Anti-Semitism in Europe is an action of the radical Muslims who wish to remake Europe according to the dictates of the Sharia. Consequently it is everyone's problem, not just in general as a human rights issue, but as a specific threat to the European polities.
From Haaretz, with thanks to Nicolei:
David Amar, head of the Jewish community in Marseilles, says in an interview with the Shalem Center journal Tchelet (Azure) that in the last four years it is possible to distinguish two expressions of the rise of anti-Semitism in France: anti-Semitic actions against the dead and actions against the living. The vandalism and desecrations of Jewish cemeteries are mostly done by the extreme right, but most of the violent attacks on living Jews are being done by young North African Arabs living in France. According to Amar, the danger of radical Islam in Europe has evolved and is now recognized as not merely a Jewish problem. Senior officials in France regard the Jews as a barometer for social stability in France. Amar said that even a minister known for his sympathy for the Arabs, like Dominique de Villepin, told him that he anticipates difficult problems from extremist Islam in France.Public opinion in leading states in the European Union is bothered nowadays by the danger posed to European society and its values by radical Islam. The murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh and the wave of violence that swept over Holland in its wake shocked Western Europe. There is talk in Germany, Italy and Britain about legislation against terror, and they are implementing rules that harm the sacred freedoms of the individual. The Germans watched on TV as an incendiary speech was delivered by an imam in a Berlin mosque promising that "the German non-believers would burn in hell."
This week, German police raided dozens of apartments and offices attributed to the Al Aqsa organization, which funnels financial donations to Hamas.
The European press is now using the term "clash of civilizations." With 20 million Muslims in Europe, the words of Bassam Tibi, an academic of Syrian origin now residing in Germany, echo. He said there is only one choice: "Either Islam becomes European, or Europe becomes Muslim."
Marseilles could be the first Euro city with a Muslim population? There's something to observe. How will such a city fit in with the surrounding French society?
If Dominique de Villepin fully expects problems with islamic extreamists in France and in all the rest of Europe where they are concentrated, doesn't it make good sense now to consturct a strategy of disengagement from the cultural colonization of the Arab world through Islamic immigration?
Allowing another 70 million Muslims into the EU by admitting Turkey is a mistake even the French know will be the final nail in this great saga of human stupidity and foolish nievité.
The Muslims are salavting. For 800 yrars, they ruled Al-Andalus, Modern Spain before they were expelled. Now, given a bit more time, they will rule over entire Europe.
Too depressing to contemplate. the "law of Multiculturism", mandates that only the strongest elements in the multi-culti pot will rise to the top and guess who that will be?
Andrew
An analogue to your "law of multiculturalism" is Gresham's Law which, in an economic context, refers to bad money driving out the good. The same may be said for Europe where the Jews, observant Christians, bona fide academics, scientists, musicians, artists and writers who refuse to toe the Islamist line will ultimately have to flee to Israel or the US to escape Islamic subjugation. It will be awesome watching the brain drain.
"Was there not made proclamations that the olde coyne, specially of golde, should not be current here above such a price: was not that the rediest way to dryve away our golde from us. Everything will go where it is most esteemed, and therefore our treasure went over in heapes."
-- John Hales
"Either Islam becomes European, or Europe becomes Muslim."
There is another option. Expulsion of muslims from Europe as happened in Spain, or an exchange of population groups - Muslims in Europe for the persecuted Christians in muslim nations.
Andrew: The French as a nation are opposed to Turkey in the EU, so are the Germans. What I do not understand is why the US is so keen to have Turkey in the EU, specially after the deliberate strategy of preventing US troops to be deployed in Iraq via Turkey.
The phrase "clash of civilizations," made famous by Samuel Huntington, is misleading. In Huntington's formulation (he owed an unacknowledged good deal to Adda Bozeman, who taught at Sarah Lawrence in the days when Kurt Rausch taught painting to well-bred young women, and Randall Jarrell was taking notes for "Pictures from an Institution"), there are the Sinic, the Orthodox, the Hindu, the Islamic, the Western, and so on. And these are all potentially clashing. But this is nonsense. There is only one clash that counts: that of Islam with all of non-Islam. If, in the future, China and America were to go to war, it would not be because the former is "Sinic" and the latter "Christian" or "Western" or somesuch, but because of perceived Great-Power rivalries -- for China and America are now part of the same civilization, the shared, modern, universal civilization, with disagreements at the edges, but nothing like the clash between Islam and all Infidels. In fact, a war between China and America would be about power, and thus no different than, for example, the rivalry, ending in war, between Germany and England in the pre-1914 period.
