Eurabian art exhibition in Rome to celebrate "common Mediterranean identity"

"The EU as an organization is so thoroughly corrupted by such pro-Islamic sentiments that it is simply impossible to fight the Islamization of Europe without getting rid of the EU."

So, Fjordman, are you proposing that the EU be disbanded?

On the common Mediterranean identity.
Basically, it doesn,t exist. Actually, it is an East-West identity, basically incompatible.
I think Rudyard Kipling had it right.

"Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face,
tho' they come from the ends of the earth! "

Having things in common with someone doesn't preclude him from being a danger to you.

Fjordman: as the person you mean by "Those who question the Eurabia thesis", you might explain me why, if the wittering rubbish from the powerless Mr.Michel has any basis in fact, the one time when an Arab country, Morocco, actually applied for membership of European institutions, it was turned down flat? The facts are known. The documents are there. Go and read them. The EU did not even bother to "reflect"; it just delivered a nuanceless, unalterable NO. And it has done so ever since. Sorry, but obsessions and conspiracy theories sometimes have to meet reality in the face.

Hallo everybody, this is my 1st comment on Dhimmi Watch. I just wanted to say that I agree with Paolo: there is plenty of evidence against the Eurabia thesis, as the thesis is commonly understood*. I'll just mention 2 facts.
(1) Immigration to Europe was actually cut back when the Eurabian project is supposed to have come into effect, in the early 1970s. The motivation for the cutback in immigration was probably the same as the motivation for the Euro-Arab Dialogue: the oil crisis.
(2) Whatever people such as Louis Michel say, there is actually very little multiculturalism in the European core of Germany, France, and Italy. In particular, France is explicitly opposed to multiculturalism.
h/t to Jonathan Laurence (Boston College) who brought up these 2 issues in an interview on Frontpage magazine.

* I say "as the thesis is commonly understood" because neither Fjordman nor Andrew Bostom explicitly say what the thesis is: in their articles, they go right ahead in providing evidence for it; but how can we judge the evidence when we don't have a formulation of the thesis that we can test against the evidence?

The EU wants the oil.

They will trade their people for it.

The mullahs and sheiks want subjects, territory and most of all, power.

They will trade some oil for it.

It's a done deal.

Paolo:
Fjordman: as the person you mean by "Those who question the Eurabia thesis", you might explain me why, if the wittering rubbish from the powerless Mr.Michel has any basis in fact, the one time when an Arab country, Morocco, actually applied for membership of European institutions, it was turned down flat? The facts are known. The documents are there. Go and read them. The EU did not even bother to "reflect"; it just delivered a nuanceless, unalterable NO. And it has done so ever since. Sorry, but obsessions and conspiracy theories sometimes have to meet reality in the face.

Yes that is true.
Just as long as Sarkozy is in power, no way with Turkey become a member. And I think with the view that Romania & Bulgaria's level of corruption has never really been chopped (so membership was too hasty), the chances are slim that Albania will get membership anytime soon.

Nevertheless Sarkozy has proposed a Mediterranean trading bloc. See
http://wpherald.com/articles/4838/1/Sarkozy-backs-Mediterranean-trading-bloc/Leading-role-for-Turkey-sought.html

This bothers me. If it really gets off the ground, various Islamic nations around the Mediterranean might get "rights".
Further infiltration of Europe by Muslims.

Utopian madness.

But if the Eurabian kumbaya- lunacy is not true, can anyone explain why there are up to 20% Muhammedans in the EU parliament?

For more on this European confusion between geography and culture, and the dreamy belief that a mere sharing of the Mediterranean basin provides a link that can overcome, or should be allowed to let Infidels think can be overcome, the clear tenets of Islam, according to which the central division of humanity, the one that counts, is that between Believer and Infidel.

