The Disgraceful And Terrifying Revival Of Violent Jew Hate In Europe [Special Report]
As the Middle East once again erupts into violence, and more than two thousand Hamas rockets are fired at Israeli’s cities, we are also witnessing an alarming and terrifying rise in vicious, violent, undisguised Jew hate in the major cities of Europe. While we may be used to seeing mobs in Gaza, Cairo or Tehran screaming for Jewish blood and the utter annihilation of Israel, the spectacles of chaos and brutality now taking place in Berlin, Athens, London, Kiev and Paris are another matter entirely.
The readers of The Inquisitr, many of whom are friends of the Jewish state, want to know why this is happening and what the future may bring. To answer these questions, we have invited our friend and colleague, Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs to join us for an interview. As the author of many important books on Jew hate and the demonization of Israel, Dr. Gerstenfeld has always been one of the most outspoken and powerful voices for the continued existence and prosperity of the Jewish nation of Israel, with her undivided, eternal capital of Jerusalem.
While mobs of Muslims, Neo-Nazis, Leftists, Anarchists and useful idiots rampage through Jewish neighborhoods in the cities of Europe and dozens of Hamas terror tunnels are discovered under Israel’s soil, Dr. Gerstenfeld sat down with the Editor In Chief of The Inquisitr, Wolff Bachner, to shed some light on this truly disturbing state of affairs. Are we witnessing the beginnings of another Jewish Holocaust? Will this ugly manifestation of Islamic Jew hate only increase as the Muslim population in Europe continues to grow?
We will begin our journey with an essay by Wolff Bachner, and then we will be joined by Dr. Gerstenfeld for what we believe will be a truly remarkable interview.
A Twisted Narrative Of Pathological Jew Hate
An introduction by Wolff Bachner
Editor In Chief of The Inquisitr
Scattered and dispersed after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE, a large portion of Israel’s Jewish population was forced into exile to wander stateless and unwanted among the nations of the earth.
Although the Jewish people did manage to maintain a continuous population in Israel to the present day, most of ancient Israel’s Jews and their descendants spent the next 19oo years in foreign lands with the words of Psalm 137 from the Old Testament ever on their lips:
If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy.
Jews were reviled as Christ killers by many Christians and as murderers of the Prophets by the Muslims. Accusations of poisoning wells, spreading the plague and murdering Christian and Muslim children to use their blood to make Passover Matzoh hung like a sword over the neck of every Jewish community. Thousands upon thousands of Jewish men, women and children were butchered over these repulsive blood libels.
And so it went in nation after nation over the centuries until we arrived at the gates of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec. These were the extermination camps where Hitler and his minions planned to cleanse the earth of the Jewish people once and for all. Six million died before the world finally lost its taste for Jewish blood.
The victorious Allied Powers now had the tattered remnants of Europe’s Jews to feed, and they were becoming an expensive burden. Then, finally, almost 2000 years after the exile began, the world, acting more out of guilt than sympathy, decided the best way to get rid of those pesky Jews was to give back a piece of desert the size of New Jersey to re-establish the state of Israel.
Now, after 2000 years of ending every Passover Seder with the words, NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM, the Jewish people were going home. That dream lasted about five minutes before the Arab League informed the United Nations that the moment Israel became a nation, the armies of seven Arab nations, some trained and equipped by the British, would be quite happy to kill every single Jew in the fledgling nation of Israel.
Undaunted by threats, and with nowhere else to go, on May 15, 1948, David Ben-Gurion spoke the words that every Jewish soul had waited two thousand years to hear:
“We hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.”
Did the world rejoice at our miraculous return from near-annihilation to reclaim our nation and our ancestral homeland? Did our Arab Neighbors shed tears of joy that Abraham’s children were finally reunited?
No! Haj Amin al-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem, who spent World War Two in Berlin as a guest of Hitler, bellowed his hate: “Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history and religion.”
Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, ever the politician, was utterly civil and charming as he proclaimed, “I personally wish that the Jews do not drive us to this war, as this will be a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Tartar massacre or the Crusader wars.”
For the Israelis, losing the war was not an option and, against all odds, it was the Arabs who were defeated. 400,000 Arabs fled Israel to be refused citizenship by the 22 nations of the Arab league. They were herded into camps where they remain to this day, another self-inflicted wound that has been used as a perfidious weapon to batter the Jews in the court of public opinion.
Israel meanwhile absorbed a large portion of the 900,000 Jewish refugees booted out of every Arab nation in the aftermath of 1948 with a single suitcase, evicted from their homes in countries where Jews had lived centuries before the birth of Islam. 900,000 Jews of Middle Eastern ancestry whose offspring are now a significant portion of Israel’s Jewish population. Israel welcomed her children home, while the Arabs turned their refugees into perpetual victims of their rabid desire to destroy Israel, no matter the cost.
