Living In Denial? Anglo-Jewish Leaders Walk Out On Speakers Warning Of Islamic Antisemitism

"I am touching upon the taboos that have to be broken, because a totally false narrative has been created in Europe

The idea that all cultures are the same is absurd. If there is no hierarchy in culture, then Nazi culture is equivalent to democratic Western culture.

There are Islamic groups which are equivalent in their language and ideology to Nazis. And I have no problem in saying that, because it is true."

That, according to a report in the Jewish Chronicle, is what Dr Manfred Gerstenfeld, an acknowledged expert on antisemitism in postwar Europe, and a founder of the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism, said following a walkout of some of the Anglo-Jewish communal personalities (notably from the Community Security Trust ) who, citing "Islamophobia" on the part of Dr Gerstenfeld and Egyptian-born author and activist Bat Ye'or (Gisèle Littman), walked out on a symposium on combating antisemitism that took place at London's Wiener Library recently.  (See Jonathan Hoffman's interesting and illuminating blog on this matter here)

One of the communal figures who reportedly walked out is quoted as explaining:

 "I was appalled by Gerstenfeld’s characterisation of Muslim culture as inferior. Nearly all the speakers on the day, including me, stressed that antisemitism must be understood and opposed within an anti-racist framework"

Bat Ye'or, widow of the late lamented David Littman, and author of Eurabia: The Europe-Arab Axis (2005) and other works including an article entitled "The Palestinization of UNESCO" that I mentioned here, reportedly told the symposium

 "The source of antisemitism is the organisation of the Islamic corporation"

and when the deputy communications director of Anglo-Jewry's Community Security Trust objected to the Islamophobic tone of such remarks, she responded:

"Islam is denying the root of Judaism and Christianity with a profound belief in Jihad."

Since I was not present at the symposium and did not hear the observations that led to frequent interjections and the walkout it would be quite wrong of me to characterise the reaction as that of "Trembling Israelites" or dhimmis.

Yet I'm worried that mainstream communal leaders appear to be echoing the mantra of the group Independent Jewish Voices:

"There is no justification for any form of racism, including anti-Semitism, anti-Arab racism or Islamophobia, in any circumstance."

Fine sentiments in the main: it's the bit about Islamophobia that's the bugbear.

 I'm worried that their evident ensnarement by the very dodgy school of thought that insists that "Islamophobia" (dislike of certain illiberal, antediluvian tenets of a particular worldview) is another side of the coin to the racism that is  antisemitism will blunt their responses to danger, a very real danger posed by radical Islam in Europe.

It would lead them to dismiss as mere hate-speech such warnings as this by the Arab-Christian scholar Raymond Ibrahim:

'These [persecuted] Christians [in the Islamic world] are often identical to their Muslim co-citizens in race, ethnicity, national identity, and language; there is no political dispute, no land dispute.  The only problem is that they are Christian—they are the other—and so must be subjugated, according to Sharia’s position for all “others,” for all infidels—including Israel and the West.

Such is the true nature of Muslim rage throughout the world: it is a byproduct of doctrinal intolerance if not downright hatred for the other, who must always be kept in a state of subjugation and humiliation, according to the letter of the Quran.

Accordingly, while Christian persecution is the clearest example of this hate, it also explains why others are so despised, for example, Israel.

Consider: Christians and Jews are both constantly castigated in the Quran: Muslims are admonished not to befriend either of them (5:51) and to fight and subjugate them “until they pay tribute with willing submission and feel themselves brought low” (9:29).  Christians under Islam are suffering accordingly—as despised dhimmis, abused and “brought low,” routinely plundered of their lives, dignity, and possessions.

On the other hand, Israel—the dhimmi that got away—actually has authority and power over Muslims.  Now, if dhimmis are supposed to be kept in total submission to Muslims, how then when one of them actually lords over Muslims?

Hence Islam’s immense and existential rage against the Jewish state."

As Isi Leibler has observed:

'It is surely high time for Diaspora leaders to stop living in denial and get their act together. Instead of competing with each other in oozing political correctness, they should display some backbone and call a spade a spade.

 We are currently witnessing the greatest revival of global anti-Semitism since the Middle Ages. This permeates all classes of society, and, ranging from academics to illiterates and European leaders who retain office despite making unabashed neo-Nazi remarks about Jews to mobs at anti-Israeli demonstrations carrying placards "gas the Jews".

It encompasses the entire political spectrum, but is spearheaded by liberals and Muslims. Muslim radicals relate to Israel in a manner reminiscent of the Church’s medieval attitude toward the Jews. They promote popular TV programs depicting the blood of Muslim children being used for baking matzot, and have revived The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a best-seller. They certainly compare favorably with the worst Nazi Jew baiting, with imams quoting genocidal religious texts to the faithful, inciting them to murder Jews, "the descendants of apes and pigs".

It is macabre to observe the alliance between liberals and jihadists who represent the antithesis of everything the Left purports to represent. The extremist Islamists are the most reactionary elements in the world. They reject fundamental human rights, proscribe freedom of expression and religion, promote the degradation of women and, to this day, implement barbaric laws including stoning of adulterers and homosexuals and the amputation of limbs for petty crimes. More than 50 Muslim countries deny Judaism or Christianity equal standing with Islam....

Alas, Jews who exaggerate the presence of Islamophobia become leading proponents of the campaign to sanitize and understate Islamic extremism. This is especially bizarre, given that Jews, especially in Europe, but also increasingly in the US, are facing far greater threats of violence than Muslims. It is also synagogues, rather than mosques, which are continuously being desecrated and vandalized, in many cases by Islamists....

This is an area in which Jews, who have the most to lose, must surely stand up and be counted."

 [Emphasis added]

And while we're on the subject of antisemitism in Britain see the sad report on the plight of Jewish students at Edinburgh University  here