Paolo Mazzarro of the province of Lazio may not understand this. But many people in Italy do, and many more, thanks to Oriana Fallaci especially, and now to Magdi Allam (whose new book "Viva Israele" is as stout a defense of Israel that could possibly come from someone still unwilling to make a complete break with Islam, or to recognize that it is Islam itself that will never allow Muslims -- save for a handful such as Magdi Allam -- to recognize the legitimacy of Israel, and what's more, the legal and moral and historic rights to the land Israel now possesses, including, most obviously, what we have been carefully taught since 1948 to call the "West Bank."

But the division is not merely that of a body of water. The division is that of an ideology, a total belief-system so strong that it overcomes all natural human sympathies (say, that of children for parents, brothers for brothers, parents for children), and offers a Complete Regulation of Life, and Total Explanation of the Universe, that is completely unlike any other belief-system that we call a "religion" -- even if Muslim propagandists keep insisting on this "three-abrahamic faiths" business to keep the Infidels unwary and full of interfaith naivete until such time as the Muslim beachhead has been so solidly established that, in the Muslim view -- and I hope and believe they are very wrong -- cannot be undone.

This "deux-rivisme" is stronger in France than in Italy. You can find more about what has been written on the theme by googling “Jihad Watch” or "deux-rives" or "deux-rivistes" (or "deuxrivistes" to more obviously evoke "arrivistes"). An idiotic idea, whether it comes from the provincial government of Lazio or anywhere else.

sheikh yer'mami: why did the CIA, the FBI, the Ku-Klux-Klan and Marilyn Monroe murder John F. Kennedy?

Er.. they didn't?

Neither is "up to" 20% of the European Parliament Muslim. Not unless you take that "up to" as starting from a very remote distance indeed. The European Parliament is a detestable body, guilty of many crimes, but the data about its membership are not so hard of access. Here is a list of members: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/expert/alphaOrder.do?language=EN. Go through it patiently - after all, 535 items are not so monstrous a job to reckon - and you may find that someone sold you a pup.

The internet is there for these things. If you don't check what you say, you make yourself ridiculous in public.

sheik yer'mami:
But if the Eurabian kumbaya- lunacy is not true, can anyone explain why there are up to 20% Muhammedans in the EU parliament?

Total crap sheik yer'mami.

There are 785 MEPs in total
6 of them are Muslim:

2 from the UK
2 from Germany
1 from France
1 from Netherlands

That is less than 1%
You can see this here and I have no reason to question the figures once you see other figures like how many non-white, roma MEPS there are.

http://www.themuslimweekly.com/fullstoryview.aspx?NewsID=363D65AE27AD84FE66CF445E

Snorri Godhi:
Hallo everybody, this is my 1st comment on Dhimmi Watch.

Welcome. Everything is hard ball here but welcome.

(1) Immigration to Europe was actually cut back when the Eurabian project is supposed to have come into effect, in the early 1970s. The motivation for the cutback in immigration was probably the same as the motivation for the Euro-Arab Dialogue: the oil crisis.

I would like to see hard evidence of those "facts". I am aware of immigration to Europe taking place on a large scale in the 1950's-1960's: In the UK it was people from India, Pakistan & Bangladesh. In Germany mainly Turks. In France, Algerians. In the Netherlands, Moroccans and Indonesians. The common factor in most cases was a colonisation link (not all).
But I am not aware that immigrarion was scaled back in 1970's. Is that what you are claiming?

(2) Whatever people such as Louis Michel say, there is actually very little multiculturalism in the European core of Germany, France, and Italy. In particular, France is explicitly opposed to multiculturalism.

What do you mean by this?

In the UK, multiculturalism was 'in' 10 years ago. If you questioned the concept, you were considered racist. multiculturalism meant that the UK was community of different cultures, in theory, all getting on. Religions were respected institutionally.
But over 10 years, the flaws in multiculturalism become obvious. Some immigrants refused to integrate, refused to learn English, they formed their own ghettos.
There were race riots.
Trevor Phillips, one of the Governments think-tank people (Americans: Policy wonks) considers it a mistake. He believes now, that immigrants _have_ to fit in, become British.