Mind you, no sane human being who supports Israel will claim that the Jewish state is perfect and does no wrong. But there is a big difference between disagreeing with the policies of a sovereign nation and calling for the destruction of that nation and the murder of every single Jew within her borders. This is the goal of Hamas, the PLO, and many of the supporters of the Palestinian cause. They don’t want to negotiate a peace treaty with Israel and work with the Jewish people to make the Middle East into a garden. They want Israel to cease to exist, with every Jew on earth a stateless refugee or dead.
Perhaps Dr. Gerstenfeld can shed some light on why the people of Europe have accepted the lies of the Palestinians and Hamas hook, line and sinker. Maybe they need Arab oil more than they need six million Jews; maybe they are afraid that the millions of Muslims now living in Europe will burn the place down if the Europeans support Israel, and maybe, just maybe, that old bogeyman of Jew hate was not gone after all.
The epidemic of hatred and violence being directed at the Jews of the world is a disgrace to all of humanity and a nightmare of epic proportions. Who could ever imagine that in the 21st century, we would see another mob running through the streets of Paris or Berlin screaming “Kill the Jews.”
While the enemies of civilization rampage through the streets, echoing the words of Hitler, Goebbels, and Haj Amin al-Husseini, one thing is clear. The nation of Israel and the Jewish people will survive and continue to “Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem.”
Interview with Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld:
Wolff Bachner:Dr. Gerstenfeld, over the last few months, and especially since the beginning of Operation Protective Edge, we have witnessed a revival of open, undisguised, violent Jew hate at levels we have not seen since the 1930s and 1940s in Nazi Germany. Jew hate has been part of European culture for hundreds of years, culminating in the death of Six Million Jews in the Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis. After World War Two, Jew hate was frowned upon, but now, we are witnessing a resurgence of anti-Jewish violence, often masquerading as criticism of Israel. Why is Jew hate once again rearing its ugly head in Europe, and what is the driving force behind the tidal wave of recent attacks on European Jews?
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld: Hatred of Jews, or as we call it since the 19th century, anti-Semitism, is an integral part of both the history and the culture of Europe. There are three major types of anti-Semitism: the first one concerns the Jewish religion. Many Christians saw all Jews as ‘absolute evil’ on the basis of the false claim that they had killed the alleged son of God. It was a huge lie, because only the Roman rulers of the land could execute anybody.
The second type of anti-Semitism targeted the Jews as a people. Nationalistic and ethnic anti-Semitism, in particular in Germany, saw the Jews as sub-human beings. This was the absolute evil in their ‘culture.’ The motif that the Jews are sub-human can also be found in the Koran, where they are described as apes and pigs. It is worrisome that many contemporary Muslims take the Koran literally.
After the Holocaust, anti-Semitism in Europe did not disappear, but became gradually latent. A few decades later, it mutated into anti-Israelism. This third type of anti-Semitism has, as its target, the Jewish State. Israel was increasingly falsely presented as a Nazi state, or alternatively, as a state which aims to exterminate the Palestinians. Various studies show that 40% or more of the Europeans share these views. Their mindset is more backward than that of their medieval ancestors. My 2013 book, Demonizing Israel and the Jews, details these studies and their findings.
In recent weeks anti-Israelism and its two classic anti-Semitic predecessors have become widespread in the European public domain. They have, however, been emerging gradually over the years. The arrival in Europe in the past decades of millions of Muslims, without any selectivity regarding who is let in or not, has greatly aggravated the situation, but is not the singular cause of anti-Israelism.
Wolff Bachner: What, if anything, can we learn from the epidemic of hatred being visited upon the Jews of Europe?
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld: There is much to be learned. There have been so many developments that it is very difficult to identify the major characteristics and aspects of this epidemic. To briefly summarize, one could say that many aspects of Europe’s ugly face have come forcefully to the forefront. We are speaking of the EU – the European Union. In the future, and in particular, when the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is discussed, we should also speak about its alter ego, the UE – Ugly Europe.
A few months ago I lectured at a conference in Jerusalem on Israeli-European relations. The former director general of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Shlomo Avineri, one of Israel’s leading political scientists, also spoke. He said; “Europe’s politics stink.” It sounded like a rather far-going statement for a former diplomat, but Avineri apparently felt that he could no longer remain silent.
Attitudes toward Jews, and nowadays toward Israel as well, are often prisms through which one can see the moral status of societies. Events that have occurred over the past few weeks have brought many negative facets of Europe to the public eye. One can add that once again, Jews and Israel have been the first targets. As far as Europe’s Islamo-Nazis are concerned, it is unlikely that the Jews and Israel will be their last targets as well.
As I said, it is difficult to identify and describe all the major characteristics and issues which have come to light. Currently, public expressions of extreme anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism in Europe are much more frequent than before. Many similar incidents have occurred previously, but never in such numbers.
