Haunted presents: Europeans, Muslim immigrants and the onus of European-Jewish histories 9781526117151

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The analysis is based on media reporting and comment between the years 2005–15. It provides a solid and informative background to mass Muslim immigration to Europe and the subsequent issues of terror, conflict, racism, religious, social and political clashes of the present time. No other scholarly work succeeds in presenting a more comprehensive, coherent and cohesive overview of the elements behind the headline-making news emerging from the tumultuous state which is Europe today. Among the topics discussed are the contribution of Muslims and Jews to Europe’s culture, economy and society; the painful European–Jewish record and its implications for European–Muslim relations; the Holocaust; the European Right and its views and agendas regarding Jews, Muslim immigration, and contacts with the State of Israel; Muslim violence, anti-Semitism and terrorist activity against European Jews and Jewish and Israeli interests; European restrictions on Muslim and Jewish religious rites and institutions; and more. In a nuanced appeal to reason and hope throughout, the approach is characterised by a view to affirming a positive future that does not have to reflect the past and present.

Coexist street art © COMBO Culture Kidnapper

H AUNTED

PRESENTS

Europeans, Muslim immigrants and the onus of European–Jewish histories

NACHMANI

Amikam Nachmani is Professor in the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel

HAUNTED PRESENTS

Haunted presents appraises the tangled, complex causes and effects of Muslim immigration and acclimation in contemporary Europe. It examines the interrelations between Muslim minority immigrants and the local communities, with an accent on the impact of and on Jewish communities and Judaism.

www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

ISBN 978-1-7849-9307-8

9 781784 993078

AMIKAM NACHMANI

Haunted presents

Haunted presents Europeans, Muslim immigrants and the onus of European–Jewish histories AMIKAM NACHMANI

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Amikam Nachmani 2017 The right of Amikam Nachmani to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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ISBN  978 1 7849 9307 8  hardback First published 2017 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or thirdparty internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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To Avinoam and Esther Intellectuals in times when being self-enlightened was not easy

Contents Preface page viii Acknowledgements xi Quotations xiii 1 Hectic times: Europe and its Muslim minorities 1 2 European realities: aspects of the ‘triangular’ relations between Europeans, Muslims and Jews 48 3 Haunted presents: the Holocaust as a yardstick 59 4 In the same boat: European opposition, Muslim migrants, impact on Jews 115 5 East meets the West: Fiqh al-Aqalliyat (Muslim jurisprudence on minorities); Dina de-Malchuta Dina (the law of the kingdom is the law); Dar al-Islam (abode of Islam); Dar al-Harb (abode of war) 166 6 A triangle in crisis: violence, aggression, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic phenomena 199 7 Conclusion: brighter European–Muslim–Jewish futures? 268 Bibliography 287 Index 322

Preface Relations between Europe and its Muslim minorities constitute an extensive focus for discussion both within and beyond the Continent. Europe’s readiness to coexist with its Muslim communities – neither excluding them from its culture and wealth nor forcibly Europeanising or secularising them – is repeatedly challenged. Likewise questioned are the desire and ability of Muslim migrants to change, to absorb, to adjust and adapt themselves to European standards and to Western culture. And as remote as Islamising the Continent may sound, Muslims are seen as unable to forgo missionary activity or to eschew what some perceive as overly conspicuous ‘soft evangelism’. The aim of such proselytism by the demonstrative wearing of Muslim attire, the establishment of striking Muslim centres and mosques and the muezzin’s blaring call to prayer amount to a ‘peaceful conquest’, in other words, the conversion to Islam of Europeans, many of whom are secular and are mindful of past precedents, intolerant of the ‘other’ and their ‘otherness’. Europe, which for centuries has marginalised religion, now confronts different ethnic groups who adhere to a different religion, a dynamic Muslim religion. The encounter, occasionally uneasy, even painful and violent, often emphasises the distinctions and differences between Europeans and Muslim migrants, rather than present or potential shared views and values. This work reports on the years mainly between 2005 and 2015 and focuses on the exploitation of recent European history when describing present and future relations and the prospects for the nominally ‘Christian’ majority and Muslim minority. The discourse often references the Jews of Europe as a guiding precedent. The manifold references to the annals of the Jews during the 1930s, the Second World War and the Holocaust, used by both the Muslim minorities and the European ‘white’ (sic) majority presents an astonishing and instructive perspective, resulting in the formation of a meaningful triangle of insights, views and images. Among the topics discussed are the contribution of Muslims and Jews to Europe’s culture, economy and society; the painful European–Jewish record and its implications for European–Muslim relations; the Holocaust; the European Right and its views and agendas with regard to Jews, Muslim immigration and



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contacts with the State of Israel; Muslim violence, anti-Semitism and terrorist activity against European Jews and Jewish and Israeli interests; European restrictions on Muslim and Jewish religious rites and institutions; and more. One may confidently conclude that without taking into account the inputs that emanate from history and from the contemporary Jewish presence in Europe, one could easily overlook basic elements that affect the encounter between the European host nations and Muslim migrants and refugees. Moreover, the contemporary integration and absorption experiences of Muslims in Europe echo those of the Jews in earlier ages. Muslim theologians are attempting to adjust Muslim religious tenets to the new circumstances of a minority faith in Europe. The Muslim struggle between keeping the faith pure and meaningful and losing it altogether mirrors the centuries-old Jewish experience of living as a minority community in Europe’s varied nations. The direction that future relations between Europeans and Muslims will take, in the light of lessons drawn from the European Jewish past, is yet to be realised. The topic of the migrant and refugee Muslims in Europe is often referred to as the continent’s ‘new Jewish problem’. This work also addresses issues that are common to both Jews and Muslims. Male circumcision, the slaughter of animals without stunning in the meat industry, religious attire and symbols and the place of women in non-Christian religious cultures arouse reservations and objections in Europe. Theoretically, European objections and what is perceived as discrimination against minorities should encourage cooperation between the Muslim and Jewish communities. Despite the similarities and cooperation that occasionally unite the two Middle Eastern religions, conflicting forces flare up in Europe which can and do launch Jews and Muslims on a collision course. Two quotations might assist the attempt to grasp and forecast the implications of European Jewish history for the present encounter between the Europeans and their Muslim minorities. ‘Have you ever come across a community of people who were more German than the Germans than German Jews? Did it help them during World War II?’ The second quotation is also a question, and a reply. ‘Why are there so many Muslims in Europe? Because of the Jews.’ The explanation given is that Europe’s present-day guilty conscience is a response to the atrocities that were inflicted on Jews in the 1930s and 1940s. Europe, which was extremely intolerant towards its first ‘other’, namely the Jew, now feels forced to demonstrate politically correct behaviour and to exhibit tolerance towards its Muslim migrants. It has become problematic, for example in Britain, because ‘“politically correct” multiculturalism … made a fetish of difference instead of encouraging minorities to be truly British’.1 This triangle of perceptions and images and their implications is what the present book describes and attempts to explicate.

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Note 1 Quoted in Tariq Modood, ‘Remaking Multiculturalism after 7/7’, Open Democracy 29, www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-terrorism/multiculturalism_​2879.jsp (accessed 10 July 2015).