In France, the policy was different. Immigrants were required to become French. And France was institutionally secular - your religion did not matter to France. There was the recent laws passed which meant religious symbols of any kind should not be worn by school children.
Where it fails is the French say one thing but do another. So in theory your "ethnic origin" does not matter to France, but you try getting a job if your from North Africa. In that sense, you are right - "France is explicitly opposed to multiculturalism", as a policy decision.
But the summer riots of 2005 made the French aware that their "institutionally secular" approach does not work. France's approach would work if the French really were agnostic about ethnic origin.

So France and Britain, 2 poles apart approach to immigrants - neither really working. But if you mean that France does not have many immigrants - you are wrong. Just go to Marseille or Lyon. It could be an Arab country. And France has 751 no-go areas -as listed by French Government - see here:
http://i.ville.gouv.fr/divbib/doc/chercherZUS.htm

France is now compartmentalised where "pockets" of France are supplementing French law with their own thing. What happens when "les banlieues" expand or grow in size?

So I consider the basic thesis of "Eurabia" as quite reasonable and the facts do support it rather than the other way round.

The late brilliant English journalist, Sir Bernard Levin, once declared himself a "lifelong collector of significant conjunctions"; of which one of the most significant, he said, was "so". Suddenly I know exactly what he means.

The "Eurabia thesis", as seen through admittedly hostile eyes, amounts to this: that in 1974, after the first oil shock, a secret cabal of mostly French politicians (can't trust those French, you know, they're too French) got together with the representatives of a number of Arab governments and basically resolved to turn the European Economic Community (as it then was) into a tool of Arab policies; and, incidentally, to allow unrestricted Muslim immigration into Europe (no reference being made to immigration from any other parts of the world). Since then, the servile yet obstinate Europeans have punctually, unswervingly and devotedly followed their part of the bargain. Which explains why Europe is always doing exactly what Riyadh and Damascus and Cairo say. And that is why some peculiarly stupid and irrelevant politician who wanted to sound visionary has once proposed that the European Union should eventually reach across the Mediterranean. See how everything fits in? See? See?

My answer to this was, first, that when a real live genuine Arab country from across the Mediterranean, namely Morocco, made a serious approach for membership to the European Union - or Economic Community, as it then was - it was turned down flat, on the simple and obvious grounds that Europe ends in Europe. No further talks were encouraged. That the Moroccans were in earnest about their proposal is sufficiently proved by the fact that they were still speaking about it years later. (Incidentally, there has been a serious proposal that one non-European country should be admitted into the EU. Said country was Israel. The proposal was made by the Italian prime minister Berlusconi, a deeply unserious man, which is perhaps why it was not taken very seriously. But, unlike Morocco's, it was never rejected.) Second, the whole notion presupposes the existence of a common European foreign policy as early as the 1970s, which is nonsense. There is no common European foreign policy now, much less then. Third, that the bodies whose existence Bat Ye'or, Andrew Bostum and Fjordman find so satanically threatening are merely one of a vast penumbra of international talking shops existing powerlessly in the powerless shadow of the European Parliament, the talking-shop of talking-shops. Fourth, as Snorri the Godhi pointed out, immigration into Europe actually died down in the seventies, because of the economic crisis. Fifth, as I pointed out, when it was revived, after the fall of the Soviet Empire, it involved enormous numbers of people from all continents and cultures, Muslims being not even a majority. Seventh, the evidence of the eagerness of all Europeans to submit to Muslim terrors is by no means so obvious as the obviously jaundiced eyes of Bat Ye'or and her followers, who visibly hate Europe and Europeans, have made it by highly selective quotation.

These are the argument and rebuttal. So UK Infidel Lover intervenes by saying that multiculturalism was rather popular in Britain ten years ago and that France expects everyone to conform to the French anticlerical model. And this, in his view, proves that the Eurabian thesis is well founded.

Let me repeat this: in his view, the fact that there was a fad for multi-culturalism in England about ten years ago proves that a gaggle of mostly French politicians sold Europe's soul to the Muslim devil in 1974.

Proves it.

