelling, "I have killed my Jew. I will go to heaven."

Is that an gripping story? You'd think so. Particularly when, in the same city, on the same night, a Jewish woman was brutally murdered in the presence of her daughter by another Muslim. You've got the making of a mini-trend there, and the media love trends.

Yet no major French newspaper carried the story.

This month, there was another murder. Ilan Halimi, also 23, also Jewish, was found by a railway track outside Paris with burns and knife wounds all over his body. He died en route to the hospital, having been held prisoner, hooded and naked, and brutally tortured for almost three weeks by a gang that had demanded half a million dollars from his family. Can you take a wild guess at the particular identity of the gang? During the ransom phone calls, his uncle reported that they were made to listen to Ilan's screams as he was being burned while his torturers read out verses from the Quran.

This time around, the French media did carry the story, yet every public official insisted there was no anti-Jewish element. Just one of those things. Coulda happened to anyone. And, if the gang did seem inordinately fixated on, ah, Jews, it was just because, as one police detective put it, ''Jews equal money.'' In London, the Observer couldn't even bring itself to pursue that particular angle. Its report of the murder managed to avoid any mention of the unfortunate Halimi's, um, Jewishness. Another British paper, the Independent, did dwell on the particular, er, identity groups involved in the incident but only in the context of a protest march by Parisian Jews marred by ''radical young Jewish men'' who'd attacked an ''Arab-run grocery.''

At one level, those spokesmonsieurs are right: It could happen to anyone. Even in the most civilized societies, there are depraved monsters who do terrible things. When they do, they rip apart entire families, like the Halimis and Selams. But what inflicts the real lasting damage on society as a whole is the silence and evasions of the state and the media and the broader culture.

A lot of folks are, to put it at its mildest, indifferent to Jews. In 2003, a survey by the European Commission found that 59 percent of Europeans regard Israel as the "greatest menace to world peace." Only 59 percent? What the hell's wrong with the rest of 'em? Well, don't worry: In Germany, it was 65 percent; Austria, 69 percent; the Netherlands, 74 percent. Since then, Iran has sportingly offered to solve the problem of the Israeli threat to world peace by wiping the Zionist Entity off the face of the map. But what a tragedy that those peace-loving Iranians have been provoked into launching nuclear armageddon by those pushy Jews. As Paul Oestreicher, Anglican chaplain of the University of Sussex, wrote in the Guardian the other day, "I cannot listen calmly when an Iranian president talks of wiping out Israel. Jewish fears go deep. They are not irrational. But I cannot listen calmly either when a great many citizens of Israel think and speak of Palestinians in the way a great many Germans thought and spoke about Jews when I was one of them and had to flee."

It's not surprising when you're as heavily invested as the European establishment is in an absurd equivalence between a nuclear madman who thinks he's the warm-up act for the Twelfth Imam and the fellows building the Israeli security fence that you lose all sense of proportion when it comes to your own backyard, too. "Radical young Jewish men" are no threat to "Arab-run groceries." But radical young Muslim men are changing the realities of daily life for Jews and gays and women in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Oslo and beyond. If you don't care for the Yids, big deal; look out for yourself. The Jews are playing their traditional role of the canaries in history's coal mine.

Something very remarkable is happening around the globe and, if you want the short version, a Muslim demonstrator in Toronto the other day put it very well:

''We won't stop the protests until the world obeys Islamic law.''

Stated that baldly it sounds ridiculous. But, simply as a matter of fact, every year more and more of the world lives under Islamic law: Pakistan adopted Islamic law in 1977, Iran in 1979, Sudan in 1984. Four decades ago, Nigeria lived under English common law; now, half of it's in the grip of sharia, and the other half's feeling the squeeze, as the death toll from the cartoon jihad indicates. But just as telling is how swiftly the developed world has internalized an essentially Islamic perspective. In their pitiful coverage of the low-level intifada that's been going on in France for five years, the European press has been barely any less loopy than the Middle Eastern media.

What, in the end, are all these supposedly unconnected matters from Danish cartoons to the murder of a Dutch filmmaker to gender-segregated swimming sessions in French municipal pools about? Answer: sovereignty. Islam claims universal jurisdiction and always has. The only difference is that they're now acting upon it. The signature act of the new age was the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran: Even hostile states generally respect the convention that diplomatic missions are the sovereign territory of their respective countries. Tehran then advanced to claiming jurisdiction over the citizens of sovereign states and killing them -- as it did to Salman Rushdie's translators and publishers. Now in the cartoon jihad and other episodes, the restraints of Islamic law are being extended piecemeal to the advanced world, by intimidation and violence but also by the usual cooing promotion of a spurious multicultural "respect" by Bill Clinton, the United Church of Canada, European foreign ministers, etc.

The I'd-like-to-teach-the-world-to-sing-in-perfect-harmonee crowd have always spoken favorably of one-worldism. From the op-ed pages of Jutland newspapers to les banlieues of Paris, the Pan-Islamists are getting on with it.

[Biblio Bibuli]

The Jews are playing their traditional role of the canaries in history's coal mine.

Steyn should get the Pulitzer for that line alone. It's beautiful.

[Martial Shadow]

Jews have always been a good test of freedoms. When Europe decides to stop playing ostrich, things will move.

[theloniusfleabag]

A lot of folks are, to put it at its mildest, indifferent to Jews.

Perhaps Israel should be supported in the same manner it supports the 'West'...sell arms and training to both sides of 'terrorism conflicts', ignore and/or perpetuate human rights violations, and cry 'discrimination' at every turn, even when not applicable.

