Rhyming Jewish History

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Rhyming Jewish History
News From Around the World
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Alf Cengia

We've looked at how the world at large refuses to associate terrorism with Islam. Even though the vast majority of contemporary terrorism is conducted by Muslims and in the name of Islam, people will offer non-faith pretexts for these acts. It is even sometimes asserted that fundamentalist Christians are just as likely (if not more so) to enact violence.

I know I tend to get sweaty palms whenever I spot people carrying Bibles on the same plane I'm catching. One never knows these days.

As the mantra goes, when followers of Islam enact violence it's because they are somehow overwhelmed by their circumstances. When a Christian commits a violent act it's because fundamentalist Christians are an intolerant lot at heart.

Christians are often portrayed as being against women's rights, haters of gays and Muslims and interferers of personal freedoms.

A similar tendency to interpret scenarios based on narratives applies to the current assault on Jews in Europe. The first rule we must remember is that attacks on Jews must not be said to directly relate to Islam.

We're familiar with the random attacks hypothesis. Jews just happened to be in the way when a bomb went off, or someone fired a gun, or someone decided to beat someone else up. There was nothing personal or racial. If the perpetrators happen to be Muslims, it must follow that they are venting frustration at no one in particular.

Above all remember that these incidents are in no way connected to the Qur'an.

People often resort to other strategies to re-interpret violence against Jews in Europe. Either Jews are exaggerating and misinterpreting statistical data, or they're lying, or deserve it. The last point is the most insidious. I've been informed that Jews attract hatred because of their nefarious Talmudic activities in between their secret plans to conquer the world.

No kidding!

Then there's the garden variety bias. A Jewish film maker recently presented a video of his negative experiences walking through Muslim dominated sectors in Paris. He was interviewed by a UK journalist who asked him a number of leading questions. Did he provoke insults by wearing his yarmulke? And didn't he just admit to being a (shock and horror) Zionist?

The journalist noted that condensing the experience into ninety seconds made "it incredibly powerful." In other words, was the film maker deliberately selective in his sampling? After all, mightn't a woman walking through certain parts of Paris wearing a hijab experience similar insults?

Normally, that would be a fair question. So why is my nose detecting a familiar whiff of garden fertilizer? Perhaps it's because in the real world, certain minority groups are more protected than certain others, and because Jews have always been victimized.

Anyone looking at European statistics should note that Muslim immigration has trended upwards. In contrast, Jews have been leaving France in record numbers, and it's not because of the recent snow in Jerusalem. There aren't any armed guards protecting Mosques and Muslims haven't been the targets of shootings or violence. The same cannot be said of theJewish community. It's that simple.

On the question of whether Jews should migrate to Israel (at Netanyahu's recent prompting),Bill Nye the "Science Guy" observed that "it isn't their home." At some level he might be excused for that familiar statement, given he's a biblical skeptic (Jeremiah 7:7; Amos 9:14-15). Certainly they shouldn't feel compelled to migrate because of a sense of insecurity.

Yet the same people who presume to tell Jews that Israel isn't their home would no doubt scream blue murder if told they couldn't migrate to a chosen destination. They'd quickly appeal to their rights.

When Nye advises Jews that Jews might solve their social problems by getting to know their neighbors better - even if it takes a century - he's abandoned any semblance of reason and logic, and trotted off with the fairies.

One wonders if Christians fleeing the Middle East (and those martyred for their faith) might also have solved their social problems using the Nye Get-to-Know-Your-Neighbor Formula.

On the other hand Director Rob Reiner it right when he said:

Quote :: "It's never gone away, that's the thing. You know; thousands and thousands of years we've had anti-Semitism. It's been lowered, it comes back, we had it, you know, obviously during the Second World War and then all of a sudden we have Germany emerging very liberal and all that."

What we are now seeing now is what has gone on before. One only has to recall the examples of Jewish history of persecution from Carthage to the Holocaust.

Even the United Kingdomhas a dark history of its treatment of Jews. Dr. Michael Rydelnik reminds us of the church's contribution to Jewish persecution in his essay They Called Me Christ Killer.

This world is under the delusion that events such as the Holocaust are behind us because it is now enlightened.

In reality, mass murders of ethnic and religious groups have occurred since WW2. "Enlightened" society largely ignores Boko Haram's attempts to exterminate non-Islamic peoples, and the extermination of Christians in the Middle East. The main reason it recognizes ISIS is because the group has used the shock factor in social media to market itself.

The natural inclination of the media is to focus on Israel and determine ways in which it supposedly oppresses the Palestinians. Eventually, Israel's alleged sins are projected onto the Jew. History has shown us that any reason to persecute the Jew will do.

Thus we have all the warning signs that, insofar as the Jews are concerned, history is ready to rhyme once again. Will we wake up in time?