Europe: Islamic state attacks make Europe more—not less—hostile toward Israel

Via Mosaic Magazine:

Islamic State (IS) seems, for the time being, more interested in attacking Europe than in attacking Israel, thus threatening the former’s longstanding hope that Muslim terrorists would focus their attention on the Jewish state and ignore the West. Evelyn Gordon argues that this is why EU members are likely to respond to Islamist aggression not with new sympathy for Israel but by intensifying their efforts against it:

[T]o Europe, it must have seemed the perfect solution: the [jihadist] crocodile could keep attacking Israel forever, and Europeans would be permanently safe. All they had to do was make sure the beast remained fixated on Israel by maintaining a steady drumbeat of anti-Israel outrage.

Yet now, suddenly, that tactic no longer works—and like any weakling confronted with a bully, Europe is cravenly trying to divert the bully’s attention back to his former victim.

That’s precisely why Islamic State’s rise over the last few years has coincided with an upsurge in anti-Israel activity by European governments, including the European Union’s discriminatory decision to start labeling settlement products, moves by several European parliaments to recognize a Palestinian state, and France’s recent push for both an anti-Israel Security Council resolution and an international conference conducted under threat of recognizing “Palestine” if Israel doesn’t capitulate completely. All these are frantic efforts to restore the jihadist status quo ante—first, by refocusing world (and especially Muslim) attention on Israel, and second, by weakening Israel enough that it once again looks like a tempting target for jihadists, rather than one too strong to be tackled without first bringing down several other countries.

Read more at Evelyn Gordon
  
Herb Keinon (JPost) has come to the same conclusion: Brussels attacks won't translate into more support for Israel.