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements It all started about a decade ago with a couple of what might have been insignificant episodes. And so I am grateful to family, friends and colleagues who persuaded me not to dismiss these two incidents as mere anecdotes but to see them as the makings of a story. When Muslim immigrants in Europe were asked questions pertaining to ghettoisation, to parallel societies, facets of voluntary (and sometimes enforced) segregation, their adherence to their sending countries’ cultures and traditions while avoiding their European receiving countries’ languages, norms and codes, the answer given amounted to something like this: Have you come across a group of people who were more German than the Germans than German Jews? Did their acculturation and loyalty help them during the World War II? So, why bother integrating? The second incident related to a rhetorical question raised during an academic conference. It seemed to me grossly improper, macabre and a bitter attempt at humour. The speaker asked, ‘Why are there so many Muslim immigrants in Europe?’ Then came his reply, ‘Because of the Jews!’ Why? The then Europe that exterminated its Jews in the Second World War now needs to accept and tolerate all who come, and pursue politically correct behaviour towards ‘the others’ and their ‘otherness’, including Muslim immigrants. Indeed, these two anecdotes with their improper questions, which prompted improper answers, made a surprising connection in my mind, combining disparate phenomena: Muslim immigration, the Jews’ loyalty, despite their bitter history, to their varied nationalities and the background setting of the ‘European’ context. In their simplicity, both pronouncements would suggest that there are no nuances within either grouping and that the many different camps would automatically become homogenous when they find themselves living on the Continent. Such reductions to the lowest denominator would suggest mere ­stereotypes, and not multifaceted people. Yet, when the ‘triangle’ of mainstream Europeans, Muslim immigrants and European Jews and Jewish histories were investigated and researched, a multi-layered ‘story’ surfaced, with all its incredibly complex, interwoven textures and colours from which this book takes its shape.

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The story has to include the Holocaust and other aspects of European–Jewish histories. Equally important are present-day elements like ritual Muslim halal and Jewish kosher animal slaughter, male circumcision and traditional and religious attire such as the Muslim hijab and the Jewish skullcap, as well as the repercussions in Europe of the social, political and military events taking place in the Middle East and North Africa, particularly the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Islamic State and the ripple effects of the Arab Spring. The frequent references made to the ‘triangle’ at the root of our project show that the historical and intertwined contemporary three-way European Christian–Muslim–Jewish encounters shown in our findings greatly affect the realities on the Continent. (The ‘triangle’ is often written in inverted commas as a shorthand form of reference to the threefold storyline in the book, and all italicised phrasing in the book’s quotations is this author’s, unless otherwise specified in an endnote). As alluded to above, I am most thankful to those who encouraged me to undertake the research, to those who contributed oral and written knowledge, to those who supported the research materially and financially, to those who agreed to talk and gave good advice and to those who encouraged me not to give in to failures and mishaps on a very long journey. Throughout the text and in the endnotes, I have taken care to thank you all by name. In particular I am most thankful to David Brauner of Jerusalem, whose thoughtful editing guided my impossible manuscript through many revisions to become this book; to Joan Hooper for her thoughtful and proficient final proofreading; to Fern Seckbach whose mindful, incisively compiled index is the key to our book; to Tony Mason, Dee Devine and Robert Byron of Manchester University Press for their professional encouragement and support; to anonymous readers whose insightful comments helped to improve the manuscript; and to Nitza, Amos, Hagai, Shira, Liam, Alon, Carmel and Hila, who have endured – and survived – the spiritual, almost physical presence of all Europeans, Muslim immigrants and Jews in their houses for the last decade. Amikam Nachmani, January 2017 Jerusalem and Bar-Ilan University

Quotations Have you ever come across a community of people who were more German than the Germans than German Jews? Did it help them during World War II? So why bother to strive for integration? (Interview, Turkish immigrant NGO, Berlin, June 20071) About two years ago the issue of [male] circumcision was intensively discussed in the German media, but nothing really happened. Some said that circumcision is a barbaric act; some said that this [tolerating circumcision] is part of the price that we ought to pay for the Holocaust. (Hannah Zubeiri, Freie Universität, Berlin, November 20142) Let’s face it: if Muslim representatives argued that without circumcision there would be no Muslim life in Germany, people would say, ‘So what? Who cares?’ When Jews say so, bear in mind the connotation of the Holocaust in the background; then you have an extremely forceful argument. (Dr Mehmet Daimagüler, The Liberal Turkish-German Association, September 20123) Ideas about racial or cultural inferiority can sometimes be transferred from an earlier to a contemporary radicalised group. An important historical precedent for current processes of radicalisation of Muslims is the treatment of Jews, who are one of Europe’s earliest racial and religious minorities. Similar trends can be observed in the context of Muslim minorities, especially after the ‘crisis’ incidents of 9/11 [2001, terrorist destruction of New York’s Twin Towers and the attack on the Pentagon in Washington] and 7/7 [2005, the terror acts on the London transportation system]. There is a pervasive assumption in the media and public culture that Muslims in Britain are immune from integration because of their religious attachment to a scriptural text [the Qur’an] and foreign law [Sharia], in the same way that Jews were previously perceived as being wedded to the Old Testament and the Talmud. (Yasir Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II, January 20124)

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As anti-Semitism was a unifying factor for far-right parties in the 1910s, ’20s and ’30s, Islamophobia has become the unifying factor in the early decades of the 21st century. (Thomas Klau, European Council on Foreign Relations, quoted in the Guardian, November 20115) [G]o to any European and tell him a thousand Jews are coming into his city and he will say, ‘Great, and in what area are they going to invest?’ Now change ‘Jew’ to ‘Muslim’ and the response would be, ‘Crap, and what area are they going to destroy?’ (‘Who is Sebastian Vilar Rodriguez and who cares?’ 20066) [T]heir [Muslim immigrants’] very integration, however hesitant and gradual, renders the Muslims in Europe vulnerable to the kind of treatment the Old Continent meted out to its Jews before the Holocaust. Growing Muslim presence in stagnating job markets within recessionary economies inevitably generated a backlash, often cloaked in terms of Samuel Huntington’s 1993 essay in Foreign Affairs, ‘Clash of civilizations’. (Sam Vaknin, Digital Journal, July 20117) Why is it a criminal offence to deny the Holocaust, while simultaneously it is permissible for Charlie Hebdo to offend Muslims and to draw cartoons of the Prophet? (Muslim protesters in Paris, January 20158) I owe you nothing. My grandfather did not kill your grandfather. If there has been any contact between them, perhaps it was your grandfather who killed my grandfather. (A Muslim immigrant of Palestinian origin to an Israeli diplomat, Berlin, September 20149) Our overall conclusion is that a real divide exists between Western and Muslim peoples … The rare point of consensus in the survey is that both Muslims and Westerners are convinced that relations between the peoples are generally bad. (Pew Global Attitude Project, July 200610) [T]here is a growing cultural and civilizational divide between Muslims and non-Muslims residing in the West. … [There is a] widespread and reductionist equation of Islam with extremism, terrorism, suicide bombers, stoning women, honour crimes and fundamentalism. (Malmö University, Institute for the Studies of Migration, 201111)



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Notes  1 From an interview with the president of a Muslim migrants’ NGO by the author, Berlin, June 2007. The source of this quotation has requested to remain anonymous.  2 Hannah Zubeiri, Freie Universität, Berlin, Haaretz literary supplement, weekend edition, 7 November 2014, p. 4 (Hebrew).  3 Mehmet Daimagüler, quoted in Doron Halutz, ‘The last circumcision’, Haaretz supplement, weekend edition, 7 September 2012, p. 45 (Hebrew). Dr Mehmet Daimagüler, a Berlin lawyer of Muslim origin, is the founding chair of the Liberal Turkish-German Association.  4 Yasir Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II, Cambridge, University of Cambridge Centre of Islamic Studies, in association with the Universities of Exeter and Westminster, January 2012, p. 96, www.cis.cam.ac.uk/assets/media/cib2-com​ plete-report.pdf (accessed 10 July 2015).  5 Thomas Klau, Head, Paris office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, in Peter Walker and Matthew Taylor, ‘Far Right on rise in Europe’, Guardian, Sunday, 6 November 2011, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/06/far-right-rise-europereport (accessed 10 July 2015).  6 Vilar Rodriguez, ‘Who is Sebastian Vilar Rodriguez and who cares?’ http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/2006/02/who_is_sebastian_vilar_rodrige.html (accessed 10 July 2015).  7 Sam Vaknin, Digital Journal, ‘Op-Ed: Muslims are Europe’s new Jews?’ 26 July 2011, http://digitaljournal.com/article/309558 (accessed 10 July 2015). See also Samuel P. Huntington, ‘The clash of civilizations?’ Foreign Affairs, 72:3 (Summer 1993), 22–49.  8 Muslim protesters in Europe, January 2015, following the deadly attack on the editorial board of the French cartoon satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, in which 12 members of the magazine’s editorial board were murdered by two French Muslims, descendants of African immigrants.  9 Amir Oren, ‘The purse is also exhausted’, Haaretz, 8 September 2014, p. 2 (Hebrew). Oren quotes from a conversation between a Muslim immigrant and an Israeli diplomat. 10 The Pew Global Attitude Project, ‘Islam and the West: Searching for common ground’, Testimony before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 18 July 2006. 11 Ayhan Kaya, ‘Islamophobia as a form of governmentality: Unbearable weightiness of the politics of fear’, Willy Brandt Series of Working Papers in International Migration and Ethnic Relations, 1:11, Malmö University, Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare (MIM) (2011), 32.