Some parts of the anti-Semitic verbal abuse one hears in Europe are outright Nazi language, such as ‘Death to the Jews.’ Others are semantics close to it. There are also newer, extreme anti-Semitic expressions, which emerged after the Second World War. The perception of ‘absolute evil’ in the post-war Western world has mutated again: it is to be compared to the Nazis or being like Hitler. Turkish Prime Minister Recip Tayiip Erdogan has compared Israel to Hitler. He has been, for quite some time, on his way to becoming the leading contemporary anti-Semite. In the past few weeks, he has reached his goal. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has stated that Erdogan’s diatribe has been unmatched since Hitler and Goebbels.
And yet there are European leaders who still want Erdogan’s Turkey to join the European Union. It has already joined Ugly Europe. Contemporary Europe has not completely degenerated, but already contains many aspects of degeneration: wanting to have Turkey join the EU is one of these. We also should not forget that Turkey has never admitted the genocide it committed against the Armenians.
The most extreme perpetrators of anti-Semitism in Europe come mainly from segments of the Muslim communities. We are probably watching the ‘grand entrée’ of Islamo-Nazism onto the European public scene. At the anti-Israeli demonstrations – which are de facto support manifestations for the Islamo-Nazis of Hamas – there are also many fellow travelers, Muslims and others.
There are many additional aspects of these recent developments that are important. The potential of ideological hatred and hooliganism within segments of the Muslim communities in Europe has become even clearer than in past years. This raises questions about the future of European societies. We have also seen that several authorities are unable or unwilling to deal with the vilest forms of hatred. Some of them, probably, are also afraid.
Another aspect of recent events is the broad lack of solidarity with the Jewish community from many parts of the Gentile community regarding issues that should concern political parties and other elements of civil society. Many Western Christian churches do not care much about the massive persecution of Christians in Muslim countries. Perhaps it thus should not surprise us that these insensitive people do not mind the anti-Semitism in their own countries. There are, however, exceptions.
For European Jews these issues, among others, further limit their ability to express their identity in public. They also provide much food for thought – not only about the future of Jews in Europe, but also about where democracy in Europe is headed.
Many Western hypocrites have been telling us for years that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the greatest threat to the world, and some even continue to do so. To maintain this fallacy they have had to look away from a variety of other major conflicts. One such crisis is the increasing tensions between the Western democracies and Russia. They have also had to close their eyes to the mass killings in recent years related to the Shiite-Sunni conflict. We are speaking about hundreds of thousands of people murdered. In the fall of 2013, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif told the BBC that sectarian tension between Shia and Sunni Muslims is probably the most serious threat to world security. One hardly ever hears this from Western experts who should have emphasized this long ago.
There are many other mass murders in the world of Islam not related to the Shia-Sunni conflict. The number of dead, after what is cynically called the ‘Arab spring’ in Libya, amounts to probably tens of thousands. Libya has become a failed state. In Egypt thousands died in what some Western ‘experts’ considered being the country’s ‘democratization process’. The hundreds of thousands Muslims which died in Somalia did so mainly from the famine which accompanies the civil war. In this war, however, tens of thousands were also killed.
There are other massively lethal conflicts in Africa, in which Christians and/or Muslims are involved. There are tens of thousands of deaths. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda was committed by Christians. Unlike most of the Muslim killings the murders were mainly linked to ethnicity and not to any ideology.
One also hears remarks from European leaders who state that one should not import the Palestinian-Israeli conflict into their countries. The previous governments of their countries have, however, laid down the infrastructure for such imports. Over the past decades they have indiscriminately let in many millions of Muslims into European countries. These Muslims come from non-democratic cultures where anti-Semitism is rife, both in its classic forms and in its anti-Israeli dimension. Letting in so many of these people from dictatorial, hateful and discriminatory environments can be considered a new form of state anti-Semitism.
The governments of the European countries where these people immigrated to often had no established integration process, which further aggravates the major problems emerging from parts of Muslim society. As a result, a number of third- and fourth-generation Muslims are more ideologically radical than their ancestors. To make matters worse, many European politicians have promoted the idea of multiculturalism, as if people with a democratic culture should consider dictatorial cultures equal to their own. Only recently and belatedly have top European leaders begun to express the conviction that multiculturalism has failed.
Some of the more sophisticated analysts in Europe might realize that the current anti-Semitic outbursts are an overture of things to come which will affect their societies at large. They will understand as well that the problems concerning substantial parts of Muslim communities in Europe go far beyond the public emergence of the Islamo-Nazis. They are likely to comprehend also that the demonstrators against Israel, indirectly show their support for one Islamo-Nazi movement in particular, Hamas.
To put it concisely: the hatred and hooliganism which have recently erupted around the Gaza conflict are warning signs for the threats to European societies from segments of their Muslim communities. Gaza is not the only issue which has the potential to enflame parts of the European Muslim communities: the violence can erupt for religious or other reasons. This is not pure speculation. In France, the Jews were, as so often, among the first ones to be attacked by immigrants and their descendants in the years after September 2000, when the second intifada started.