Instad of "clash of civilizations" (a phrase, by the way, that the Arabs and Muslims prefer, because it avoids the truthful description of the conflict as one motivated by a belief-system, the belief-system of Islam, and while America or "the West" may seem to be the enemy, it is as much directed at HIndus and Buddhists, or the Orthodox in the Balkans, or the non-Muslim black Africans, as it is against the much more powerful, and therefore more dangerous, United States of America).
And on another matter, Bassam Tibi is a Syrian, married to a German, who is Muslim in name only.And he has many virtues. But imagination is not among them. When he posits only two possiblities -- Europe becoming thoroughly islmaized, or Islam becoming Europeanized, he shows that limited imagination. When he offers the possiblity of Islam becoming Europeanized, he fails to discuss what that would mean? Would it mean simply wearing Western dress? Throwing out the hadith? Throwing out the hadith and the sira (going beyound the Ancient Mariner, Tibi would have them stoppeth two of three?)? Throwing out all of the sira, and all of the hadith, and then in addition throwing out, in a kind of reverse abrogation (where all the softer verses are now kept, and it is the harsher ones that are removed through abgoration)? Just how is this to be done? Who would do it? A committee? What committee? And how would it acquire sufficient authority to command belief from -- Believers?
No, there is another way, or many other ways. And the first way is to put a complete stop to Muslim immigration, and to find creative ways to deport all Muslim non-citizens, and to creatan environment where the practice of Islam is made not easy but difficult, and to engage in wholesale efforts at explaining, both to the population of Europe, and to the Muslims in its midst, the real nature of Islam, and why it is encourages despotism (because allegiance is owed the ruler as long as he is a Muslim), economic paralysis (the fatalism of Islam -- just look at the "wake-me-when-it's-over" attitude of the Iraqis, as the American soldiers struggle to rebuild, or build, a country that is populated by people who, in the main, are innately and immutably hostile to Infidels, but want to be transformed by those Infidels into New York -- and in a New York minute), intellectual failure (the cult of authority, the hostility to free and skeptical inquiry) and moral failure (the bland acceptance of the division of the world between Believer and Infidel, and the belief that it is right, it is just, to treat the Infidel, no matter what, as an inferior being, and as an enemey no matter how generous and open-hearted he may be, for after all he remains an Infidel, and not even to grasp the possibility that Infidel peoples and polities, too, no matter how small, deserve to survive, and to possess rights that do not depend on Muslims).
Then, one might engage in efforts to convert the Muslims of Europe -- persistent efforts that would either work in some cases, or drive those who were worried or offended to leave Europe for "safer" regions in the dar al-Islam. Both results are desirable.
In order for there to be a clash of civilizations, wouldn't there need to be more than one civilization involved?
"Then, one might engage in efforts to convert the Muslims of Europe -- persistent efforts that would either work in some cases, or drive those..."
Unfortunately there is NOTHING LEFT TO CONVERT THEM TO, as the secular left have chipped away at Christianity for the last thirty years or so and have left it castrated and hardly capable of mustering a congregation.
What ideology would replace the faith of these converted muslim? Hedonism ? oh wait, there is one religion which has not faltered and retained its integrity..... Judaism !
To DP111:
"What I do not understand is why the US is so keen to have Turkey in the EU."
I wrote to my senator, expressing some of the concerns about the EU admission of Turkey that have been mentioned here at Jihadwatch.
This was part of his response:
"For over fifty years, Turkey has been among the United States' most important allies in NATO and it stood with us on the front lines to deter Soviet agression. Recently, Turkey supported the United States in our effect to disarm Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. [sic] Cooperation between the two countries continues as Turkish and American intelligence agencies work together to locate and arrest terrorists found within Turkey.
"I believe Turkey is a model of a democratic, Muslim state that honors its religious traditions. In December the EU will meet to consider Turkey's candidacy and I hope that it provides Turkey with a firm date that it can expect to join, pending completion of the necesary legislation."
For the US, Turkey's admission to the EU is:
1) a reward for being part of NATO and protecting the West's eastern flank from communism;
2) a reward for fighting islamic terrorists at home; and
3) to provide an incentive for other muslim nations to embrace democracy.
My senator is a very capable man, but his ignorance on this issue is obvious. You can bet that unless they've delved into islam, islam's history and practices, most policymakers are equally ignorant as well.
Very enlightening, 3812Michelle. Thanks
Dear Michelle:
You senator may be a capable man, but his ignorance
IS OBVIOUS!
It would be up to you to get him to read up on Jihad Watch and to educate him.
Good Luck!