1 Hectic times: Europe and its Muslim minorities Introduction A good quotation should do the job of introducing the reader to a work’s content, its mood and ambiance. Each one of the quotations in the preceding pages could serve as a motto for a book about Europe and its Muslim migrant minorities; several of them directly concern our work on the ‘triangle’, that is to say, the perceptions held by Europeans, Muslims and Jews about each other and the current encounter between Europeans and Muslim migrants. They indicate that European–Jewish precedents have been mentioned and used, at least implicitly, as possible guidelines for present and future European–Muslim migrant relations. Some of them also allude to the manifestations of discrimination and racism that presently colour relations between Europeans and Muslim communities. The quotations also indicate that, over time, no substantive improvement has occurred in European majority–minority relations. The five years between the conclusion of the 2006 Pew Global Attitude Project and the quotation from the 2011 report of the Malmö University Institute for Studies of Migration show that nothing has dramatically changed in the mutual images held by Europe’s indigenous majority and its Muslim minority. On the contrary, the growing use of ‘white’ these days to commonly refer to Europeans as distinct from Muslims alludes to colonial jargon, which is not a good omen for the future.1 The skin colour of many immigrants is no darker than that of many Europeans. When researching Europe and its Muslim minorities, one is astonished by the alleged discrimination that the topic produces, in particular the expressions embodied in Islamophobia (the term was coined in 1997 in Great Britain),2 Europhobia and anti-Semitism. Prejudice, discrimination and even racism are seemingly on the rise nowadays in Europe, especially when the topic of European and Muslim migrant relations arises (on anti-Semitism, see chapter 6). On average, in one year (2008), one third of Muslims migrants (34 per cent of

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male reporters and 26 per cent of female reporters) stated that they had experienced discrimination. On average, those who suffered discrimination reported eight incidents over the 12-month period prior to being interviewed.3 When the third side is added – the Continent’s Jewish communities and the State of Israel – to Europeans and Muslim migrants and Muslims globally, then the ‘triangle’ is formed. Occasionally this encounter produces vicious and wild expressions. The European–Muslim encounter heavily embraces the fate of European Jewry in World War II, often as an admonition. Both Muslims and European ‘whites’ frequently refer to the annals of the Jews during the War and the Holocaust. Repeatedly, the topic of Muslim minorities in Europe is described as the continent’s ‘new Jewish problem’. ‘They are the new Jews of Europe: its Muslim minorities’; in France, French Muslims label themselves as the ‘new Jews’.4 The quest of Muslim migrants for ‘European values’, namely, democracy, civil rights, equality, representation, etc., equates with the parallel Jewish effort to achieve the same from European states and societies. A discussion entitled ‘Are Muslims the Jews of today?’ found similarities between the way Jews were dehumanised in World War II and the way Muslims are treated today.5 There are of course differences, but scholars note that the rhetoric employed against the Jews in the 1930s and 1940s is similar, sometimes even identical to that targeting Muslims today.6 Traditionally, in European culture, the Jew was the foreigner, the ultimate ‘other’. The Jew was perceived as threatening, though not necessarily violent, with neither military nor political capabilities and consequences, nor with any real or theoretical desires to Judaise the continent. But the mantra in Europe today is not the Wandering Jew. It is Europeans versus the immigrants; it is Europeans versus a much more serious threat than the Jew: the Muslim migrant. The 25–50 million Muslim migrants who now reside in Europe – and the numbers vary enormously, with reports posting as many as 60 million (!) – contribute a lot to the continent’s welfare and economy. In fact, one third of Europe’s economic production comes from immigrants, both Muslim and nonMuslims. About 2 million people migrate to the EU every year, some legally, many illegally (78,000 illegals in 2012)7 and others as refugees and asylum seekers. The available numbers for 2008 mention some 31 million EU and non-EU foreigners living in the 27 member states of the EU (6.2 per cent of the population), with no distinction made between Muslims and others.8 The wars in Syria and Iraq have brought about a big surge in asylum-seeker numbers. Germany, taking more asylum seekers than any other EU state, expected 200,000 claims in 2014, up from 127,000 in 2013. The human flood of immigrants and refugees that reach Europe from the never-ending Middle Eastern and African wars and crises could easily reach 3 million in the period 2014–17.9



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Sara Silvestri correctly noted that immigration to most European countries is associated in people’s minds with Islam, and that the term Muslim is synonymous with immigrant because the largest number of immigrants to the EU over the four decades since 1975 have originated from nations where Islam predominates and/or is the official faith, e.g., Algeria, Morocco, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Chechnya and Turkey.10 Notably, however, the migrants’ religions as such cannot be automatically inferred from the religious composition of the population of their respective countries of origin. One motivation for emigration is the quest for greater religious freedom, whether to pursue a different religious practice than the mainstream or no religion at all.11 Still, the symmetry between immigrants and Islam is particularly discernible in France: 10.4 per cent of the French population are immigrants; and the Muslim community in France is presently 10 per cent of the French population.12 Andreas Zick, Beate Kupper and Andreas Hovermann also note that in many European countries with large Muslim immigrant populations, the trend is to equate the ‘immigrant’ with ‘Muslim’, and vice versa to perceive all Muslims as immigrants, regardless of their citizenship or place of birth. Therefore, it comes naturally to speak of immigrants and Muslims in the same breath, even though a considerable proportion of immigrant populations come from non-Muslim countries. The negative view is also valid, as is shown by the evidence of an especially strong relationship between anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim attitudes in Europe. Many European respondents who show prejudice against immigrants also exhibit generalised negative attitudes towards Muslims and Islam.13 Young immigrants are, in increasing numbers, the work-force that is filling the gap, thus replacing ageing Europeans and dwindling European populations. In the years 2000–15, Europe’s population shrank by 3.5 per cent. Germany’s population alone, according to its last census in 2011, declined by 1.5 million, and it could shrink from 80.3 million today to about 66 million by 2060.14 More to the point, tax moneys from immigrant wages sustain the growing population of pensioners. New York Times correspondents Suzanne Daley and Nicholas Kulish, reporting on the current drop in Germany’s population, describe abundant overgrown yards, boarded-up windows and concerns about sewage systems too empty to work properly. They mention also that ‘The [European] work force is rapidly greying, and assembly lines are being redesigned to minimise bending and lifting’, to accommodate the ageing European work-force.15 (Pope Francis: ‘In many quarters we encounter a general impression of weariness and ageing, of a Europe which is now a “grandmother”, no longer fertile and vibrant.’16) Daley and Kulish report that the Volkswagen company has redesigned its assembly line to ease stooping down and overhead work. Reclining swivel seats provide back support even for hard-to-reach spots in the automobiles under construction,