[August1991]

The Jews are playing their traditional role of the canaries in history's coal mine.

Steyn should get the Pulitzer for that line alone. It's beautiful.

Steyn did not invent the simile. I think it predates World War II, but I'm not certain. It certainly predates Steyn's usage.

Note to Jerry: Don't cut and paste entire articles to this forum.

[Argus]

A lot of folks are, to put it at its mildest, indifferent to Jews.

Perhaps Israel should be supported in the same manner it supports the 'West'...sell arms and training to both sides of 'terrorism conflicts', ignore and/or perpetuate human rights violations, and cry 'discrimination' at every turn, even when not applicable.

Are you saying, Fleabag, that all Jews everywhere are to be held responsible for everything Israel does?

Does that mean all Muslims everywhere should be held responsible for everything Al Quaeda does?

Do you not find it contemptable that Jews are no longer safe in Europe, that Jewish schools and synagogues now need armed guards? And yet the Europeans are doing nothing. To paraphrase Jacques Chirac, that utterly corrupt waste of skin tissue, " there is no anti-semitism in Europe".

[Argus]

The number of anti-Semitic incidents in France increased from 320 in 2001 to 593 in 2003. In the first six months of this year alone, there were more than 500 hate crimes directed at French Jews. Attacks on Jews now account for over 80 percent of all bias-related offenses committed in France each year.

Rabbi Joseph Sitruk, France’s chief rabbi, has asked Jews not to wear skullcaps in public. ("I ask young Jews to be alert, to avoid walking alone, to avoid wearing yarmulkes in the street or in the subway and consequently becoming targets for potential assailants.") The Simon Wiesenthal Center advises Jewish tourists to "exercise extreme caution" when traveling to the land of Vichy.

In the face of this Perrier pogrom, Ariel Sharon recently urged French Jews to emigrate to Israel. Chirac responded by telling the Israeli prime minister that he wasn’t welcome in France.

The new French anti-semitism

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Argus,

Are you saying, Fleabag, that all Jews everywhere are to be held responsible for everything Israel does?

Does that mean all Muslims everywhere should be held responsible for everything Al Quaeda does?

Given the tone of a lot of the recent threads here, I would say that all Muslims have been painted with the same brush, and the only hints at solutions have been leaning toward either ostracism or eradication.

[sharkman]

A lot of folks are, to put it at its mildest, indifferent to Jews.

Perhaps Israel should be supported in the same manner it supports the 'West'...sell arms and training to both sides of 'terrorism conflicts', ignore and/or perpetuate human rights violations, and cry 'discrimination' at every turn, even when not applicable.

This is a typical response when some are confronted with the hate crimes against Jews that are multiplying in Europe. Transferring blame. Rationalization. The Jews had it coming.

Muslims are being painted with their own actions, which now regularly include murdering Jews. I still think that murdering is wrong. I don't have to go back over the last 500 or 1000 years and count up the score between Jews and Muslims. When Jews kill Muslims its wrong and when Muslims kill Jews it's wrong.

[JerrySeinfeld]

Dear Argus,

Are you saying, Fleabag, that all Jews everywhere are to be held responsible for everything Israel does?

Does that mean all Muslims everywhere should be held responsible for everything Al Quaeda does?

Given the tone of a lot of the recent threads here, I would say that all Muslims have been painted with the same brush, and the only hints at solutions have been leaning toward either ostracism or eradication.

Sure not all Muslims are fanatical militants. Similarly as all Germans were not nazis or SS...but alot of good that did the jews or the world in WWII.

Why don't "non-militant" muslims speak out against violence and intimidation by their militant counterparts?

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear sharkman,

When Jews kill Muslims its wrong and when Muslims kill Jews it's wrong.

I agree.

This is a typical response when some are confronted with the hate crimes against Jews that are multiplying in Europe. Transferring blame. Rationalization. The Jews had it coming.

No, hate crimes are both 'wrong' and illegal, and should be so. However, study Israel, it's leaders and history. You'll find out what I am talking about. Read "By Way of Deception" by Victor Ostrovsky. Read israelinationalnews.com, and read some of the US military sites that pertain to Israel. You could read some Palestinian sites, but they are heavy on propaganda. Just read more.

[Argus]

Dear Argus,

Are you saying, Fleabag, that all Jews everywhere are to be held responsible for everything Israel does?

Does that mean all Muslims everywhere should be held responsible for everything Al Quaeda does?

Given the tone of a lot of the recent threads here, I would say that all Muslims have been painted with the same brush, and the only hints at solutions have been leaning toward either ostracism or eradication.

You didn't answer the question.

There is no violence coming at us from the Jewish community. Jews are not bombing our airplanes or flying them into our buildings. Jewish terrorist groups are not trying to get poison gas and biological agents to poison our cities. The only Jews you should have a problem with are the ones in the Israeli government - and even they are no threat to us. None. If and when someone sets of bombs in a train here, it's not going to be a Jew, and I think you know that.

People are suspicious of Muslims because of the violence of Muslim radicals and the stated support for that violence by too many Muslim religious figures. It's hard to find the Muslim "moderates" everyone keeps talking about when even in Western states the Muslim can't abide the thought of a little cartoonish mockery of their prophet. Nor are there any great condemnations arising from the Muslim community of those who act violent in the name of Islam. Forty percent of Muslims polled in the UK wanted Sharia law there. What would the percentage be here, I wonder?