In 2004, Emanuel Brenner – a pseudonym for the French historian Georges Bensoussan – and his colleagues published a book that described Muslim anti-Semitism and many other expressions of racism which occurred in French schools. Muslim hooliganism initially focused on the Jews, one of the weaker parts of French society. In the fall of 2005, major riots broke out across France. In these the Jews were not targeted particularly. I have analyzed these events in a major essay. The hooligans, almost all Muslims, aimed this time for French society at large. They burnt shops, cars and so on. It was a major non-ideological epidemic of vandalism.
As mentioned, both the present outbursts of hatred and the public demonstrations with an Islamo-Nazi component could be precursors of much larger ones to take place in Europe. These may occur whenever international and domestic events or attitudes excite these populations. Several French Jews have told me that some gentile acquaintances have said to them, “you have a country to go to, but where should we immigrate to?”
One can hear European politicians and media speak and write about Hamas as if its leaders are aliens who somehow came to Gaza from outer space and landed among Palestinians which have no affinity with them. The truth is radically different. In the only Palestinian parliamentary elections, those of 2006, Hamas, an Islamo-Nazi party, received a majority of the seats. Former U.S president Jimmy Carter, who was an observer of these elections, declared that they were democratic ones.
As far as foreign relations are concerned, one should take a look at NATO and its future. Within this alliance the US and Europe are joined with Turkey, whose current Prime Minister, Erdogan is one of the world’s leading anti-Semites with political power. The alliance’s members will soon find there, another, albeit far less extreme, Hamas promoter. Its next Secretary General will be the former Norwegian Labor Party Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. His government was the pioneer of promoting the interests of Hamas within Europe. Until today, Norway does not consider this violent Islamo-Nazi movement to be a terrorist organization. Norway is not a member of the European Union, but from my lengthy research about that country, it is clear that it is a prominent contributor to the UE – Ugly Europe.
The United States and the European Union also have much to explain for their support of the recent coalition government between Fatah and the Islamo-Nazis of Hamas.
Many characteristics of what has been happening are not new. A prominent one is the multiple condemnations of Israel. Those who condemn Israel do not suggest alternative solutions. One should unmask these people who claim Israel’s soldiers should not have gone into the Gaza strip by remarking to them, “You are in fact saying that Israel should have waited for many Hamas terrorists to emerge from their tunnels for a massive killing of Israeli civilians, as they planned to do. You present yourself as a humanitarian, but behind your mask you are, in fact, supporting the killing of Israelis by violent Islamo-Nazis.”
The same goes for those Westerners who say they do not condone the killing of children. One should investigate what these people have said, if anything, when Western armies killed children in Iraq and Afghanistan. The ‘humanitarian’ who says “one can not condone killing of children” becomes, indirectly, a consultant for Hamas. The message Hamas receives is, “as these people do not condone the killing of children, we should put our headquarters and rockets next to schools and children. These are the safest places for our leaders and fighters not to be harmed. When Israel shoots at these schools where our fighters are located, the West will condemn it.” With all this false Western humanitarianism evident, the UN facilities in Gaza have also become the best places to hide rockets and explosives. Hamas has perfectly understood the mind of many Western supporters of humanitarian rights. One study which would be interesting to undertake would be to analyze what the events of the last month have taught us about the nature of ‘crooked Western humanitarianism.’
What is also not new in the last few months is the canard that anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are the same. Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia share a common element in the rejection by many Westerners of the “other.” Yet the difference between these two types of fear and stereotyped discrimination is much greater than their similarity. Although both groups face adversity in modern Europe, the scope and styles of this persecution could not be more different. Anti-Semitism has its origins in many centuries of religious and ethnic hate propaganda. Islamophobia derives not only from perceived aggression but also from actual violence supported, in the name of religion, by many within the Islamic world.
Those who compare Islamophobia to anti-Semitism usually forget to mention the disproportionally large anti-Semitism among European Muslim communities. Authorities often do not like the polls and studies which show these facts.
What is not new is the disproportionate amount of attention given by the Western media to the Gaza conflict. If the media, over the years, had given the same amount of attention to the hundreds of thousands of people killed in Muslim countries, mainly by Muslims and, to a much lesser extent, by Western armies, they could not have broadcast any other news for years. With the massive Syrian and Iraqi murders currently going on, that would also be the case for quite some time to come. One well-known newspaper among others whose bias should be investigated is the French daily Le Monde.
What is also not new is that Geneva has, once again, proven to be the European capital of anti-Israelism. It houses many Israel-hate organizations. The United Nations Human Rights Council has decided to conduct another investigation of Israel. The previous one, led by Judge Richard Goldstone, was a giant example of how distorted international human rights law has become.
There is much more to be said on all these themes, and many additional issues will become clearer in the months ahead.
Wolff Bachner: Since the fighting began in Gaza, the attacks on European Jews have increased dramatically. What are some of the most notorious incidents, where did they occur and who was involved?
