RUTHFULLY YOURS

In 2002, on the BBC TV show Question Time, I was accused of dual loyalty in front of a jeering studio audience. My crime had been to defend Israel against demonization and double standards by both the audience and other members of the panel.http://www.melaniephillips.com/britains-alarming-antisemitism-problem/

At that time I had visited Israel only twice in my life, two years previously. No matter. A British Jew defending Israel was – and is – immediately accused in some quarters of incipient treachery toward Britain, just as throughout history antisemites have accused Diaspora Jews of dual loyalty or treachery merely because they are Jews.

I thought of my own experience, of course, when I read the report on antisemitism in the UK published this week by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research.

There is currently much disquiet over the Labour Party’s conspicuous failure to address significant antisemitism within its ranks. But there has long been far wider concern among many British Jews about the antisemitic discourse, harassment and physical attacks which have become sickeningly commonplace in Britain over the past few years.

The report’s author, Daniel Staetsky, describes a situation which is complex.

Only around 5% of the population are out-and-out antisemites holding multiple anti-Jewish attitudes. Nevertheless, about 30% subscribe to some kind of antisemitic views.

The key is Staetsky’s distinction between antisemites and antisemitism. For while the number of antisemites is very small, the amount of antisemitism diffused throughout British society is much greater.

That’s because, while people may not feel personal hostility toward Jews, they may believe certain things which are in themselves antisemitic. As Staetsky says: “Antisemitic ideas are not as marginal in Great Britain as some measures of antisemitism suggest, and they can be held with and without open dislike of Jews.”

As a result, the probability for a British Jew of encountering “potentially offensive or, at the very least, uncomfortable” views is about one in three. That’s high.

Staetsky states, however, that 70% of British people hold a “favorable” attitude toward Jews. He reaches that optimistic figure, though, only by reducing respondents’ options to categorize their attitudes. When offered more options, the scenario for British Jews becomes less rosy: only around 39% have “somewhat” or “very” favorable opinions of Jews, more than 5% are classed as “somewhat” or “very” unfavorable and nearly 56% are classed as neither favorable nor unfavorable or as “didn’t know.”

Two groups are shown to be principally responsible for problematic attitudes: Muslims and the Left.

While “significant proportions of Muslims reject all such prejudice,” antisemitism and anti-Israel attitudes are two to four times higher among Muslims than in the general population.

And contrary to the claim by those on the Left that they can’t be antisemitic because they are opposed to racism and fascism, the report says levels of antisemitism on the Left are “indistinguishable” from in the rest of the population.

When it comes to Israel, however, the Left is worse. Even those who are “slightly left-of-center” or “fairly left-wing” are more anti-Israel than the general population, while the more left-wing people are the more they hate Israel. You don’t say!

Moreover, says Staetsky, while only 12% of the population are out-and-out Israel-bashers, close to a quarter of Britons believe, to some extent at least, that Israel is deliberately trying to wipe out the Palestinian population, and about one in five that Israel is an apartheid state.

These are huge numbers for such poisonous lies. And no fewer than 56% hold at least one anti-Israel attitude.

So as Staetsky says, the feeling among so many Jews that they encounter anti-Israel positions all the time becomes immediately comprehensible.

The true extent of antisemitism has, of course, been masked by claims that being anti-Israel is not the same as being anti-Jew. Staetsky, however, states: “The existence of an association between the antisemitic and the anti-Israel attitudes tested is unambiguous.”

Moreover, the stronger the hostility to Israel the more likely it is to be accompanied by antisemitic attitudes such as that “Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes.” And that correlation puts left-wing Israel-bashers squarely in the antisemitism camp.

Staetsky makes the link solely through a statistical overlap between anti-Israel and antisemitic attitudes. I’d go further. Anti-Israel discourse has exactly the same unique characteristics as antisemitism.

PARIS — Four American college students were attacked with acid by a woman on Sunday at a train station in southern France, injuring at least two of them, according to the local police.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/17/world/europe/marseille-france-acid-attack.html?mcubz=0

The assailant, a 41-year-old woman, was quickly arrested in the Mediterranean port city of Marseille. The police prefecture said they were not treating the attack on the American women as a terrorist assault.

The suspect has “a psychiatric history,” a spokeswoman for the police prefecture in Marseille said. “For now, nothing suggests that this was a terrorist attack.”

The four American women, all in their early 20s, were in front of the Saint-Charles train station when a woman threw hydrochloric acid on them shortly before 11 a.m., the police said.

Two of the women were burned, and the other two appeared to have escaped injury, but they were in a state of shock, according to police. All four were treated at a hospital on Sunday.

Boston College said in a statement on Sunday that the four women were students at the college and were enrolled in study-abroad programs. They were identified as Courtney Siverling, Charlotte Kaufman, Michelle Krug and Kelsey Kosten, all juniors.

Nick Gozik, who directs Boston College’s Office of International Programs, said in an email that the women had “recently arrived to start the fall semester.”

In the college’s statement, he added, “It appears that the students are fine, considering the circumstances, though they may require additional treatment for burns.”

The prosecutor’s office could not be reached for comment, but told France 3 that one of the women had been hit in the eye with acid and had trouble seeing.

France has been on high alert for terrorism since 2015, after a series of attacks killed more than 230 people. There have also been a number of attacks by psychologically unstable residents who have sometimes imitated terrorist acts, officials say.