If anyone ever wanted evidence that logic and debate are not taught in English school, I think this would be conclusive. And frankly, I find that just as scary and as much a threat to our future as the admittedly threatening and violent Muslim presence. Violence, we can fight; but what can anyone do with a whole nation that has not been taught to think?

I didn't know Europeans liked beheading people, on video, with butcher knives, too!

Learn something new every damned day.

Paolo:
The "Eurabia thesis", as seen through admittedly hostile eyes, amounts to this: that in 1974, after the first oil shock, a secret cabal of mostly French politicians (can't trust those French, you know, they're too French) got together with the representatives of a number of Arab governments and basically resolved to turn the European Economic Community (as it then was) into a tool of Arab policies

No. It was a lot earlier than that.
Charles de Gaulle in the 1960's started developing good relationships with the Arab nations subsequent to the Algerian war in 1962. All of this was because of straight envy: he disliked the fact that France (and Europe) was smaller than the USA on the world stage. He wanted Europe as a counterbalance to the USA.
Do remember that he pulled France out of the Nato alliance in 1966.

...and, incidentally, to allow unrestricted Muslim immigration into Europe (no reference being made to immigration from any other parts of the world)

Well it has amounted to that. Ask how many other non-Muslim groups have emigrated to Europe since World War 2? Not many - I can think of Hindu's from India and Uganda (because of Idi Amin), but not many others.

Since then, the servile yet obstinate Europeans have punctually, unswervingly and devotedly followed their part of the bargain. Which explains why Europe is always doing exactly what Riyadh and Damascus and Cairo say. /i>

I think you mean this tongue-in-cheek to punch holes in the Eurabian thesis. But it doesnt.
It is more subtle than that. Riyadh is certainly spending huge amount of money in Europe trying to advance Islam within Europe. I think it knows with Oil running out, its time is limited.

And that is why some peculiarly stupid and irrelevant politician who wanted to sound visionary has once proposed that the European Union should eventually reach across the Mediterranean. See how everything fits in? See? See?

You seem determined to punch holes in the Eurabian thesis. But your hole punching amounts to odd arguments. Do I care about the Eurabian thesis? Not really, not at all, I have never advanced it, it is only a thesis. A thesis amounts to several sub-thesis's advanced. All I have to do is see how well the sub-thesis's fit the facts. I am not really interested in the various thesis, just the historical records.

What is certain is:
- that Europe has had large number of Muslims immigrate to it. That is not debatable. Denmark passed a recent strong anti-immigration laws because they worked out they would be a minority in their own country in 62 years.
- that Europe has had a rise of anti-semitism over the past 10 years
- that the European political elite have not consulted their electorate as to the rising tide of illegal immigration, not all Muslim, no, but certainly a huge proportion. In fact they have done nothing in defence or consideration.
- that various European nations (mostly the French) have cultivated relationships with Arabic nations.

And this, in his view, proves that the Eurabian thesis is well founded.

Did I say that? No I didnt.

Let me repeat this: in his view, the fact that there was a fad for multi-culturalism in England about ten years ago proves that a gaggle of mostly French politicians sold Europe's soul to the Muslim devil in 1974.

Did I say 1974? No I didnt.

Your putting words in my mouth. I have never said that I am agreement 100%, that the Eurabian thesis is true. But what I am certain on is that you saying that there is 0% fit for the Eurabian thesis, is false. Note the 0%.

Anyone have a link tyo the show so we can check out the artwork?

Hallo again. Thanks to UK Infidel Lover and Paolo for their responses. Basically, I agree with Paolo's argument, except that I don't think that UK Infidel's argument is a good example of British irrationality: the British Left is much, much less rational than UK Infidel, in fact most of them have trouble stringing together two lines of text without contradicting themselves -- especially when writing for the Guardian or the Independent.

