anti-Semitism Europe Manfred Gerstenfeld

DR.MANFRED GERSTENFELD: EUROPE’S CRIMINAL VIEW OF ISRAEL…….

 

This article by Dr.Gerstenfeld published today at the Jerusalem Post, gives a shocking numerical base to the extremely evil image of many Europeans toward Israel. It is republished here with the author’s consent in a slightly different version than what was published in the JPost.

With such a diabolical view of the Jewish state, a vast number of Europeans have thus revived an anti-Semitic mindset from the Middle Ages. There are probably as many Europeans with these profoundly false opinions as there were anti-Semites in Europe before Hitler came to power. This radical view of Israel is still largely latent. Yet it also expresses itself in anti-Semitic and anti-Israel incidents. However, what is latent could explode in the future, as has happened before.

Europe’s Criminal View of Israel

Manfred Gerstenfeld

Dr.Manfred GerstenfeldAt least 150 million Europeans hold a satanic view of Israel. One can see this from a study published in 2011 by the University of Bielefeld on behalf of the German Social Democratic Friedrich Ebert Foundation.[1]

The study was undertaken in seven European countries. Researchers polled people as to whether they believed that Israel is carrying out an extermination war against the Palestinians. The lowest percentages of those who agreed with the statement were in Italy and the Netherlands, with slightly below 40%. England, Germany, Portugal and Hungary were all from 40-50%. In Poland, the figure was 63%. A 2012 study by the Holocaust Center in Norway posed the question somewhat differently: “Do Israelis behave like Nazi’s?” Thirty-eight percent of those polled answered yes.[2]

Much has been published earlier about how many Europeans hate Israel, or hold an extremely negative view of it. These publications were usually based on a collection of anecdotal evidence, or some figures on a single country. The University of Bielefeld report and the Norwegian study bolster this information with outrageous numeric evidence. They received little attention.

The accusation that Israel is exterminating the Palestinians is criminal slander. During the two years from the end of 1941 until the end of 1943 in the extermination camps Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor alone, 2 million Jews were murdered by the Germans. Technology has greatly ‘advanced’ since then. If this genocidal accusation against Israel were true, the last Palestinian adults and children would have been murdered long ago. However, the number of Palestinians has continued to increase greatly in the last decades. Palestinian children are born in Israeli hospitals and sick ones are treated by Israeli doctors.

The extreme and malicious image which a large number of Europeans have of the Jewish state evokes the most severe anti-Semitism of the past two millennia. In the first centuries of Christianity, a false accusation was launched that Jews had committed deicide, killing the alleged son of God. At that time no greater evil could have been imagined. Recognizable Jews in some European countries have told me that even nowadays people sometimes say to them, “You killed Jesus.”

Secularization increased after the Enlightenment. With that, symbols of absolute evil also changed. In strongly nationalistic states, other ethnic groups were considered inferior. In Nazi Germany, this was carried to the extreme: Jews were entirely dehumanized and defined as “subhuman,” “vermin” and “bacteria.” They again embodied “absolute evil” as it was perceived at the time and this led to the Holocaust and the genocide of Jews.

The image of absolute evil in the Western world changed again after the Second World War. It has moved to committing genocide and behaving like Nazis. The two aforementioned studies show that a very substantial minority of Europeans holds such views about Israel. The University of Bielefeld study does not cover all E.U. countries, yet one may assume that it is representative.

With such a diabolical view of the Jewish state, a vast number of Europeans have thus revived an anti-Semitic mindset from the Middle Ages. There are probably as many Europeans with these profoundly false opinions as there were anti-Semites in Europe before Hitler came to power. This radical view of Israel is still largely latent. Yet it also expresses itself in anti-Semitic and anti-Israel incidents. However, what is latent could explode in the future, as has happened before.

An important question is: Where did this demonic viewpoint emanate from? At least three factors have gradually contributed to it. The first is the delegitimization method of the “thousand cuts.” It consists of the continual and frequent publishing of negative news about Israel. This is supplemented by lies, false accusations, libel, articles full of bias and prejudice, official condemnations and so on.

Television, other media, politicians and ex-politicians, some church leaders, several humanitarian and political NGO’s, academics, trade unionists as well as some Jewish and Israeli self-haters have all contributed to this. It adds up to shaping this extremely malevolent opinion of Israel. Positive news about Israel is often omitted by the media. By blackening Israel, guilt feelings about the collaboration with the Nazis and failures of many European authorities and individuals during the Holocaust could also be repressed.

The second aspect is the much reduced attention given to the huge criminality and hate-mongering in large parts of Palestinian society and many Arabic and Muslim states. If mass murders, terror attacks and other major crimes were highlighted proportionally to the size of the population and misconduct in those countries, news about Israel would be comparatively negligible. At the same time, European states did not live up to their commitments under the U.N. Genocide Convention to bring Muslim planners of genocide such as Iran and Hamas, before an international court.

The third element which contributed to the delegitimization of Israel is the downsizing of major evil events in European countries’ own past. In this way a far too rosy picture of their society’s history is painted, which is then compared with the greatly falsified picture of Israel. The question therefore remains whether only disasters befalling Israel will open people’s eyes, or whether anything else can be done to combat this?

FOOTNOTES


[2] “Antisemittisme i Norge? Den norske befolkningens holdninger til jøder og andre minoriteter,” HL-senteret, 20 May 2012, [Norwegian]  http://www.hlsenteret.no/publikasjoner/antisemittisme-i-norge

 

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