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and the installation of heavy parts like wheels and front ends is now often fully automated. The diminishing population and resultant labour shortage activated plans, in Germany for example, to find ways to keep older workers in their jobs and to postpone retirement. In one decade, 2002–12, the proportion of people aged 55 to 64 in the German work-force rose from 38.9 per cent to 61.5 per cent. It is also planned to get more women into the work-force by expanding day-care and after-school programmes.17 One fifth of all people in the Western world are aged 65 or over; in Japan the proportion is one quarter. This means less tax revenue from retirees, fewer people from whose income pension deductions are taken and a growing demand for social and medical services for the elderly. ‘We need immigration for our labour market and so that our social system can also function amid a shrinking population of employable age in the future.’18 Europeans thus urgently need these young foreigners who, among other things, will enable Europeans to give birth to fewer children, shorten their working hours, enjoy longer weekends and vacations and retire earlier. Until recently 50 (!) was considered a legitimate retirement age, especially in Spain and Greece. However, since 2010, Europeans are working longer than they used to, which means many are retiring later.19 In 2003 less than a third of Germany’s men aged 60 to 64 and one sixth of its women were still working. However, in 2011 half of German men of this age group and one third of the women were working, though it is rare to see 65-year-old Germans who have not yet retired.20 In Greece in 2008, 44 per cent of 60-year-old men were still working; in 2011 this fell to 37.5 per cent because of the nation’s acute financial crisis and because people were encouraged to quit to allow more younger people to find employment. In 2001, among 60-year-old Italians, only 30 per cent of men and 11 per cent of women were still working; a decade later the figures remained identical. The French generally retire before reaching their 60th birthday. Still, in 2011, one fifth of Frenchmen aged 60 to 64, and one sixth of French women of same age group were still working. In five European countries – Slovakia, Belgium, Spain, France and Hungary – less than 10 per cent of men in their late 60s were still employed. In contrast, in four non-European countries – Mexico, Iceland, Chile and South Korea – more than 50 per cent of this age group were still in work.21 Europeans also live longer. In private conversations with several European demographers the author has heard them say, perhaps in reference to an ageing population, that their countrymen ‘tend not to die’. Life expectancy in most EU countries is around 80 years and above; it was 56 years and lower at the beginning of the twentieth century and 38 years in 1800.22 Presently in the developed world, deductions from four taxed workers support one pensioner,



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usually aged over 65. The European projection for the decade of 2050–60 is for a much larger retired class for whom deductions from only two job holders will support the average pensioner. In the US the ratio will be slightly higher a one pensioner to 2.5 job holders. In Japan and Italy, however, it will be lower: one pensioner to 1.5 job holders! By 2060 Latvia (68 per cent aged 65 and over), Romania (64.8), Poland (64.6), Slovakia (61.8), Bulgaria (60.3) will have the highest percentages of elderly people in the EU.23 All this means, particularly in the developed world, growing numbers of retirees, but fewer job holders to sustain them with their pension deductions. More pension deductions from more young working migrants, for more ageing Europeans are thus needed for more retirees, for longer periods. More and more immigrants are therefore being admitted into Europe. The issue of an ever-increasing elderly and retired population is even more complicated in the poorer parts of Europe, such as Romania, the second-poorest member of the EU. There, as Ioana Patran and Sam Cage note, emigration to better-off states with more employment opportunities in Western Europe and beyond the continent leaves behind the old and the poor. EU membership made emigration easier, and Romania with its 19 million people (2010) is among the hardest hit, with a 12 per cent population drop in one decade. Latvia and Lithuania experienced, respectively, a 13 and 12 per cent loss of people in the same period, mostly due to emigration. Of Romania’s 19 million, fewer than 5 million are workers paying taxes, most of the remainder being pensioners, children, subsistence farmers and illegal workers. Costs for the more than 5 million pensioners amounted to 9 per cent of GDP in 2010.24 Thus, according to Patran and Cage, ‘Marriages in the last years are fewer and fewer, and the number of deaths is double the number of births.’ By contrast, the population of Germany, a top receiving country of intra-European immigration, increased in 2011 for the first time since 2002, and this despite German deaths projected to exceed births.25 Usually, when it comes to immigration the picture is not one sided and not always gloomy, because states with large working diasporas often enjoy various benefits, Romania included. Immigration is a safety valve that releases pressures in the sending country, and young immigrants with jobs in the receiving country contribute to their country of origin through remittances; those who return enrich their countries with skills and know-how. Romania’s huge diaspora sent roughly €2.6 billion ($3.4 billion) home to their families in 2011, some 2 per cent of GDP – in many cases a lifeline for poor communities.26

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Immigration to Europe: positive, negative, positive When you call native-born European professionals, plumbers or builders, they do not return a call. When you call an immigrant, he arrives immediately, and does a good job.27

Many Europeans fail to see the continent’s need of immigration or the migrants’ constructive contribution to Europe’s culture, economy and standard of living. The contribution of migrants to European demography has been considerable. Migrants comprised 89 per cent of population growth in Europe between 1990 and 2000. Without migration, the continent’s population would have shrunk by 4.4 million within a five-year period.28 In the years 2000–50 Germany will need, annually, some 600,000 immigrant workers; France, 110,000; Britain, 190,000; and the entire EU, 1.6 million. Without these working migrants, the EU will not be able to maintain the current level of welfare and standard of living among the member states. It is indeed onesided to view ‘Fortress Europe’ – already with crowded cities, creaky public transport systems, harder-to-find affordable housing, traffic jams, etc. – as defending itself against poor, dark-skinned, unwanted people, non-taxpayers, from poorer countries, who contribute little to the social benefits they receive, rob and abuse the public welfare and political systems, and who are parties to constant conflicts and intermittent, violent ethnic and religious eruptions. (And ‘they’ use threatening language: ‘By means of your democracy we shall invade you; by means of our religion we shall dominate you.’29) Perhaps more than many other examples, the quotation below (nominated ‘the best joke of the year’, author unknown) shows the way immigrants, Muslims in particular, are perceived in Britain and, by extension, elsewhere in Europe. Apparently, immigration places a heavy yoke on the abused European society, culture and economy, hence a warning that calls for immediate and efficient measures to be taken: ‘If you don’t pass this on to your friends, by tomorrow you will receive three illegal immigrants absolutely free.’ Where are the English? A Romanian arrives in London as a new immigrant to the United Kingdom. He stops the first person he sees walking down the street and says, ‘Thank you, Mr. Englishman, for letting me come into this country, giving me housing, income support, free medical care, and a free education!’ The passer-by says, ‘You are mistaken, I am Egyptian.’ The man goes on and encounters another passer-by. ‘Thank you for having such a beautiful country here in England.’ The person says, ‘I [am] not English, I am Pakistani.’ The new arrival walks further, and the next person he sees he stops, shakes his hand, and says, ‘Thank you for wonderful country, England!’



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That person puts up his hand and says, ‘I am from Afghanistan. I am not British.’ He finally sees a nice lady and asks, ‘Are you an Englishwoman?’ She says, ‘No, I am from Africa.’ Puzzled, he asks her, ‘Where are all the English?’ The African lady checks her watch and says, ‘Probably at work.’30

However, as Christina Boswell finds, the hostility towards immigrants appears to be counter-intuitive, given the extent to which European countries have benefited from immigration. The large-scale influx, mainly of low-skilled migrants, many from Muslim countries, who came to Europe in the 1950s and 1960s played a crucial role in the post-war economic reconstruction of Western Europe. Today as well, migrants fill critical gaps in the information and technology sectors, engineering, construction, textiles and sewing, agriculture and food processing, healthcare, teaching, catering, tourism and domestic services.31 Immigrants are also consumers; less than a decade ago and before the European economic crisis of 2008, their combined annual purchasing power was estimated at a ‘whopping’ $150 billion: ‘[I]mmigrants contribute more to their host economies – as consumers, investors and workers – than they claw back in social services and public goods.’32 In fact, European businesses have already discerned the potential of this emerging market. ‘Islamic’, i.e., halal bank mortgages (interest-free) are now offered to Muslim borrowers.33 Take, for instance, an interest-free mortgage: the bank does not loan money to the buyer, but buys the property or object from the seller, then re-sells it to the property buyer at a profit. The latter reimburses the bank in instalments. More to the point, according to the Global Commission on International Migration, in the year 2000 some 86 million of the world’s migrants were economically active – over half of all migrants. Those in Europe contributed billions of euros to the economic outputs of their host countries.34 It was found in Britain that on balance immigration contributes to the state more than it takes: in 1999–2000 migrants paid about 10 per cent more in taxes than they received in benefits and services – about $4 billion. This phenomenon is not restricted to the UK, it is true for Europe. The International Labour Organization (ILO) found that during their lifetime the average immigrant living in Germany contributes €50,000 more than they take; each highly skilled migrant creates on average 2.5 new jobs in Germany; and the Muslim middle class in Germany is contributing around €39 billion annually to the country’s GNP and billions to the national pension funds.35 Education is another area of gain for Europe: immigration contributes a great deal to the continent’s knowledge and skills. Migrants are relevant in all sectors and make a discernible mark on the growth of productivity. Highly educated