Without going into the details of your debate, please allow me to start from scratch.
Once again, I don't know what the Eurabia thesis actually amounts to: Fjordman and Andrew Bostom don't say, and I am not going to read an entire book just to find out. But if there is anything of interest in the thesis, then it must be one or more of the following:
(1) there is a EU conspiracy to increase Arab immigration into Europe;
(2) there is a EU conspiracy to (a) isolate Arab immigrants from European culture and (b) force-feed Arab culture on native Europeans;
(3) there is a EU conspiracy to align European foreign policy with Arab interests.

NB1: by using the word "conspiracy" I do NOT intend to discredit the Eurabia thesis: conspiracies do exist in the real world, e.g. there was a conspiracy between Hitler and Stalin.
NB2: I say "Arab" instead of "Muslim" because the centerpiece is the Euro-Arab Dialogue, not the Euro-Muslim Dialogue.
(continued in part 2)

(continued from part 1)
Let's consider the 3 interpretations of the Eurabia thesis:
(1) there is a EU conspiracy to increase Arab immigration into Europe.
Actually, I don't need to discuss this, because Andrew Bostom already said that the thesis has nothing to do with immigration. However, since UK Infidel has asked, I should give an answer.
I don't have figures for immigration, but I know, or I think I know (correct me if I am wrong), a few facts. In the 1970s, economic immigration to Europe was closed, due to the oil crisis. Would-be immigrants, rationally, changed strategy and became refugees. More recently, European governments have started cracking down on refugees. Would-be immigrants changed strategy once more and started marrying their way into Europe. Denmark has started cracking down on that, too, and no doubt other countries will follow the Danish example.
In short, European governments, far from encouraging immigration, have tried to close every loophole for immigrants.
I should add that Arab immigration has been minimal to most EU countries: it's mostly South Asians to the UK and Turks to Germany, for instance.

(2) there is a EU conspiracy to (a) isolate Arab immigrants from European culture and (b) force-feed Arab culture on native Europeans.
As for (a), it is true that Arab immigrants are often not integrated. Whether governments wanted this to happen, is another question. In most cases, government policies achieve the opposite of what was intended, so it is likely that the alienation of immigrants is the result of government attempts at integration.
As for (b), I simply do not see any evidence that European governments are doing much to foster Arab culture on us. Opinion polls show that Muslims are viewed more negatively in Europe than in Britain or the USA. The Muhammad cartoons were published in almost every European country, the main exceptions being Britain, Sweden, and Finland. They were not published in the USA, except for Harper's and local newspapers.

(3) there is a EU conspiracy to align European foreign policy with Arab interests.
All what I can say is that Paolo is right: there is no united EU foreign policy. That was seen in the build-up to the Iraq war.

Did I look specifically at facts that falsify the Eurabia thesis? yes, of course I did: you cannot have rational confidence in a hypothesis, if you don't try as hard as possible to falsify it.

Snorri Godhi:
the British Left is much, much less rational than UK Infidel, in fact most of them have trouble stringing together two lines of text without contradicting themselves -- especially when writing for the Guardian or the Independent

I am actually right-wing. I hate the Guardian.
But I do have respect for the Independent. It tends to run interesting headlines with disturbing headlines - things we ought to know (like what is happening with the waste we produce). No other newpaper has disturbed me out of my comfort zone more than this one. I regard that as a good thing. It tends to run less trite news stories. Nevertheless, I disagree with the Independent's political views, they are similar to the Guardian.

The basic problem with left-wing philosophy is that it is bankrupt of ideas. We have witnessed the collapse of Communism. Nobody believes it anymore. And the conundrum of most Socialist Governments is, "Where is the money going to come from to fund all the programs I wish to run?".

It is not that I dont believe in helping people. From from it. The question is, "How? How do you really really help people?".

Socialist Governments have noble goals.
They wish to help people.
But there is not a single country (with the possible exception of the Nordic countries: Sweden, Denmark & Norway), where the countries have got richer under Socialism/Communism.
Think about Eastern Europe, Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam. But they have got richer under right-wing Governments. For all its faults, for all its unevenness, it deliveries the goods. My hero is Adam Smith and the ability to trade. It generates wealth, puts money in peoples pockets.

