Only the Jewish state is marked
Only the Jewish state is marked

A year ago, Islamist terrorism struck Europe like never before, with 130 deaths in the attacks at the Bataclan and restaurants of Paris, ushering a long period of terror up to Brussels and Nice and a church in Normandy. During the same period, in Israel, a new wave of terror shattered the lives of many Israeli citizens. But if ISIS’ massacres have shaken Western society, terror in Israel was met by Western media with a shrug and grotesque headlines from which even the knives of the terrorists disappeared.. We think that terrorism against Israel is different, almost natural, even deserved.

But Europe and Israel are victims of the same terrorism and form of hatred. Last summer, a great Algerian writer Boualem Sansal told me: “The war with Islamism will last long. It will change many things of Western civilization. If Europe will not have a stronger basis, it will be Islamized”. If there is a country which first met this “long war” is Israel. Islamic extremism in Britain made its appearance on the scene with an attack in Israel, at Mike’s Place Coffee. On 30 April 2003 a British suicide bomber blew himself up at the famous restaurant on Tel Aviv’s seafront, killing three Israelis. Among them was the brother of a good friend of mine, who that evening had gone to play in the nightclub.

We are not talking about Gaza, or Riad, but Toulouse, Antwerp, Copenhagen, Berlin, Brussels, Saint Denis, Amsterdam, the city where Anne Frank was hiding.
Israel can hardly do without Europe, even if it is clear that the Jewish State is losing her. This year, in fact, we saw a boycott of Israeli goods from the European Union and even a UNESCO resolution, which is based in Paris and denied the Jewish roots of Jerusalem.

With its 20,000 square kilometers, Israel is as big as Lombardy, the Italian region; Arab states cover an area of ​​13 million square kilometers, three million more than the whole of Europe. The fact that today the State of Israel continues to exist, at least to me, seems like a miracle. But a miracle far greater than its surface. A miracle that Europe should take to heart.

Israel appears strong. Its economy is rich and growing. It produces Nobel Prizes. It is second most educated country in the world after Canada. It stands out in all the happiness index. It is the start-up nation. His army can cope with any threat, with the exception of Iran’s nuclear bomb, a country committed to wiping Israel off the map. But there is an invisible danger that is even worse: the delegitimization. Israel is losing this battle because Europe has decided to turn its back on the Jews again.

It is a campaign to isolate Israel, denigrate it, leaving it to a destiny where only war looms. The rampant anti-Semitism is also growing. It is not exactly “Europe”, the institutional one. but something different, it is the moral indifference and political cynicism of the so-called “civil society”.

Every day, there are news of boycotts of Israel in European universities. Every day some supermarket in Europe decides to remove goods from Israel. Artists, musicians and writers refuse to perform in Israel or cancel their performance as a result of the boycott pressures.

And only the Jewish State is marked. No boycott was launched against China that imprisons dissidents academics and Nobel laureates such as Liu Xiaobo; no boycott against Iran, which condemned to death academic dissidents; against Cuba, whose universities are a caricature; against the Palestinian Authority, whose universities do not allow a free and open debate and incite violence. No: there is only a boycott against Israel, which boasts one of the highest levels of academic freedom in the world.

Every day, we read of Jewish schools and institutions in Europe which must be protected as if they are military targets. The skullcap, the most visible Jewish symbol, is disappearing in many parts of Europe, from Marseille to Malmo. Over the last fifteen years, 40,000 French Jews have left the country, many at a time, to Israel. There are whole areas where it is better not to be recognized as Jews. We are not talking about Gaza, or Riad, but Toulouse, Antwerp, Copenhagen, Berlin, Brussels, Saint Denis, Amsterdam, the city where Anne Frank was hiding. Is this again the future for Jews in Europe, having a suitcase always ready?

Every day, Israel is engulfed of the worst lies in the UN classrooms now dominated by the most ruthless tyrants, such as Saudi Arabia and Syria, whio give lessons of 'tolerance and human rights' to the West. On November 9, the UN General Assembly condemned Israel ten times, while regimes that practice segregation and large scale murder did not deserve a single quote. What did Europe do? It voted against Israel.

The mere fact today of pronouncing the name of Israel make many people lose sight of the truth, especially in high society where it counts. Many today think: “Israel is harmful, let’s abandon it and terrorists will keep quiet here”. It is the same cowardly pacifism which breathed in Europe in the Thirties. Europe, rather than helping the Palestinian Arabs to turn towards a future where there is the State of Israel, continues to foment the resentment against Israel, the vanguard of democracy in the Middle East and the border of 500 million Europeans.

What can we do? Solidarity. It is the best weapon we have in Europe to protect Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence and legitimacy is disputed by the nations of the world, the only country in the world whose capital is not recognized, the only country in the world that builds bunkers to protect civilians, while the enemy is using their own women, children and elderly people as a shield.

Europe should be concerned about the fate of this small enclave symbol of the best civilization mankind has ever known.