Europe slinks toward dhimmitude

Analyst Caroline Glick reports that last week the Israel Defense Forces ordered all Israeli media outlets to obscure the faces of soldiers and commanders who fought in the Gaza campaign. Why? To keep British citizens from suing them for alleged war crimes.

She links this development to the indictment of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands for his film Fitna, which is highly critical of Islam. That film was to be shown at the UK House of Lords on January 29, but with the threat of mass Muslim riots, the House of Lords announced it was cancelling the event. As she notes, "British Lord Nazir Ahmed called the decision to prevent the thought-provoking, factually accurate film from being shown, 'a victory for the Muslim community.'" Ahmed was made a peer after he supported the death sentence against British author Salman Rushdie.

As Glick writes, "Increasingly, throughout Europe, those who point out the dangers of radical Islam are hounded - first by Muslims - and then by the legal authorities. In contrast, those who seek to intimidate and physically silence them are embraced by the states of Europe as legitimate leaders of their Muslim communities."

This trend is also tied to growing antisemitic attacks. "Incidents of anti-Semitic violence in Europe reached post-Holocaust record highs over the past month ... And in almost all cases of anti-Semitic violence, the Islamic identity of the attackers has been de-emphasized by the media and by politicians, or used as justification for their crimes. In France, for instance, from the way government officials talk it would be reasonable to assume that a dozen Muslim teenagers were provoked to viciously beat a ten-year-old Jewish girl by the IDF's operation against Hamas in Gaza." (Thanks to Jewish World Review.)

By chance, I also read this morning an article by Richard Weitz on EU foreign policy in which he refers to the EU's 'benign neutrality' with regard to the Gaza conflict. I realize that may be how Europeans characterize it, but given the events Glick describes, 'cowardly appeasement' is what comes to mind. One wonders if the Czechs, who have some experience in these matters, recognize it for what it is. They were foolish enough to talk about Israel's right to self-defense, in their new capacity of Presidency of the EU - but they were quickly shut up.