10 years down the line, people will see that in Venezula, Hugo Chavez has failed to help the poor that he set out to do.
And the French have had enough of their left-wing failing to deliver more prosperity. They have seen sense. Lionel Jospin, Ségolenè Royale, Francois Holland have failed to deliver. The French want some of what the UK has.

Socialism miserably fails to deliver on the very things it sets out to do. It vilifies Capitalism, but the latter does a better job (even though it can be heartless).

(1) there is a EU conspiracy to increase Arab immigration into Europe;
(2) there is a EU conspiracy to (a) isolate Arab immigrants from European culture and (b) force-feed Arab culture on native Europeans;
(3) there is a EU conspiracy to align European foreign policy with Arab interests.

I dont think it is as much as that. I dont see it as a formal conspiracy. I am aware that Charles de Gaulle did court Arab countries during his term of office. But after 1969?
That I dont know. Nor other European countries (like Germany's relationship with Arab countries). In that sense I am with Paolo here. If there is evidence, I need to be convinced.
But on a anecdotal level, it seems that Europe as a whole, is pro-Arab and anti-Israel.
I would like to research post-de Gaulle French Foreign policy. And I would like to research other European countries foreign relationships with Arab nations over the post World War 2 period. And study any offical documents of historic diplomatic meetings.

NB2: I say "Arab" instead of "Muslim" because the centerpiece is the Euro-Arab Dialogue, not the Euro-Muslim Dialogue.

That is an interesting distinction.
There are Arabs who are not Muslim. The Copts of Egypt count as that. But I dont believe their political influence is that great.
There are Muslims who are not Arabs. And some of them have a profound effect on some European countries. I believe the Pakistani, Indian Muslims & Bangladeshi have an impact on the UK, the Indonesians on the Dutch, the Turks on Germans. I need to check out how many ethnic Muslims there are in other European countries.

I am sorry, but UK Infidel Lover's arguments do not improve in quality. Migrant minorities in Europe are not made entirely or largely of Muslims; I doubt they are even the relative majority. Haven't you heard of the recent Chinese riots in Milan? Europe is full of Chinese: they even managed the miracle of getting Italians interested in food traditions other than their own. What about the Afro-Caribbean minorities in Britain and France? Spain and Italy are full of Latin Americans and Filipinos. Black Africans, mostly Christian, are everywhere - one of them became a national football player for Poland, and the largest church in Kyiv, Ukraine, is said to be a Nigerian immigrant church. So, certainly, is the largest church in London (the Kingsway International Centre in Hackney, with room for thousands of worshippers). Immigrants are fuelling an unnoticed rebirth of Christian life in Britain; just step into any urban Catholic or Anglican parish on a Sunday, and have a good look at the skin colours of the congregation, and, often, of the celebrant. Rome is dense with Filipino maids and "badanti" - a new professional name covering people who help elderly or infirm Italians who live alone. And I distinctly remember my vague sense of puzzlement when I started feeling that I was seeing more blonde people in the East End of London than I was used to - that was Bethnal Green in about 2002, and I was seeing the first advances of the enormous Polish and Baltic wave of immigrants. In Italy it's more often Rumanians, but the impact has been equally great.

The same is true of the immigration of the fifties. GErmany let in hundreds of thousands of Turkish Gastarbeiter, but also equally huge numbers of Italian ones; and why not? there were mines to be dug, factories to be staffed, streets to be cleaned, and simply too few locals to get the job done. Today you do not hear about the Italian or Portuguese Gastarbeiter; you do not hear about the Polish or Italian or white Algerian immigrants in France. Not that they have not had their own problems associated with them (Italian Gastarbeiter in Germany brought the Mafia with them, just as Chinese immigrants in Italy much later brought their own kind of organized crime), but somehow, they seemed able to live with the majority in ways that the Turks of Germany and the Algerians of France just did not. By the same token, nobody minds the large and beautiful Hindu temple in Neasden, or the increasingly opulent and handsome Sikh Gurdwars all over Britain; somehow, and in spite of serious cultural problems ("honour killing", in particular, is as much a problem of the Hindu and Sikh groups as it is of the Muslims), other South Asians do not seem as intractable and dangerous as the Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian Muslim minorities.