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld: The most severe incident took place before the campaign started. Four people were killed in an attack on the Brussels Jewish Museum at the end of May. The person charged with this crime is Mehdi Nemmouche, a French volunteer who had spent a year as a jihadi in Syria. The weapons found in his possession were wrapped in a cloth bearing the sign of ISIS.
So far, the most violent attacks have been in France. Two synagogues in Paris were attacked by Muslim mobs after an anti-Israeli demonstration. A grocery store owned by Jews in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles was burned.
In Wiesbaden, Germany, Molotov cocktails were thrown on a synagogue, and in Belfast, Northern Ireland, a synagogue was vandalized a number of times.
In Frankfurt, the police succumbed to pressure and, lent their megaphone to a leader of a pro-Palestinian crowd. He used it to shout anti-Semitic slogans. In Copenhagen, a pro-Israeli demonstration had to be ended because the police could no longer guarantee the safety of the participants due to the threats of an angry Muslim mob carrying Hamas flags. In Austria, the Israeli Maccabi Haifa football team was attacked by Turkish hooligans. In Poland, near Warsaw, the Israeli Ashdod football team was attacked by skinheads.
Some Jews were attacked personally. In Amsterdam, a Jewish woman was severely beaten. In some countries, there were shops, restaurants and others who denied entrance to Israelis or to Jews. In the Belgian town of Liege, a shop held a sign in its window that said in Turkish, “dogs are allowed in this establishment but Jews are not under any circumstances”.
The third largest Swedish town, Malmö was a natural locale to host, also in recent weeks, a series of anti-Jewish hate incidents. Geneva is the capital of European anti-Israelism, but Malmö is the capital of European anti-Semitism. Contrary to most other locations, in Malmö, almost all incidents are caused by Muslims. This situation has developed over the years under the previous mayor Ilmar Reepalu, a Social Democrat and part-time anti-Semite. At the end of July, stones were thrown through the windows of the Malmö synagogue. A few days later, various objects, including a glass bottle, were thrown at the rabbi and a congregant.
In Antwerp, a Flemish doctor broke his Hippocratic Oath. A family member of a ninety-year-old Jewish woman, who had fractured a rib, called a medical hotline. The physician who answered refused to come and attend to the injured woman, and said that she should go to Gaza and after a few hours she would feel no pain. I reflected about the enormous contrast between the Belgian doctor and the Israeli physicians who, over the years, have treated many Palestinians, including murderous terrorists.
In Iceland, a caravan company refused to rent to Israelis. Earlier, it had called its low season, “jewsseason.” In Hungary, an extreme right-wing mayor hanged effigies of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and of former President Shimon Peres in a mock execution. All these incidents are reminiscent of Europe under Nazi occupation. The anti-Semitic perpetrators of the new Ugly Europe come from all creeds and colors.
Wolff Bachner: In your articles, interviews and books, you frequently mention Islamo-Nazism. Would you be so kind as the explain this term to our readers and clarify why followers of Islam have been at the forefront of the attacks on Jews in Europe?
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld: Any one of the following characteristics is sufficient to define people as Islamo-Nazis. One is an Islamo-Nazi if one strives to achieve world rule of Islam through whatever necessary means, including violence. In other words, for Islamo-Nazis, “the end justifies the means.” That is what Islamo-Nazis have in common with other totalitarians, such as Nazis and communists. A second characteristic of Islamo-Nazism is having genocidal programs. The third characteristic is the aim to massacre Jews. It is not yet fully clear how achieving world rule through Muslim proselytizing fits in with all this. Unfortunately, the term Islamo-Nazis is rarely used in media for the more than a hundred million Muslims in the world who meet at least one of these characteristics.
One of those who have exposed contemporary Islamo-Nazism is the leading historian of anti-Semitism, Robert Wistrich. He explains that Muslim hatred for Israel and Jews is, “an eliminatory anti-Semitism with a genocidal dimension.” Regarding common elements between Muslim and Nazi anti-Semitism, Wistrich lists fanaticism, the cult of death, the nihilistic wish for destruction, and the mad lust for world hegemony.
When he was head of the CRIF, the umbrella organization of French Jewry, Richard Prasquier compared radical Islam to Nazism. He noted two important common features. The first one is that Jews are the prime enemy for both movements and that anti-Semitism is an essential component of their ideology. The second one is that both Nazism and radical Islam dehumanize Jews.
One additional remark: we should not soften the image of the Islamo-Nazis by calling them Islamo-fascists.
Wolff Bachner: Who exactly are these Islamo-Nazis? Are there organized groups, and if so, what are their names, what is their motivation and inspiration, and who are their leaders?
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld: Post-revolutionary Islamic Iran has been the major manifestation of Islamo-Nazism for more than three decades. Islamo-Nazi organizations include Al Qaida, Al Nusra in Syria, ISIS in Syria and Iraq, Boko Haram in Nigeria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas. There are also many Muslim individuals who think that Al Qaida, for instance, is doing the right thing. On the basis of studies by the American Pew Research Organization, we can assume that there are at least 150 million Muslims in the world which share the Al Qaida ideology.
