“Never Again”? Well, How About “Okay…Maybe Again”.
Mark Steyn says the world is well past anti-Semitism today. We’re into plain-old utilitarian bigotry.
When Western governments are as reluctant as King Abdullah to fly the Star of David, those among the citizenry who choose to do so have a hard time. In Britain in January, while “pro-Palestinian” demonstrators were permitted to dress up as hook-nosed Jews drinking the blood of Arab babies, the police ordered counter-protesters to put away their Israeli flags. In Alberta, in the heart of Calgary’s Jewish neighborhood, the flag of Hizballah (supposedly a proscribed terrorist organization) was proudly waved by demonstrators, but one solitary Israeli flag was deemed a threat to the Queen’s peace and officers told the brave fellow holding it to put it away or be arrested for “inciting public disorder.” In Germany, a student in Duisburg put the Star of David in the window of an upstairs apartment on the day of a march by the Islamist group Milli Görüs, only to have the cops smash his door down and remove the flag. He’s now trying to get the police to pay for a new door. Ah, those Jews. It’s always about money, isn’t it?
Peter, the student in Duisberg, says he likes to display the Israeli flag because anti-Semitism in Europe is worse than at any other time since the Second World War. Which is true. But, if you look at it from the authorities’ point of view, it’s not about Jew-hatred; it’s a simple numbers game. If a statistically insignificant Jewish population gets upset, big deal. If the far larger Muslim population—and, in some French cities, the youth population (i.e., the demographic that riots) is already pushing 50 percent—you have a serious public-order threat on your hands.
Here in America, this is no big deal, but it ought to be. In a day when we break our backs to make the minority group du jour feel warm and happy, safe from even the smallest perceived slight, the very real plight of the Jews would get a lot more attention. It would have already become a cause célèbre among the Hollywood left.
But it doesn’t, because they’re Jews and Jews are one of the few groups it’s very much okay to despise. The world said it had learned its lesson after the Holocaust. The United Nations was founded to ensure that nothing like it came even close to happening again. The great powers of the world banded together and said “Never Again”.
Who knew that “never” meant seventy years or so?
Other Posts of Interest:
- It’s Beginning to Feel a Lot Like the 30s.
- What Has Israel Done to Earn Such Hate from the West?
- It’s Easy to Hate Israel Because They Will Let You.
Category: Anti-Semitism Everywhere
