Europe: Muslim migrants behind rise in antisemitism - Germany has the most urgent problem

Via The Times (Roger Boyes):

Syrian refugees who fled to safety in Europe must abandon their prejudices or be sent home  

School textbooks in Syria make uncomfortable reading. Jews, pupils are told, reject Allah’s divine truth, their state is illegitimate, Israeli occupation of Arab lands is a crime. A 25-year-old Syrian, whatever his views of Bashar al-Assad, whatever his personal misery, will have been brought up with these unquestioned views and some will have drawn the conclusion: it is impossible, indeed wrong, to live side by side with Jews.

We are seeing the results of this in Europe today. Antisemitism is on the rise, especially in countries that took in large numbers of migrants from Arab countries. At the outset of this month’s Hannukah festival, two Syrians and a Palestinian firebombed a synagogue in Gothenburg, Sweden. A few days later a Jewish cemetry in Malmö was attacked. In Germany, the Israeli flag has been burned and Jewish pupils bullied by Arab schoolmates. Jewish elders offer advice on which districts it is risky to wear the kippa, the Jewish skullcap. (...)

Muslim antisemites, too, are a motley crowd. Some have been told in mosques that the mere existence of the state of Israel poses an existential threat to the Arab world. The demonstrations in Germany against Donald Trump’s decision to locate the US embassy in Jerusalem were inspired in mosques but also by political agitation among asylum seekers. Neither is Britain immune from antisemitic currents. It has the same driving elements: a significant number of British Muslims who are suspicious and resentful of Jews, and, on the hard-left of politics, an antizionist hardcore.

It is Germany, however, that has the most urgent problem. 

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