Islamo-Nazis are the most extreme Muslim radicals. There are, however, many others. A big group is the various Muslim Brotherhood organizations. It would be a mistake to think that the problems of Muslim radicalism are limited to the Islamo-Nazis. The leadership of Turkey and Qatar openly support Hamas, politically and/or financially.
Wolff Bachner: It is often said that Hamas is at the forefront of Islamo-Nazism. Can you provide concrete examples of how Hamas is part of the Islamo-Nazi movement, especially in the last few years?
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld: As an introduction to my answer I want to go back about three-quarters of a century. At the time that Nazism was popular in large parts of the world, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem was the most prominent leader of the Palestinian Arabs. He promoted the idea that both Islam in general and Nazism have much in common besides anti-Semitism. During the Second World War, the Mufti explained this, for instance, to the Bosnian SS Division he had helped create, like he did with the Kosovo SS Unit. The Israeli researcher Nadav Shragai has said that during the Second World War Al-Husseini intended to construct an Auschwitz-like crematorium in then-Palestine. He planned to have Jews from Palestine and Arab countries gassed there. Al-Husseini can be considered the ideological precursor of Hamas.
For the basics about Hamas’ genocidal intentions one, can find some examples directly from its party program, the Hamas Charter. Its Article 7 lays the groundwork for its mass murder ideology. It says: “Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah’s promise whatever time it might take. The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: ‘The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!'”
Whoever wants to follow the more recent genocidal expressions of Hamas should subscribe to the bulletins of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) or go to its website. Two examples over the last few weeks of its Islamo-Nazism activity are that a recorded statement by Hamas Chief of Staff Muhammad Deif, announced during the Gaza war, “Today you [Israelis] are fighting divine soldiers, who love death for Allah like you love life, and who compete among themselves for Martyrdom like you flee from death.”
PMW mentions that Hamas TV also recently broadcast a statement from former Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh who has said in the past: “We love death like our enemies love life! We love Martyrdom, the way in which [Hamas] leaders died.” Hamas TV broadcast a sermon which repeated the Hamas ideology that according to Islam, it is Muslim destiny to exterminate the Jews.
A Hamas cleric said: “Our belief about fighting you [Jews] is that we will exterminate you, until the last one, and we will not leave of you, even one. For you are the usurpers of the land, foreigners, mercenaries of the present and of all times. Look at history, brothers: Wherever there were Jews, they spread corruption.” He also quoted the Koran: “They spread corruption in the land, and Allah does not like corrupters.” He added, “Their belief is destructive.”
PMW furthermore related that killing Jews as religious practice is a basic message of Hamas. “Hamas TV broadcast a video clip that taught the importance of killing Jews: “Killing Jews is worship that brings us closer to Allah.”
The calls for genocide can, in lesser numbers, be heard in Palestinian media other than those of Hamas: One such example came in 2004 from Dr. Ahmed Abu Halabiyah, rector of advanced studies at the Islamic University of Gaza. In a Friday sermon on PA TV, the official television of the Palestinian Authority, he said:
“The Jews are the Jews…. They do not have any moderates or any advocates of peace. They are all liars. They must be butchered and must be killed…. The Jews are like a spring-as long as you step on it with your foot it doesn’t move. But if you lift your foot from the spring, it hurts you and punishes you…. It is forbidden to have mercy in your hearts for the Jews in any place and in any land, make war on them anywhere that you find yourself. Any place that you meet them, kill them.”
Many Western media hardly ever mention these genocidal intentions or do not mention them at all. That makes them indirect accomplices of Hamas.
Wolff Bachner: You wrote that Islamo-Nazis have made a grand entrance into the European political and public arena recently? How does this insidious movement manage to get away with being so open in their Jew hate, when Europe has some of the strictest laws against hate speech anywhere in the world?
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld: The major public entrance of Islamo-Nazism in the United States was 9/11. Its terrorists were, in a purely numbers-sense, very efficient murderers. Less than twenty Al Qaida adherents were killed, while thousands of American civilians were murdered. The current major public entry of Islamo-Nazism in Europe is being done very differently. It consists of people shouting publicly, “Death to the Jews”, or “Khaibar ya yahud”. It includes people demonstrating in favor of ISIS, or holding Jihadi and Hamas flags. It includes an individual like an Imam in Berlin, who in a sermon to the congregants of his mosque, called for the murder of Jews. A Moroccan imam of an Italian mosque called on Allah to kill the Jews one by one. He added, “Turn their food into poison and transform the air they breathe into flames.” Thereafter this Muslim hate monger was expelled by the Italian authorities. There is a branch of Hamas in Germany which operates openly as it has full legal rights. Not in the public domain are the approximately two thousand European Muslims who stealthily went to Syria and Iraq to take part in the Jihad.