That is the issue. There has been no nevarious elite plan kept secret from the unhappy populace to let in increasing numbers of immigrants. In the post-1989 world, immigration is an overwhelming force with its own dynamics. Anyone who is familiar with what is going on in the Mediterranean right now (where people smugglers can earn $40,000 by a single shipment of Africans on a rubber dinghy) knows that no power on Earth could stop it. This is a kind of crime where the victims themselves pay, and pay plenty. One African in two die in the crossing, and still they come. Chinese stifle to death by the dozen in the backs of lorries, enslave themselves to Triads for tens of thousands of pounds, and still they come. East European with medical or engineering degrees come to break their backs in the West picking fruit or sweeping streets; but still they come. Governments did not cause this wave of immigration, they can do absolutely nothing about it. Do you know what causes it? When an African with bare feet, walking on dirt tracks (even in major cities) with sewage ditches running on their sides, sees, on TV, European and American cities with paved roads, where everyone is wearing shoes, and the clothes are visibly better than anything they are used to seeing except on politicians and the rich. Their perception, quite rightly, is that in Europe and North America everyone lives as only the very rich live in their country. And so, as soon as they have saved a few thousand dollars - as often as not, contributed by family and friends - they set out. THIS CANNOT BE STOPPED. Everyone in the Third World, these days, has access to media - radio, TV, portable phones (an immense success in India and Africa), the Internet. If they do not have them at home, they can access them at the local bar where all the young men meet, or in shops, or public offices, or internet cafes. You cannot stop them wanting a way of life that is visibly better than anything available to them at home. And so they come.

What is true is that, among these poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free and anxious to sell their labour for prices that seem unimaginable at home, the Muslim portion is consistently more trouble than the rest. I would not be a regular on this site if I did not think that Islam was a major social problem and a severe danger in our world. What I do reject is the silly conspiracy theory behind which lies a visible hatred of Europe (nobody has so far tried to refute my assessment of Bat Ye'or's anti-European prejudice). The impersonal forces of economy and ambition are quite enough to explain what is going on.

As for Israel and Europe's supposedly anti-Hebraic turn, I think there is a small matter here of people using the same words to mean different things. At the back of it, of course, lies Muslim propaganda. Most Europeans have become convinced that Israel could in fact have peace in return for abandoning the territories it occupied in 1967; especially since such a deal with Egypt does seem to have worked out. But Europeans and Muslims mean entirely different things. Most Europeans, except for a few offensive maniacs in Britain and Norway, would be horrified by the demise of Israel, and feel justified in criticizing its policies in public just because Israel's strength seems so overwhelming as to insure that, whatever is said or done, it will not be in serious danger of its existence again. Most Muslims, when they criticize Israel, mean something quite different. And that is why, when Hamas won the Palestinian elections, it had the horrid surprise of the European and American boycott. They had convinced themselves that the West was growing as anti-Israeli as they themselves were; they did not realize that there is a non plus ultra beyond which most Europeans and Americans simply will not go.

P.S.: when I said that the land-for-peace deal with Egypt seems to have worked out, I meant very much on the surface. I meant that the average ignorant European could convince him or herself that the deal was working, and that thus its model could be transferred elsewhere. Of course, knowing what I know about Egyptian media and politicians, about Al Azhar, and about the persecution of Christians in Egypt, I am a great deal more skeptical. I am just trying to make a frame of mind clearer.

P.P.S>: When I said that the impulse to migrate cannot be stopped, I did not mean, of course, that measures cannot be taken to repress it at our end, and to send back as many of the unwanted arrivals as possible, weeding out the most undesirable first. That is something that should be expected of any State authority. What I was saying is that nobody can do anything either to encourage or to discourage the original impulse of the poor of the world to move to places where life is better. And that there is no need of any conspiracy theories to explain it.