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migrants positively affect innovation and patent productivity, even if their contribution is smaller than that of educated natives. Highly educated migrants impact heavily in the high-tech sectors, while lesser-educated incomers play a large role in manufacturing.36 ‘The incidence of higher education and skills is greater among Muslim immigrants than in the general population. Europe attracts the best and the brightest away from their destitute, politically dysfunctional and backward homelands.’37 Results in the British education system corroborate these observations. For instance, in the year 2000 there were 5 per cent more university graduates among immigrants than among British-born citizens. The 2005 British Home Office report found that minority ethnic students were well represented on courses in computer science, medicine and dentistry, and law. Their representation was lower in the disciplines of languages, education and the humanities, but the marginalisation of the humanities is currently a discernible phenomenon in many European and American universities.38 As a group, minority ethnic students were more likely to go into further and higher education than were the ‘white’ population, particularly among Indians and black Africans. Pakistani, Bangladeshi and black Caribbean students were found to have lower rates of entry but they were still on par with indigenous populations.39 Also, it was found that on average bilingual pupils – fluent in their native language and fully fluent in English – perform better than English-only speakers.40 In Spain too, until recently, the contribution of immigrants has had a positive impact, despite the recession that took hold in 2010. The 3.7 million migrants (about 8 per cent of the population) have played a major role in the country’s development and given more to the nation’s finances than they received. Some 30 per cent of Spain’s growth since 2005, and 50 per cent in five years since 2010, was ascribed to immigrants. Between 2001 and 2015 immigrants have helped to create some 50 per cent of new jobs; in turn, these new jobs have credited the Spanish treasury with $29.4 billion annually. Immigration to Spain accounts for a third of the increase in the rate of female work-force participation: in households with children and no other assistance, both spouses will work if they have a nanny, usually an immigrant, to look after their children. During the years 2000–5, immigration also boosted Spain’s per capita income by an average of 0.3 per cent annually and contributed to the country’s 2005 budget surplus. Overall, immigrants to Spain have produced a positive balance; although they contributed less to the state treasury than their numbers would indicate, they also used fewer services, so the balance is positive.41 Despite the above, the 2010 economic recession and the consequent dramatic increase in unemployment (close to 25 per cent in 2012) resulted in a government initiative to encourage immigrants to leave Spain through payments and other financial



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help. The results were disappointing: Madrid expected 87,000 to accept the plan, but only 8,500 left.42 As the quotation below indicates, for the ageing British population – and by extension perhaps for other European pensioners – immigration is a blessing, not so much in disguise. Pensioned retirees and those who see their doctors should be particularly thankful. In the early 2000s almost a third (32 per cent) of the British population – 18.6 million people – were aged over 50, and the number was expected to rise to 23.8 million by the end of 2012.43 In October 2015, this class of elderly people should be grateful to 17,645 physicians who gained their medical qualifications in Asian and Middle Eastern Muslim countries (out of 276,000 physicians in the UK’s National Health Service).44 Forty per cent of the country’s active doctors at that date were foreigners who had graduated in medical schools outside Britain:45 While there are some communities where immigrants remain unsuccessful, resentful and resented, the more striking phenomenon is how well immigration has worked for Britain. The UK’s National Health Service [NHS] would screech to a halt without foreign staff (in 2000, 27 per cent of health professionals were foreign); the humming economy is sucking in migrants from all over the world, many of them highly skilled with the government’s active encouragement. Nearly two-thirds of immigrants arriving between 1994 and 2003 who were employed before coming to the UK had worked in professional and managerial jobs. In the late 1990s, non-British nationals made up 12.5 per cent of the country’s academic staff. This is not to say that Britain’s immigration policies are perfect, or that all antiimmigration arguments are baseless myths. But cool-eyed analysis suggests that on balance, immigration is good for the UK – and, by extension, Europe.46

Seven years later (December 2012) another observation clearly strengthened the argument that immigration brings genuine gains for host countries. A proper ‘selling’ of immigrants to constituencies and public opinion should ease objections, because ‘not everything is bad in immigration’: Countries should reduce their resistance to immigrants, because not everything is bad in immigration. They [the immigrants] create demands in the receiving countries, for example demand for accommodation; they produce jobs; they give a push to the economy. The discussion should show how immigrants could contribute to the economy [of the receiving country], and be able to weaken the national resistance against them. The immigrants are a work-force that set the economy in motion; because of this, immigration could become a force to overcome the national objection to immigrants, or at least be presented as ‘a hard currency’ that would enable us to say that, thanks to it, we are interested in having more immigrants.47

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As the above quotation suggests, there is room for improvement by authorities and migrants alike. The Report of the Commission on the Future of MultiEthnic Britain (chaired by Bhikhu Parekh, also known as ‘The Parekh Report’) makes a specific reference to black and Asian nurses employed by the NHS. The quotation describes the year 1995; two decades later one might wish for different descriptions. Assuming and hoping that reality has indeed changed for the better, the following could serve as a comparative reference: In 1995 the Policy Studies Institute discovered that the two-thirds of black and Asian nurses reported racist harassment from patients and from their white colleagues. The Manufacturing, Science and Finance (MSF) Union maintained that ‘racial discrimination operates at all levels in the NHS, right from the processing of application forms through to top jobs. It presents a concrete ceiling, which keeps talented and qualified ethnic minority staff from the positions they could be filling. Racism operates also at other levels, be it racial harassment or abuse from patients, or unequal disciplinary measures applied to ethnic minority staff.’48

What emerges here is a mixed picture, that is, one of failure and success as regards the integration and contribution of immigrants. So what is the answer to the allegation that immigrants depress wages, take jobs and leave no money for welfare benefits for the locals? European governments need to explain to their nationals why they let migrants in, a population that seemingly lives on the dole and consumes public money. Governments could point to the immigrants’ contribution to European economies and societies, but they are concerned that by facilitating the entry of foreigners they will offend public opinion and lose electoral support.49 Balanced analyses are not so easily achieved. As mentioned above, the current mantra across Europe blames immigrants for robbing welfare systems. For example, in 2005 the Dutch welfare establishment, sustained some 40 per cent of the 1.7 million immigrants who reside in the Netherlands.50 In Britain, white working-class Britons, often unemployed, are adamant that it is their colour that is responsible for their poor status and for their sons’ failures at school. The reason: the authorities give everything to the Asians, who are mainly Muslims. Had the colour of these Britons been non-white, they would have been among the authorities’ beneficiaries.51 As recently as 2015 the mantra repeated ‘[A] lot of poor white people think you are coming to steal their jobs, reduce their wages and destroy their culture.’52 Clearly, this causes a surge in anti-immigrant feeling and boosts support for right-wing parties and politicians (more below). The upshot in Britain, as elsewhere in Europe, is not conclusive. If low-­ paying jobs taken by migrants affect national wages, then the effect is very



