Europe: Muslim terrorism and European Jew hatred: What’s changed in 35 years?

Rachel Molschky writes: (via Elder of Ziyon)

Pro-Palestinian “protesters” in Paris hover around a swastika.
Photo: Etienne Laurent/European, Pressphoto Agency

In the book Semites & Anti-Semites, renowned author and historian Bernard Lewis introduces the work with a summary of a terror attack on a Paris synagogue in 1980. When a bomb exploded at the synagogue, it killed four people including two non-Jewish passers-by. The French Prime Minister at the time, Raymond Barre, expressed his sympathies for the victims but made an interesting statement: “They aimed at the Jews, and they hit innocent Frenchmen.”

Now imagine the impact this statement would have had, if “Jews” had been replaced with something else:
“They aimed at the Muslims, and they hit innocent Frenchmen.”
“They aimed at the English, and they hit innocent Frenchmen.”
“They aimed at the Australians… the Italians… the Indians...”
Any of these groups would understand the implication instantly.

It was a response that made a bold statement. While he did feel sorry for what had happened, he did not see French Jews the same as the ethnic French, who were somehow more “innocent” in this tragedy.

What has changed? Now France has recognized the “State of Palestine,” which is not a State but is ruled by both a terror-supporting government and a terrorist organization, neither side willing to accept Israel as the Jewish State or to accept a Jewish presence there at all, ready to commit whatever violence they deem necessary on any Jewish civilians. France is experiencing just a taste of that same terror, yet has chosen to recognize Palestine, which is nothing short of an endorsement for this terror. [...]

As of 2014, according to Pew Research, the Muslim population of Germany was 5.8 percent, 7.5 percent of France and 4.8 percent of the UK. Now remember, the small Jewish populations in Europe. Forget percentages, and let’s look at real numbers.

In Germany, the Jewish population is around 118,000. The Muslim population? 4,760,000. In the UK, there are about 290,000 Jews but 2,960,000 Muslims.  In France, with the highest Jewish population in Western Europe, there are about 475,000 Jews but 4,710,000 Muslims [Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Great Mosque of Paris and head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith. puts the figure at 7 million Muslims].

The difference is obvious- thousands of Jews; millions of Muslims. And anti-Semitism is high in each of these countries, often disguised as “anti-Zionism” through the BDS movement; the endorsement of the terror-supporting “Palestinian State;” investigations into so-called Israeli “war crimes” yet little mention of the Palestinian war crimes against both Jews and Arabs; media bias which includes an obsession with Israel and a distortion of facts, often highlighting unbalanced casualty counts without explaining the reasons why (like the use of human shields by Hamas); and so much more.

Yet there is no Jewish terrorism, while Muslim terrorism is on the rise as the Muslim populations increase.
Not much has changed since that 1980 terror attack on the Paris synagogue Bernard Lewis wrote about. The attitude is the same: “They aimed at the Jews, and they hit innocent Frenchmen.” Now they’re aiming at the Frenchmen too but still blaming the Jews. Will they ever learn?