Today’s Jerusalem Post ran an excellent op-edby none other than media mogul Rupert Murdoch—most widely known as the owner and corporate head of Fox News and Sky News. In an edited text of his address at a recent Anti-Defamation League event, Murdoch cited modes of anti-Semitism which we have seen in recent history: conventional warfare in WWII, terrorist warfare, and, most recently, the war of delegitimization which has been waged against Israel.
-“The battleground is everywhere: the media, multinational organizations, NGOs. In this war, the aim is to make Israel a pariah.
The result is the curious situation we have today: Israel becomes increasingly ostracized, while Iran – a nation that has made no secret of wishing Israel’s destruction – pursues nuclear weapons loudly, proudly, and without apparent fear of rebuke.”
The result is the curious situation we have today: Israel becomes increasingly ostracized, while Iran – a nation that has made no secret of wishing Israel’s destruction – pursues nuclear weapons loudly, proudly, and without apparent fear of rebuke.”
For Murdoch, one of the most disturbing elements of this latest attack against Israel and the Jews—and Murdoch clearly sees these as integrally linked—is the acceptance among academic and political elites of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic canards. This, in tandem with rising levels of Muslims immigrant violence, presents a worrying picture:
-“Far from being dismissed out of hand, anti-Semitism today enjoys support at both the highest and lowest reaches of European society – from its most elite politicians to its largely Muslim ghettoes. European Jews find themselves caught in this pincer.”
As the prime example of state-endorsed Israel delegitimization, Murdoch lists Sweden:
-“Sweden, for example, has long been a synonym for liberal tolerance. Yet in one of Sweden’s largest cities, Malmo, Jews report increasing examples of harassment. When an Israeli tennis team visited for a competition, it was greeted with riots. So how did the mayor [Ilmar Reepalu] respond? By equating Zionism with anti-Semitism – and suggesting that Swedish Jews would be safer in his town if they distanced themselves from Israeli actions in Gaza.”
Despite Reepalu’s accusations, rising rates of hate crime in Sweden and across Europe are driven not by Jews, but by its Muslim immigrant population, including:
-“the most egregious attacks on Jewish people, Jewish symbols, and Jewish houses of worship...Unfortunately, far from making clear that such behavior will not be tolerated, too often the official response is what we’ve seen from the Swedish mayor [Reepalu]– who suggested Jews and Israel were partly to blame themselves.
When Europe’s political leaders do not stand up to the thugs, they lend credence to the idea that Israel is the source of all the world’s problems – and they guarantee more ugliness. If that is not anti-Semitism, I don’t know what is.”
When Europe’s political leaders do not stand up to the thugs, they lend credence to the idea that Israel is the source of all the world’s problems – and they guarantee more ugliness. If that is not anti-Semitism, I don’t know what is.”
Well said, Mr. Murdoch—and we also have to agree that unless the problem is seen for what it is, the world will not be able to meet the dangers that most certainly lie ahead. This is a lesson that we wish Malmö’s mayor would learn. We hope that the World Mayor 2010 competition passes up Reepalu—for both his incompetence and his collaboration in the war against the Jews of his own city.
By: Chanah Shapira
Some of the violence against the Jews that year was due to the campaign in central Malmö by a ultra-Zionist group, with a defaming poster campaign of the Palestinians and their right to independence. (which is a much larger group in Malmö than the Hebrews) Which most definitely caused a desperate outcry for the city to tear them down, but as it was protected under free speech laws: The government would do nothing, and then the Palestinians took to the streets. That is not the entire story, but to some extent it did explain the increase in violence and the subsequent decrease this year.
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