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modest. Moreover, by countering labour shortfalls and generating economic activity, migrants add to, not just take from, the economy. The British building industry estimates that it could use another 24,000 workers – partly to build houses that newcomers might eventually be able to buy. Europe as a whole will need many more immigrants to fill the gap caused by the 20-million drop in its working population that is projected by 2030. Immigrants – here, specifically, in a report about Chinese-born immigrants – outperform native British workers on many levels, including self-employment, education and housing. ‘In general, immigrants come to work. It’s very difficult to leave everything behind and start over again. It’s more motivated people who do that.’53 In short, immigration – that of Muslims being no exception – is no different than any other issue. When it is debated and analysed, immigration deserves a balanced, objective and less emotional approach. Indeed, immigration has its drawbacks, but at the same time it is also good for all concerned. Nevertheless, aspects of discrimination, even racism and Islamophobia, have negative influences. The result, says Jocelyne Cesari, is that ‘[m]ore than any other religious group, … Muslims seem not to be the masters of their own identity in their adopted countries’.54 Accordingly, a majority of Europeans believe Islam to be a religion of intolerance.55 In the US, Attorney General John Ashcroft in the George W. Bush administration (2001–5) reportedly described Islam (later denied) as ‘a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for Him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends His son to die for you.’ The attorney general contrasted ‘the way of God and the way of the terrorists’ and cast the US Government’s War on Terrorism (WOT) in religious terms, arguing that the campaign is rooted in faith in God, hence Christians, Jews and Muslims should unite in the WOT effort.56 A decade later the Iraqi columnist and writer Khalid Kishtainy compared the scientists of a Western space project planning a one-way trip to Mars with Middle Eastern suicide bombers. The former plan to sacrifice their lives for science and humanity, intending to land on Mars and build a colony there by 2027; the latter throw away their lives for the sake of ignorance while killing dozens of others. Death by suicide occurs in both examples, but in his article ‘There’s suicide, and there’s suicide’, Kishtainy writes, While most of the backward countries are preoccupied with nonsense, atrocities and ISIS, in the West 100 scientists with the highest academic degrees are being trained with the purpose of selecting five of them, men and women, for an impressive space journey. [On this journey] they will travel among the stars, meteors and comets of the heavens, and after six months they will arrive at Mars and land on it. They will be equipped with the most advanced scientific instruments in order to perform a variety

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of experiments … Their spacecraft will use up all its fuel in carrying them to this remote destination, so they will not be able to return to Earth. They will die there and thus establish the first human cemetery on Mars. […] This choice group of prominent scientists will take off on a suicide [mission], knowing they will never return to Earth. […] Yes, we too have suicide-seekers. You will find them everywhere: in Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Libya, strapping explosive belts to their bellies and then detonating them, sacrificing their lives and their youth. And for what? For ignorance and illiteracy. […] Both [the scientists and the terrorists] commit suicide! But how vast the difference between the two and between what they do!57

Generally speaking, immigration to Europe is presently perceived as a problem, and not as advancing European culture and economic growth, unlike immigration to Canada or the US. Rather, it is portrayed as a threat, an obstacle to future harmony and EU unity, a cause of the further fragmentation of Europe’s collective identity, a spur to cultural divisions and alienation. It is said that Muslims coming to Europe remain different and strangers;58 they do not become Europeans, but prefer to establish their ‘mini-sending-countries’ on European soil (‘Mini-Turkey’ in Germany, ‘Mini-Algeria’ in France, etc.). This is counter to the popular notion in the US that immigrants come to America to become Americans, even though simultaneously living in China Town or Little Ireland and preserving their ethnicity. But Europe objects, especially to Muslim immigration. ‘The foreigners are slowly suffocating our lovely country. They have all these children and raise them so badly.’59 The demographic threat perceived to reside in the migrants’ children caused the radical rightist German National Democratic Party (NPD) to mail thousands of condoms to German organisations and members of parliament who support the immigrants.60 Concern for European demography in the face of the Muslim influx of immigrant children produced the following rather off-colour (British) illustration: British schools today: registry on the first day back at school in Birmingham, England The teacher began calling out the names of the pupils: ‘Mustafa Al Eih Zeri?’ – ‘Here.’ ‘Achmed El Kabul?’ – ‘Here.’ ‘Fatima Al Hayek? ‘ – ‘Here.’ ‘Ali Abdul Olmi?’ – ‘Here.’ ‘Mohammed Bin Kadir?’ – ‘Here’ ‘Ali Son al En?’– silence in the classroom. ‘Ali Son al En?’ – continued silence as everyone looked around the room.



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The teacher repeated the call. A girl stood up and said, ‘Sorry, teacher. I think that’s me. It’s pronounced Alison Allen’.

The Muslims’ visibility seems to arouse resistance and revulsion, and even worse, ugly and cruel reactions: the immigrants are ‘shitting and pissing’ ­everywhere. The ‘yellow streaks of urine’ of the ‘sons of Allah’ profane the Italian marble (‘How could they succeed in hitting so well that target protected by a balcony and more than two yards distant from their urinary apparatus?’). And according to the Italian Oriana Fallaci, they are ‘breeding like rats’: They breed too much. Italians don’t produce babies anymore, the idiots. For decades they have had and still have the lowest birth rate in the West. Our ‘foreign workers’, instead, breed and multiply gloriously. At least half of the Muslim women you see in our streets are pregnant or surrounded by streams of children. Yesterday, in Rome, three of them delivered in public. One on a bus, one in a taxi, one along the street.61

These hideous and repugnant descriptions notwithstanding, the presence of millions of Muslim immigrants has become a fact of life in Europe. Past and future genuine European needs (mentioned above) have prompted the arrival of the immigrants, many of them from Muslim countries. As already mentioned, one third of European production stems from the young immigrant work-force imported into the ageing continent. The absorption of these millions is among the most important challenges that Europe faces in the twenty-first century. A by-product of this absorption is the European and Christian hope to bring about better conditions for non-Muslim minorities living in Muslim countries. A demand for reciprocity has become an integral part of the encounter between European countries and Muslim immigrants.

Reciprocity Immigrants are resented for turning churches where Christianity is no longer practised into mosques. Muslims demand to pray in present-day active churches which once were mosques (‘without any reciprocity in Muslim countries!’), for example, the cathedral in Córdoba.62 In 1236, during the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula (from the eighth to the fifteenth century), the Córdoba mosque was consecrated as a Catholic church, and has remained so ever since. Córdoba’s cathedral was originally a Christian church, the Visigoth Church of San Vicente, built in 590, when the Visigoth kingdom ruled the Iberian Peninsula

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prior to the Muslim invasion. In the early eighth century the Muslims captured Córdoba and converted the church into a mosque (786), but they allowed Christians to continue praying there. Between 1236 and 2004 the cathedral was used only by Christians. However, in January 2004, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden encouraged Muslims to reconquer Spain for Islam, and titled the Iberian Peninsula ‘The Lost Al-Andalus’. In a speech titled ‘Message to the Muslim people’, bin Laden insisted that ‘No Muslim territory should ever become nonMuslim. … Let the whole world know that we shall never accept the tragedy of Andalusia.’ His deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, instructed (September 2007) that ‘re-conquering Al-Andalus is the duty of the Islamic nation in general and of you [the al-Qaeda fighters] in particular’.63 Indeed, as from the early 2000s Muslims in Spain lobbied the Roman Catholic Church and petitioned the Holy See and Pope John Paul II to allow them to pray in Córdoba cathedral. They requested that space be allocated for Muslim worship and mentioned that in the past believers of both religions had worshipped there, a precedent for peaceful coexistence that was worth repeating. They sought to restore the ‘spirit of Al-Andalus, where Muslims, Christians and Jews co-existed in relative harmony’. ‘The Córdoba monument is a lesson in universalism, in how cultures and religions can meet and co-exist … It would be an exemplary gesture,’ they wrote. Concurrently, they vowed not to forget that ‘Al-Andalus will continue being Al-Andalus for Muslims of all ages. It is there; we have created it. Here we have our dead, who remain alive, awaiting Resurrection Day.’64 The Arab League endorsed the request to make the cathedral available to Muslims, but its secretary general at the time, Amr Moussa, could not promise reciprocity. Christianity and Judaism forbid prayer in mosques, therefore, the great mosque in Damascus (formerly a church) or the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem (built on the Jewish Temple Mount) are off limits. Also, several Muslim countries prohibit the building of churches.65 An exception, though imposed by military force, is that since the June 1967 Six Day War Muslims and Jews pray regularly, each in their own parts and at their own times, in the Machpelah Cave/Ibrahimi Mosque (Tomb of the Patriarchs) in the West Bank town of Hebron/Al-Khalil. In April 2010, on Good Friday, a confrontation erupted between Muslim tourists and the guards of Córdoba cathedral; a group of Austrian Muslims demanded prayer rights in the cathedral, citing its history as once the world’s second-largest mosque. The guards invited the tourists to visit the 24,000square metre cathedral but forbade them to pray. Notwithstanding the warning, the tourists unrolled their prayer rugs, kneeled on the floor and began praying. A large brawl developed between the group and the guards and police, and eight



