Radical Islam fuelling antisemitism in Europe

Radical Islamism or Islamic fundamentalism is fuelling antisemitism in the West, experts agreed at a panel discussion held in Jerusalem at the International Conference on Combating Antisemitism hosted by the Government Press Office last week.

“The same idiots who were part of the climate cult are now part of the Free Palestine cult,” said Dr Eli David, Israeli artificial intelligence researcher and entrepreneur. “They don’t know where Palestine or Israel is. They cannot point to it on a map, but they know they are part of something. They feel they are more enlightened if they chant, “free Palestine!” or “climate change!”. Stupidity and radical Islam are united in Ivy League universities.”

David said the encampments on university campuses in the United States weren’t fuelled only by the “free Palestine cult” and youth jumping on any bandwagon for radical change, but the “jihadist Islamic sect” which is “funding universities”.

David spoke along with members of the European Parliament such as Swedish politician Charlie Weimers and Hungarian Dr Kinga Gál; Syrian-born Kurdish journalist and editor Laila Katharina Mirzo and Luai Ahmed, a Yemeni and Swedish journalist and columnist; and French-Israeli Meyer Habib, a former member of the French National Assembly.

Ahmed spoke about the United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of the three Middle East countries with a peace agreement with Israel. “Even though the UAE isn’t the perfect country and it doesn’t have the best Constitution and human rights, it’s showing that there is hope in the Middle East,” Ahmed said.

Ahmed said he believed there were two reasons for radicalism in the Middle East. “It’s the same mosques and schools that I grew up in chanting, ‘Kill the Jews’ and ‘Kill the Zionists’. These mosques and schools are systematically teaching children to become Jew haters, and it’s still going on.

“In Yemen and Gaza, you have imams who say ‘kill the Jews’ and ‘kill the Zionists’. The UAE gives imams scripts that they have to read, and if an imam doesn’t read the specific script that doesn’t include violence, antisemitism, and hatred towards women, these imams are jailed now,” Ahmed said.

Even in Sweden, he said, imams who “preach antisemitism, sexism, and all kinds of extremism” aren’t touched “because Sweden is a democracy and respects human rights”. Sweden “tiptoes around these radical ideologies that are being imported from the Middle East to the West” because of its democracy and open-arm stance towards immigrants.

According to Ahmed, “The West has paved the way for Islamism to take over. In Sweden, the government seems helpless in the face of the huge numbers of people from the Middle East. Europe has a huge challenge ahead of it.” He talks of immigrants’ ideologies permeating Western society with radical Islamism, and Westerners lacking the awareness to acknowledge the danger of radical Islamism.

Weimers agreed that radical Islamism was permeating Europe. He recalled a story from his youth as the chairperson of the Young Christian Democrats. “The Young Christian Democrats wanted to commemorate Kristallnacht,” he said, “but its commemoration was shut down because it was flying the Israeli flag.” His observation of the treatment of Jews supporting Israel in Europe back then, and statistics from 20 years ago already showing how antisemitism was on the increase within immigrant groups, led him to his path of speaking out against radical Islamism and antisemitism in Europe.

“Maybe the treatment of Jews in today’s Europe is the reason why people like me are no longer in those parties that allowed this to happen,” said Weimers. “Maybe that’s why we’re here as representatives of Sweden Democrats. It was the mandate from Sweden Democrats that made it possible for me to fight European Union (EU) funding of the Muslim Brotherhood in the European Parliament.”

Gál said that 7 October should have been “the place and time for grievance” but instead, it “started a fight in Israel and a fight for us in Europe. In the European Parliament, we continue to fight against radical Islam.”

Gál said there had been no time for mourning. Instead, Jews and Zionists around the world immediately had to start fighting the radical Islam narrative infiltrating politics and media.

“As the vice president of the Hungarian ruling Fidesz party, we decided in 2015 not to fall into the trap of the Western World,” said Gál. “We won’t allow illegal migrants, nor will we allow radical Islam through Hungary’s borders. We received no encouragement from other EU countries for protecting the borders of Hungary and external borders of Europe. The goal of preventing radical situations from happening in France, Sweden, Belgium, and all over Europe was rather received with hostility in front of the European Court.”

Hungary is paying fines as it refuses to change its policy of not allowing illegal migrants through its borders even after being taken to court, Gál said. “We can say that the Jewish community has a safe haven in Hungary.”

Habib shared his concerns for France as radical Islamism continues to grow in the country. “The new slogan in France is, ‘From the river to the sea.’ Every week, hundreds of French people demonstrate with that slogan. There have been zero demonstrations for the Jews in France. I’m ashamed of my country. That’s my country, but I’m a Jew,” Habib said.

David spoke of combating radical Islamism by finding the sources of antisemitic propaganda on social media as “those actors aren’t just propagating misinformation; they are funding it to erode the basis of our Western civilisation”.

Gál’s suggestion for combating radical Islam was to “call for the EU to show what non-profit organisations and projects are being funded because we will find skeletons in our closet.” She said textbooks being distributed to Gaza shouldn’t be financed by the EU. Weimers said it was essential that “members of the European Parliament stopped funding the Islamic University of Gaza with taxpayers’ money to ensure that the EU isn’t partaking in the spreading of radical Islamism.”