Paolo

I think that Europeans and Americans are in two different leagues when it comes to supporting Israel vs the Muslims. In the US, majority opinion is clearly and unambivalently pro-Israel. While you're probably right that Europe would probably be shocked if Israel were to disappear, Europe would nonetheless prefer that Israel go back to its 1948 borders. OTOH, for Americans, if Israel were to implement the 'transfer solution' and expel all Palestinians out of West Bank and Gaza, they still would have majority American support, whereas their support level in Europe would probably be non-existant.

There isn't that sympathy or support for Fatah in the US public that there is in the State Department or the White House.

Up to a point, Infidel Pride. I think Europeans would be wildly shocked early on, but I very much doubt whether it would make a major and permanent change in their attitudes vis-a-vis the issue of Israel's existence. After a while, they would probably forget it (how many Europeans remember the issue of the Golan Heights, for instance?). Frankly, my view is that Israel should have thrown the lot out (except for Christians and Druzes) in 1967, but that was not imaginable in that oh-so-idealistic decade.

Apparently, the debate has turned to European foreign policy. Once more, I find myself in broad agreement with Paolo. One thing that cannot be stressed too strongly is that the euro-left (NOT including Britain and Scandinavia) is qualitatively different from the anglo-left. As far as multi-culturalism is concerned, the euro-left is, to put it crudely, to the right of G.W. Bush. Americans and Britons, both left and right, see that Europeans vote for central planning, see Muslims all over Western Europe, see that Europeans show support for Palestinians, and assume that the 3 things are connected, but they should not jump to conclusions. Muslim immigration is due to geography and colonial history. Support for Palestinians is much less in Europe than it is in American universities. Most Europeans are still capable of distinguishing between the Israeli government and the Jews, which the anglo-left has trouble doing.

Anglo-conservatives are, in my opinion, right to worry about Muslim immigration and (non-)integration in Europe, but wrt culture wars, they should worry about their own countries, and avoid alienating Europeans, at least when they don't know what they are talking about.

Paolo: I cannot say whether Bat Ye'or is anti-European because I don't know her work; as I said, I don't even know precisely what "Eurabia" really means, and it's not because I didn't try to understand.
Incidentally, can you give a link for the data on the relative numbers of Muslim and non-Muslim immigrants?

Snorri Godhi: I would not use anything that claims to be a statistic on inwards immigration in Europe and the USA, because I distrust it on principle. The obvious fact that these people move mostly outside the law, and that their main concern is not to end up on the databanks of the local government, means that any definite numbers will be guesswork at best. What I say is nothing more than what you can see by walking out in the street in Rome or London (the two cities I know best): that the Chinese communities are visibly large and growing, that black Africans are everywhere, that the Filipinos are making a definite corner in maid and domestic help jobs, that more and more shops are catering to Poles and East Europeans, that Latin Americans can be found in the oddest places. When, five years ago, Brazil won its last World Cup, London - not the most intuitive place to find Brazilian immigration - turned green and yellow all over; you could not turn a corner without finding a small group of Brazilians celebrating. The fact is that a lot of these groups are invisible. Many Latin Americans, for instance, come already speaking a little English - most often of American vintage - and Chinese and West Indians come to join old - sometimes downright ancient - and settled communities. The West Indian-originated Notting Hill Gate Carnival is, today, the greatest occasion of the year in London, eclipsing such native events as the Lord Mayor's Show, and drawing in an enormous and deligthed mostly white crowd. The quarter in Milan where the Chinese recently rioted has been the local Chinatown since before I was born; I remember my mother telling me about it when I was ten. This tends to make new arrivals invisible: when you are used to see black faces in a district, almond-eyed faces in another, you do not count the number. You do not even think about it, until you realize that one person speaks Italian or English much better than another - and that, perhaps, the second person, the one with none of the local language, seems eager not to catch your eye. Back in 2001, when I did a brief temporary job as a census taker in London, I found a whole building full (in the same flats) of charming and very pretty teen-age Brazilian prostitutes AND Somali illegals in strict Muslim dress!