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tourists were arrested and charged with disturbing the peace and violent conduct. In early 2013 the criminal court of Córdoba acquitted them. Among other reasons, the court ruled that a conviction would ‘do a disservice to freedom of religious thought and respect for the plurality of religions’.66 The bishop of Córdoba, Demetrio Fernandez, decreed it impossible to share a house of worship: ‘It would be like sharing a wife between two husbands.’ The bishop mentioned that the Basilica of San Juan in Damascus was an example of a Christian site that had been converted into a mosque. An Umayyad mosque was built in the eighth century over a fourth-century church said to contain the remains of John the Baptist: ‘We wouldn’t think of asking for the Damascus mosque, because it belongs to the Muslims and for them it is an emblematic place. … We understand that history doesn’t go back. It only goes forward. So, it doesn’t make sense to ask for the Córdoba [cathedral] to convert it into a mosque, it doesn’t make sense because history is irreversible.’67 The bishop portrayed the gloomy scenario that develops the moment a place turns into a joint ‘mosque-cathedral’ (street signs in Córdoba already direct people to the ‘mosque-cathedral’; the place has been defined by UNESCO as World Heritage Site):68 [A]ny ‘joint use’ of the Catholic cathedral is ‘a euphemism that means: Catholics, get out!’ To this, [Bishop] Fernandez replies: ‘We will not leave, except if we are kicked out, since for sixteen centuries there has been Christian worship here … while the Muslims have been here but four and a half centuries.’ He explained in more details: [T]he [B]ishop pointed out that it is important ‘to know, that where Muslims pray, no one else may pray, which is to say, if I permit Muslims to pray in the Córdoba Cathedral, we could go [out] the day after tomorrow [pasado manana]; then, to permit the Muslims to pray in the Cathedral is equivalent to telling Catholics to saying goodbye and good night, and that would be irresponsible’ [equivale para los católicos a decir adiós, buenas noches, y eso sería una irresponsabilidad]. Bishop Fernandez averred that ‘some things may be shared and others are not; and the Cathedral of Córdoba is not to be shared with Muslims.’69

The bishop of Córdoba rejected reciprocity and preferred no change in the mosque in Damascus, formerly the Basilica of John the Baptist, lest there might be detrimental repercussions, like Muslim demands for Muslim worship at Córdoba cathedral. But revival of previous religious worship in places once founded or owned by other religions is not confined to Christianity or Islam, nor to Córdoba or Damascus, nor to the demand for direct reciprocity (i.e., you let me pray in your place, I will let you pray in mine). It also involves sites in third countries. Byzantium’s Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) in Constantinople, now Istanbul, was seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the largest

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cathedral of Eastern Orthodox Christianity (537–1453); it was then converted into a mosque (1453–1931), and since 1935 has been a museum – the second most-visited museum in Turkey after Istanbul’s Top Kapi Palace in 2014. The Bir Seb’a mosque in the Israeli southern town of Be’er Sheva (Beersheba), in Israeli hands since 1948, is now the Museum of Muslim Culture; the site is no longer a place of active Muslim worship since Israel’s Supreme Court ruled on the issue in June 2011. Both the above sites are examples of abortive attempts where faiths clashed and demanded to revive the past. The Bir Seb’a mosque’s history is somewhat similar to Hagia Sophia’s: a mosque that became a museum.70 But at the end of 2012 the Turkish government and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) protested, successfully, over a planned wine and beer festival that was to take place in the yard of the Be’er Sheva Museum of Muslim Culture, formerly a 1906 Ottoman-era mosque. The Muslim demand for services to be conducted at Córdoba cathedral was countered by requests to renew Christian worship in Hagia Sophia.71 The demand of Jews to pray at the premises of Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, built on the remains of the Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount, the holiest site of Judaism, has been rejected by the Jerusalem Muslim Wakf trust (administrators of the mortmain property). The Vatican apparently attempts to make reciprocity the cornerstone of its relations with Muslims, as well as claiming human and religious rights for Christians living in Muslim and Arab countries.72 Globally speaking, the present Christian–Muslim encounter is far from peaceful. ‘Enough now with this turning the other cheek! It’s our duty to protect ourselves … The West has had relations with the Arab countries for half a century … and has not been able to get the slightest concession on human rights,’ was the reaction of Monsignor Velasio De Paolis, the then Secretary of the Vatican’s Supreme Court.73 Christians living outside Europe are being massacred (in Nigeria, Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Syria and Iraq, for instance), consequently Europeans want all inter-faith relations to be conducted through ‘positive tit for tat’: ‘Christians must love immigrants and Muslims must treat the Christians among them well.’ Or, ‘Just as Muslims can build their houses of prayer anywhere in the world the faithful of other religions should be able to do so as well.’74 European writers have compared the rights granted to Muslims in the West with the restrictions imposed on an estimated 40 million Christians in Muslim countries, who, they find, are ‘an embattled minority, facing an economic decline, dwindling rights, and physical jeopardy … Most of them are despised and distrusted second-class citizens, facing discrimination in education, jobs and courts.’75 While mosques proliferate throughout the West, practically any expression of non-Islamic religion is strictly forbidden in many Muslim countries.



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‘[T]he way of tolerance, dialogue and multicultural sensitivity can no longer be a one-way street,’ maintained the Vatican, which took a much stronger line under Pope Benedict XVI, insisting on reciprocity.76 ‘Christians must love immigrants and Muslims must treat well the Christians among them’, was the way the pope submitted his demand for reciprocity in May 2005.77 The Saudi Arabian King Abdullah’s visit to the Vatican in November 2007 to meet Pope Benedict raised hopes for reciprocity, namely, a papal visit to Mecca, where non-Muslims are banned.78 Indeed, were New York Times correspondent Thomas Friedman’s call for reciprocity to be accepted, it would mean a sea change in Muslim theology: [I]t is a great thing these two men met, and that King Abdullah [1924–2015, reign 2005–15] came bearing gifts. But what would have really caught my attention – and the world’s – would have been if King Abdullah had presented the Pope with something truly daring: a visa. You see, the King of Saudi Arabia, also known as the Keeper of the Two Holy Mosques of Mecca and Medina, can visit the Pope in the Vatican. But the Pope can’t visit the king of Saudi Arabia in the Vatican of Islam – Mecca. Non-Muslims are not allowed there. […] ... The Saudi authorities cite a tradition of the Prophet Muhammad that only Islam can be practiced in the Arabian Peninsula. […] I wished the Pope had publicly expressed a desire to visit Saudi Arabia, and that the king would now declare: ‘Someone has to chart a new path for our region. If I can meet the Pope in the Vatican, I can host Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Shiite and Buddhist religious leaders for a dialogue in our sacred house. Why not? We are secure in our own faith. Let us all meet as equals.’ Why not?79

The muezzins loudly calling Muslim believers to prayer from minarets towering above the mosques, which drown out church bells in church steeples, raise European objections in various cities (for example, in Switzerland, see below). Also, ‘[the] minaret, a crescent with a star in the middle (usually on top of a minaret), all represent a collectivist political theory of supremacy by one group over all others’.80 In comparison, church bells are banned in many Muslim countries, lest they be perceived as a Christian missionary act. Ironically, reciprocity denied thus preserves prohibitions (instead of freedoms) that are applied to Muslims and Christians alike. In general, non-Muslim minorities in Muslim countries should be entirely inconspicuous, lest their appearance, attire, services, premises, etc. might tempt people to convert, all considered forbidden missionary acts. In light of demands for reciprocity, without doubt no Muslim minority would agree to remain unobtrusive, inferior and humiliated as the tafsir (Koranic exegesis,