La Provence, the main local newspaper, quoted police sources as saying that after the attack, the suspect had displayed pictures of herself with burns on her body. The prosecutor’s office said the suspect also had a criminal record for violent theft, according to France 3.

In 2013, two American women, Kirstie Trup and Katie Gee, both 18, who were teaching on the island of Zanzibar, were attacked with acid by two men on a moped who stopped, smiled and doused them, severely burning their faces, chests and hands, before speeding away.

In London this year, two teenage boys went on a violent, 72-minute spree in the northeast, spraying acid on five people, the authorities said. The teenagers were arrested on suspicion of robbery and of causing grievous bodily harm.

“Not long ago Professor Koopmans found that as much as seventy percent of Muslims find Islamic rules more important than secular laws.” – Geert Wilders.

“Research also points out that 11 percent of Dutch Muslims in the Netherlands are prepared to use violence on behalf of their religion. That is a 110,000 people, twice the size of the Dutch army!” – Geert Wilders.

I personally believe there are extremist people and moderate people. But I do not believe in two kinds of Islam. There is only one…. You get your head chopped off should you wish to interpret Islam…. People who want to come to the Netherlands from Islamic countries should think: this is not a place we want to go to! And we do not do this to bully Muslims, but to keep the Netherlands of the future a free Netherlands.” – Geert Wilders.

Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders is deeply concerned about Muslim integration. In our series Islam in the Netherlands he is warning about the “perishing”of our culture. “It is not five to twelve or two to twelve, it is almost morning!” The leader of the second party in the country is pondering about very far-reaching measures.

Geert Wilders (54) is not surprised at the shocking poll results released by daily newspaper De Telegraaf. The fact that only thirteen percent of the Dutch population feel that the problem of integration will solve itself is a writing on the wall, according to him. And that only eleven percent of the Dutch see Islam as an enrichment proves in his opinion that what he has been calling for years. “If I had said that three years ago, I would have had tens of thousands of police reports thrown at me. But people are completely fed up with it. ”

How do you explain the figures?

“Decades ago, a few thousand people from Islamic countries would stay temporarily. But temporarily turned out to be permanently. Those thousands of guest workers became hundreds of thousands. And in Europe millions of people by now. Back then those people were called upon to integrate and assimilate. But Islam, the word says it already, seeks to dominate. Not long ago Professor Koopmans found that as much as seventy percent of Muslims find Islamic rules more important than secular laws. In Europe almost weekly innocent people are slaughtered in name of Allah and Islam. Proudly. We have been declared war and we refuse to defend ourselves.”

Who is responsible for this?

“I think that probably the worst of all is that Western European politicians have allowed this to happen. Last week Sybrand Buma of the Christian democratic party CDA was suddenly critical of Islam. That is like a bank robber who, twenty years after the robbery, has spent all the money and apologizes for doing so. He is the one who did it. CDA has been in power in the Netherlands for 50 years. ”

Is it not a bit blunt to say …

“No!”

… that Muslims do not integrate?

“I am talking about Islam. But research also points out that 11 percent of Dutch Muslims in the Netherlands are prepared to use violence on behalf of their religion. That is a 110,000 people, twice the size of the Dutch army! ”

But perhaps many Muslims in fact take Islam less serious and profess their faith behind the front door, peacefully. Secretary Asscher of Integration said in this paper last week that those people should not be held accountable for terrorist attacks.

The Nord-Vest Private School in Copenhagen, came under investigation by Danish authorities during an unannounced visit after teaching materials were found extolling and encouraging young people to commit jihad. Luqman Pedersen, a Danish convert to Islam, admitted to the authorities that the school wishes to create a parallel Muslim society.

Two former teachers at the Nord-Vest school described how the children at the school spoke of Danes in terms of “them and us”. In a school poetry contest, several of the children composed poems that detailed their wish to beat up and break the legs and hands of the “Danish pigs”.

“I teach religion, but I was not allowed to teach Christianity. Instead, a visiting imam from Iraq taught Christianity… I could imagine that some of the boys I taught could have been radicalized,” a teacher said. The teachers tried to alert both politicians and authorities to some of the problems they had witnessed, but no one would listen.

Some Muslim schools in Denmark appear to be employing anti-Semitic teachers, enforcing gender inequality, employing violence against students, offering poor education in general, and teaching jihad.

There are 26 Muslim schools in Denmark. While they operate independently of the public schools, the state sponsors them heavily — as it does other independent schools in Denmark — covering 75 % of their budget. The demand for Muslim schools in Denmark has grown in the last decade, as Muslim schools have increased their number of pupils by almost 50% since 2007; they now cater to almost 5,000 pupils. (It is unknown, however, how many Muslim children learn in the so-called “Koran schools,” where Islam and Arabic are taught after school to those children who do not attend a Muslim day school. Koran schools — as revealed in the Danish TV documentary “Sharia in Denmark”) — are not under any supervision from state or municipal authorities).

Danish educational authorities are currently investigating seven Muslim schools for failing to follow the laws of independent schools, including the requirement that they prepare the students for life in Danish society, and teaching them about democracy and gender equality. That amounts to more than one quarter of all Muslim schools. The first Muslim school opened in Denmark in 1980. Nearly forty years later, Danish politicians appear to be only beginning to comprehend or take seriously the challenges that several of these schools present to Danish society.