Israel Looks on Europe with Dismay

By Barry Shaw

December 23, 2014

Political tremors are being felt across Europe. In Britain, we see the rise of an emerging independence party, UKIP, which is euroskeptic and takes a corrective line on the UK's unbridled open-door immigration policy. In France, the Socialist François Hollande looks likely to be replaced by the center- right Nicolas Sarkozy. The left-wing Swedish government barely lasted three months before being forced to abandon a failed leadership. This gave it sufficient time to rush through a "Palestine" vote which may be overturned by an incoming center-right government. Polls show that center-right parties would win the popular vote in Norway and Denmark if elections were held now.

Across Europe, voters are objecting to poor economic and immigration policies.

They are offended by the rise of crime perpetrated by immigrants they had welcomed into their once decent countries. Cultural changes are rendering their countries unrecognizable. One prominent reason for the political swing has been politicians pandering to Islamic sensitivities at home. This is causing pause and division among their populations.

The recent outbreak of symbolic parliamentary voting for an ill-defined Palestinian state is one outward manifestation of politicians catering to a rising constituency against which their grassroots citizenry are rebelling. The swing in the polls reflects a desire to return to an old patriotism of long-lost national values, lost in the mire of multiculturalism brought on by uncontrolled immigration against a background of recession and poor economic performance.

They are in search of a once-was national character. A yearning to return to the past will however not save them from the reality that now exists. Nevertheless, we will see European nations shift, possibly polarize, as populations demand that their voices be heard above the growing needs and demands of strong minority and troublesome migrants and left-wing anarchists.

But will these changes come in time to save a sinking Europe from the misguided, immoral decisions being taken by a largely Socialist and fractured continent? One nation outside of Europe that is suffering from misguided European policies is Israel. Israelis look at Europe as a continent that feels the need to cater to an unruly Muslim population that offers their politicians votes but on the other hand can, and does, cause problems and violence if its causes are not addressed.

This has expressed itself in displays of violent anti-Semitism that leave local Jews vulnerable.

Countries, one after another, fall prey to the lobbying of left-wing fringe groups allied to a Palestinian agenda by the introduction of anti-Israel resolutions.

One after another, nations fall like dominoes, not wishing to appear out of step with an ill-considered mantra of Palestinianism that contradicts European commitments that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be settled by the two parties involved, without any external or unilateral moves that may endanger or foreclose such an outcome.

The Oslo Accords, signed on the White House lawn between Israel and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, called for mutual recognition, something that it totally lacking from Hamas, the leading political body of Palestinian Arabs, or from the rejectionist Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority. The notion of "two states for two peoples" has been rejected by the Palestinians.

Europe has ignored this. Why? An end to terrorism is yet another condition for peace. Can anyone honestly say that this has been achieved in light of the grotesque Palestinian rocket attacks that erupted out of the Gaza Strip last summer? Or the horrendous sight of Palestinian terrorists coming out of the ground near Israeli farms and villages, intent to capture or kill huge numbers of Israeli civilians including women and children? Yet, on December 17, the European General Court removed Hamas from the EU list of terrorist organizations. This just days after the Hamas leadership celebrated in Gaza by parading its rockets and suicide bombers, vowing to eradicate the Jewish State of Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summed up the feeling of all Israelis and Jews: "It seems that too many in Europe, on whose soil six million Jews were slaughtered, have learned nothing.

But we in Israel, we've learned. We'll continue to defend our people and our state against the forces of terror and tyranny and hypocrisy."

The statement was aimed squarely at a Europe that fails to support the only liberal democracy in the region but bends over backwards to establish a state that will, in all likelihood, be headed by an Islamic terrorist group or by a rejectionist body with a shared motivation to remove Israel as part of a "liberating Palestine" agenda.

Europeans need to be asked: If Hamas is not a terrorist organization, what is? As European parliaments fall, one by one, to a "Palestine" vote, and its court cannot understand what constitutes a terrorist organization if it is cloaked in Palestinian clothing, no other issue has unified the Israeli parliament like the European court's decision. Wall to wall condemnation was heard across Israel's divergent political parties against the European court, whose decision demonstrates the loss of a moral path, in the words of Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett.

Former justice minister Tzipi Livni reminded Europe that Hamas is "an extreme Islamic religious terrorist organization that must be fought with all force."

Clearly, Europe does not have the stomach, or the political will, to fight Islamic terrorism with all its force, if at all.

As Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein said, the European Union "must have lost its mind!" This is clearly the case. The question is whether the winds of political change will arrive in Europe in time to save it and Israel from the damaging tsunami of current political moves.

Barry Shaw is the author of Israel Reclaiming the Narrative. www.israelnarrative.com