Wolff Bachner: You have often said that groups like Hamas and other Islamo-Nazis have support from a wide spectrum of fellow travelers, many of whom are not Muslims. Who are these other groups and why are they joining with Islamo-Nazis and terrorists to support the epidemic of Jew hate in Europe?
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld: One might recall the ‘fellow travelers’ who supported another criminal ideology which aimed for world leadership – communism. Fortunately, it has, to a large extent, been destroyed. There were at the time various types of fellow travelers who sympathized with communism. Some were intellectuals who were not communist themselves, but praised communism, A famous such fellow traveler before the Second World War was the French writer Andre Gide, who later won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He never became a formal member of the Communist party, and after several years, rejected communism. There were peace movements who participated in conferences under Soviet sponsorship. These people closed their eyes to the totalitarian and murderous character of communism.
In today’s post-modern world, fellow travelers of Islamo-Nazism come in even more variations – part are Muslims, and part are Westerners. Among the Muslims, one can, for instance, mention the many who burst out in joy when they heard about the thousands of Americans killed in 9/11. The participants in the current anti-Israeli demonstrations in Europe also fall into that category. They say that they are in favor of the civil population in Gaza and blame Israel for their fate. They conveniently look away from the fact that the majority of the Palestinian population voted for the Islamo-Nazis of Hamas in the only parliamentary Palestinian election. The demonstrators know very well that Hamas calls for the mass murder of Jews, but they choose to only criticize Israel. They know that the closure of Gaza by Israel is the result of Hamas terrorism. They look away from all the crimes of the Islamo-Nazis like the peace movements looked away from the mass murders and other crimes by the communist Soviet Union.
There are some extreme cases of Westerners who are active supporters of Hamas. During Israel’s Cast Lead Operation in 2008 and 2009, two Norwegian physicians and extreme-leftist activists, Mads Gilbert and Erik Fosse went to Gaza and participated in the treatment of wounded Gazans. They traveled to Gaza as part of the humanitarian organization NORWAC, which is financially supported to a great extent by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. Gilbert and Fosse were frequently interviewed by the international media and claimed that Israel was attacking civilians and compared it to the God of the Dead and the Underworld, Hades from Greek mythology. The hospital where they worked was used as the Hamas headquarters. However, the Norwegian physicians did not mention this in their multiple international press interviews. Stoltenberg called them up and told them that all Norwegians stand behind them. Jonas Gahr Store, the foreign minister from the Labor Party wrote a back-cover comment for their Israel-hate book. King Harald V awarded them Norway’s highest medal. It is yet another example of how Norway is in the forefront of Ugly Europe.
Another example is Jimmy Carter, who won the Nobel Prize for Peace, who wants international recognition of Hamas as a legitimate political actor.
Wolff Bachner: While there is a small, but vocal minority of Muslims openly involved in promoting Jew hate in Europe, most Muslims remain silent. Supporters of multiculturalism and open immigration point to this as an example of why Islam is not a problem. Do you agree that only a small minority of Muslims are Jew haters? What is your opinion on why so many Muslims are silent about Jew hate. Are they afraid to speak out or is their silence an indication of their support for Jew hate?
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld: The fact that the great majority of Western Muslims remains silent, rather than oppose Islamo-Nazism, is an indication of yet another problem. Their leadership usually doesn’t condemn the Islamo-Nazis. Hitler didn’t win an absolute majority in the 1933 elections. It was the weakness of the majority of his opponents which enabled him to advance further.
Many Muslims may disagree with the Islamo-Nazis and Jihadists, yet they remain silent. That strengthens the case of the Jihadis. Western intelligence services spend huge amounts of money to obtain information on Jihadis who return from the Middle East having acquired military skills. Western governments are afraid that they will carry out attacks when they come back to European countries.
Wolff Bachner: Many Western political pundits and media personalities are fond of saying that only 10 to 15 percent of Muslims are radical, while the rest are “Moderate Muslims” who follow a “Religion of Peace.” Is there really such thing as a moderate Muslim and is Islam really a “Religion of Peace?”
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld: One of the much-promoted lies is that there are radical Muslims who should be called Islamists. These should be considered distinct from other adherents of Islam who should be called ‘Muslims’. It is then suggested that the latter are all moderate. The truth is that there is a continuous spectrum of Muslims. At the one end are the Islamo-Nazis and those who believe that they are right. Next are those who support them and those who are radical without striving toward controlling the world. The Muslims who march in the anti-Israel demonstrations are indirect supporters of Islamo-Nazis. They are not moderates, and should not be considered as such. Muslims who deny the Holocaust are not moderate Muslims. Muslims who take the Koran literally and think that Jews are apes and pigs are not moderates, nor are those who think that Jews are inferior beings. There are also indifferent Muslims who do not care. We do not know how many true moderates there at the other end of the Muslim spectrum. I would not be surprised if their numbers are in the same order as that of the Islamo-Nazis, or even less.
