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European Mideast Policy

In civilized societies action should be taken against anyone who expresses the desire to commit murder. The Iranian government, Hamas, Hezbollah, various clerics, and other influential figures within the Muslim world, as well as neo-Nazis and other extreme rightists, openly proclaim their desire to commit murder or even genocide against Jews and Israel. Many in the Western world either refuse to heed these statements or actively support them. Many others relentlessly criticize Israel and remain completely silent about Palestinian promotion of the killing of Jews.
The received wisdom that greater Holocaust awareness automatically translates into policies and attitudes favorable to European Jews and the Jewish state is dubious at best. As assimilation and antisemitism hollow out Jewish communities on the Continent, Holocaust remembrance in Europe may well cease to help Jews altogether.
Many in the West have expressed great dismay at the killing of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani. Such responses to the removal of perhaps the worldโ€™s leading terrorist seem to suggest that the democratic West has descended into decadence. If that is the case, it is worth examining the extent to which the liberal-left dominance of much of Western public discourse is undermining the stability of democracy itself.
The American withdrawal from Syria has produced chaotic results โ€“ but as with many aspects of President Trumpโ€™s presidency, it offers an opportunity to view realities with a new clarity. The nature of Turkey under ErdoฤŸan, European weakness, and the unwillingness of America to support indecisive military missions have been revealed. These realities demand new approaches to European defense and to Middle Eastern engagement and disengagement.
Germanyโ€™s national antisemitism commissioner, Felix Klein, recently said, โ€œI cannot advise Jews to wear kippot everywhere all the time in Germany.โ€ Kleinโ€™s words, which prompted strong responses from the German authorities, revealed that the German legal system and police cannot guarantee Jewish freedom of expression in the public domain.
The anti-Semitism that is so integral to European culture developed in a dominating hostile Christian environment over more than a millennium. This provided much of the cultural infrastructure of the Holocaust, which was executed by Germans with the help of many allies. During the Enlightenment and thereafter, many leading European thinkers expressed hatred towards Jews. In recent decades, the hatred towards Jews found in European societies mutated partly into anti-Israelism, which targets the Jewish state.
The fight against anti-Semitism on the international level continues to be characterized by restraint combined with ignorance โ€“ a potentially deadly combination. European hand-wringing and the spouting of clichรฉs will never suffice; the extent of the rot must be acknowledged if it is to be effectively confronted.

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