Religions are what their followers make of them at a given moment in time. Many Muslims have succeeded in turning contemporary Islam into a religion out of which come a multitude of ideological and other murders. This is accompanied by extreme discrimination of minorities. The current figures of murder by Muslims are unequaled by any other religion. There is a website ironically called, ‘Religion of Peace’, which documents, on a daily basis, cases of Muslim terror.
Wolff Bachner: After the explosion of anti-Jewish violence in Europe over the last few weeks, can we draw any conclusions about the attitudes of the Muslim communities in Europe? You said that the anti-Jewish riots in Europe, with hundreds of Muslims rampaging through the streets in various cities, smashing Jewish shops and throwing fire bombs at synagogues, has opened the eyes of many Europeans to Islamic Jew hate. What took them so long to figure this out? Obviously, very few non-Muslims bother to read the Qur’an, which is full of Islamic Jew hate from start to finish, but are there no sources in Europe that tell the truth about what is going on in the Islamic world and with Muslims in Europe? Is the media in Europe also involved in censoring all criticism of Islam?
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld: I guess that two points have become much clearer to those Europeans who have followed these events and want to think about them. One point is that not only is it very unpleasant to have these Muslim hooligans around you, but they pose a danger to Europeans themselves. The second point is that Muslim anti-Semitism has become clearer to many Europeans. A wider public has now been able to see this, which before was an issue discussed mainly among experts and scholars.
I have published last year a major essay on Muslim anti-Semitism in Europe in the Journal of the Study of Anti-Semitism. It said that Muslim anti-Semitism in Europe has three major characteristics: the first is that Muslims are involved in anti-Semitic incidents disproportionate to their size within the general population; secondly, in regard in particular to the most extreme incidents, one finds a large Muslim representation; and thirdly, the Muslim leadership often looks away from the problems. All this has been borne out again in the past weeks
European authorities have often made a major effort to hide Muslim anti-Semitism. One great scandal was in 2003, when the EUMC, a European body, asked the Technical University of Berlin to conduct a study on anti-Semitism. The researchers wrote in their report about the major role of Muslims as perpetrators of anti-Semitism in Europe. The European Union then suppressed the study and attacked the quality of its scholarship. The researchers, however, did not remain silent and disclosed the pressure the EU had exercised upon them to take out the mention of Muslims as major perpetrators. Thereafter, the EUMC did its own study which was largely based on the previous one they had suppressed. They remained very vague, however, about the identity of the perpetrators.
The media’s attitude differs from country to country. In the Netherlands, for instance, one can regularly read about the disproportionate common criminality coming in particular out of the Moroccan community. The media often do not shy away from mentioning Moroccan anti-Semitism. Yet there have been also scandalous cases of the media looking away from anti-Semitism among Muslims.
Another major problem is that many people, mostly from the left, falsely consider that only white people can be racist. Years ago, I named these people ‘humanitarian racists.’ This is a complex subject which has to be become more publicized, especially as we have recently seen so many Muslim anti-Semites in action.
Wolff Bachner:Before we wrap up today’s discussion on the rise of Jew hate in Europe, you were quoted as saying “Anti-Israel demonstrations are, in fact, Pro-Hamas demonstrations.” Please explain what you mean by that. Are you saying that the protesters in Europe are knowingly supporting a terrorist organization that has sworn to kill every Jew on Earth?
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld: The demonstrations are called anti-Israel demonstrations, and presented as a solidarity movement in support of the Gaza victims. If one were truly concerned about the victims in Gaza, they should be anti-Hamas demonstrations. Had there been no rockets, Israel would have not had to attack Hamas, which led to the accompanying destruction of parts of the Gaza strip. These demonstrations are nothing but a cover-up for anti-Israelism, which in turn is a new form of anti-Semitism. Israel defends itself against a major genocidal Muslim organization which finds its inspiration in the way it reads the Koran and interprets Islam. Many of the demonstrators may well be in denial about their support for the Islamo-Nazis. One should not let them get away with it.
Biography of Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld:
Dr Manfred Gerstenfeld was born in Vienna, grew up in Amsterdam and moved to Israel in 1968. He has a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from the University of Amsterdam. Gerstenfeld was a board member of the Israel Corporation and other Israeli companies. He was an editor of The Jewish Political Studies Review, co-publisher of the Jerusalem Letter/Viewpoints, Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism and Changing Jewish Communities and a member of the council of the Foundation for Research of Dutch Jewry, of which he was formerly the vice-chairman. He is a member of the Board of Fellows at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a respected Jerusalem based think tank. He was chairman of the Board of Fellows from 2000 until 2012.
This special report from The Inquisitr is dedicated to the memory of Hadar Goldin, HY”D, and all the brave soldiers of Israel who lost their lives defending the Jewish Nation of Israel.
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