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commentary) demands of non-Muslim minorities. The tafsir enshrines in law the repressive conditions that non-Muslims must suffer in a Muslim society; in return, minorities gain protection under Sharia law, viz., the status of dhimmah. (Ahl al-dhimma are the non-Muslim peoples who, under certain restrictions, live in an Islamic state.) Under the tafsir’s spirit and conditions no form of reciprocity (equality) can prevail; nor can a one-time church, presently a mosque, be restored to its previous status. Also, no Muslim is able to pray in a church that was once a mosque. In the tafsir, following the dhimmah law is the regulation of ‘paying jizyah [as] a sign of kufr and disgrace’. Jizyah, the poll tax levied on non-Muslims (Christians and Jews), is a sign of kufr or unbelief; the kafir or unbeliever is said not to believe in Allah and his authority. The kafir is perceived as faithless, an atheist or non-Muslim who adheres to another religion, and therefore such people are branded as being ‘ungrateful’. Someone who neither recognises nor appreciates the goodness, the benevolence and the wealth that Heaven and the Muslim majority bestow on the believers deserves the humiliating dhimmah status described in the tafsir.81 By definition, they worship other human beings, or consider others to be sons of God, or worship and pray to other entities and idols besides God (Christians who pray to Jesus and saints, or Jews who worship their rabbis). In so doing, they blaspheme the single entity called God (Allah) and harm his tawhid, the oneness of God and the idea of monotheism. All this pushes humanity into backwardness. Muslims are not allowed to honour the dhimmis [those subject to dhimmah status], or elevate them above Muslims, for they are miserable, disgraced and humiliated. Muslims recorded … that the Prophet said, [‘Do not initiate the Salam to the Jews and Christians, and if you meet any of them in a road, force them to its narrowest alley.’82] This is why the Leader of the faithful ’Umar bin Al-Khattab,83 may Allah be pleased with him, demanded his well-known conditions be met by the Christians, these conditions that ensured their continued humiliation, degradation and disgrace. The scholars of [a] Hadith [a report of an action, statement, declaration, approval, rejection, criticism, etc., of or about Prophet Muhammad] said, ‘I recorded for ’Umar bin Al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, the terms of the treaty of peace he conducted with the Christians of Ash-Sham’: In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. This is a document to the servant of Allah ’Umar, the Leader of the Faithful, from the Christians of such and such city. When you (Muslims) came to us we requested safety for ourselves, children, property and followers of our religion. We made a condition on ourselves that we will neither erect in our areas a monastery, church or a sanctuary for a monk, nor restore any place of worship that needs restoration nor use any of them for the purpose of enmity against Muslims. We will not prevent any Muslim from resting in



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our churches whether they come by day or night, and we will open the doors of our houses of worship (for the wayfarer and passer-by). Those Muslims, who come as guests, will enjoy boarding and food for three days. We will not allow a spy against Muslims into our churches and homes or hide deceit or betrayal against Muslims. We will not teach our children the Qur’an, publicise practices of shirk [polytheism, idolatry, worship of anything other than Allah], invite anyone to shirk or prevent any of our fellows from embracing Islam, if they choose to do so. We will respect Muslims, move from the places we sit in if they choose to sit in them. We will not imitate their clothing, caps, turbans, sandals, hairstyles, speech, nicknames and title names, or ride on saddles, hang swords on the shoulders, collect weapons of any kind or carry these weapons. We will not encrypt our stamps in Arabic, or sell liquor. We will have the front of our hair cut, wear our customary clothes wherever we are, wear belts around our waist, refrain from erecting crosses on the outside of our churches and demonstrating them and our books in public in Muslim fairways and markets. We will not sound the bells in our churches, except discretely, or raise our voices while reciting our holy books inside our churches in the presence of Muslims, nor raise our voices with prayer (at our funerals), or light torches in funeral processions in the fairways of Muslims, or their markets. We will not bury our dead next to Muslim dead, or buy servants who were captured by Muslims. We will be guides for Muslims and refrain from breaching their privacy in their homes. When I gave this document to ’Umar, he added to it, We will not beat any Muslim. These are the conditions that we set against ourselves and followers of our religion in return for safety and protection. If we break any of these promises that we set for your benefit against ourselves, then our dhimmah (promise of protection) is broken and you are allowed to do with us what you are allowed of people of defiance and rebellion. And the Jews say, ‘Uzayr (Ezra) is the son of Allah,’84 and the Christians say: ‘The Messiah [Jesus] is the son of Allah.’ That is their saying with their mouths, resembling the saying of those who disbelieved aforetime. May Allah fight them, how they are deluded away from the truth! They (Jews and Christians) took their rabbis and their monks to be their lords besides Allah, and (they also took as their Lord) the Messiah, son of Maryam [Virgin Mary], while they were commanded to worship none but One God, none has the right to be worshipped but He. Praise and hallowed be He above what they associate (with Him).85

A symbolic disparity is also quoted: while Muslim migrant minorities in Europe are surging numerically – for the first time in nearly two millennia – Nazareth and Bethlehem no longer have Christian majorities. Also, the Christian population of the West Bank and Gaza has plunged from about 20 per cent after World War II to less than 1.7 per cent in 2006. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican’s Secretary of State at the time, abhorred the 2005 Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (see below), but equally loathed the ensuing murder

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of Catholic priests in Turkey and Nigeria, and the scores of Christians killed during five days of riots in Nigeria that erupted as a result of the publication of the cartoons. ‘If we tell our people they have no right to offend, we have to tell the others they have no right to destroy us.’86

Middle Eastern Christians Reciprocity in the sense of the existence and growth of Christian communities in the Middle East and of Muslim migrant communities in Europe does not exist; Christianity is a vanishing sector in the Middle East. In 2014 Christian communities amounted to less than 5 per cent of the entire Middle Eastern population (4.2 per cent in 2010), and their numbers are expected to drop further. A little over a century ago (1910), in the last census of the Ottoman era, Christians made up between 13.6 and 25 per cent of the Middle East’s population.87 True, the Middle East is no exception: according to a Pew Research Center report, in 2013 Christians faced harassment in 102 countries (Muslims had similar treatment in 99 countries and Jews in 77). Five of the 18 countries with ‘very high government restrictions on religion’ were in the Middle East, according to the same study.88 Middle Eastern Christians represent less than 1 per cent of the world’s Christians, but their declining numbers are of particular concern to the Vatican, which does not want to see the birthplace of Christianity devoid of the faithful.89 Analysing Middle Eastern trends following the Arab Spring, TIME magazine’s Aryn Baker has concluded that if current demographic developments continue, the Middle East’s population of 12 million Christians will be halved by 2020. While much of the decline is attributed to economic emigration and falling birth rates, political turmoil in the wake of the extremely poorly titled ‘Arab Spring’ has accelerated the trend. As of this writing in 2015 at least one in four Syrian Christians, who in 1992 made up 8 per cent of the country’s population, have left since the Syrian civil war started in 2011. Also, an estimated 93,000 Copts left Egypt in the years following the 2011 revolution that toppled President Mubarak.90 Middle Eastern Christians suffer from intermittent repression and persecution, in particular since the post-World War II decolonisation process and the rise of the Arab nation-states, radical Islam and the growing disorder, lack of security and havoc that are still following the Arab Spring phenomenon. A common denominator characterises the 70 years since World War II as regards the encounter between the Muslim Arab world and its Christian communities: the perception of the latter as not patriotic enough, even as foreigners disloyal



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to the Arab cause, with affiliations to external if not enemy forces, as religious infidels, etc. As a consequence, the world is witnessing the burning of churches and the destruction of cemeteries, the expropriation of property, pressure to wear ‘proper’ attire, to avoid alcohol, to sell homes and land, assassinations of Christian community leaders, clergy and political leaders (e.g., the Maronite Christian Gemayel family in Lebanon), the kidnapping of young women, forced conversions and so on. All this is beside the ‘regular’ or ‘softer’ crimes of physical violence, violation of basic human rights, ad infinitum. Massive Christian emigration from Arab and Muslim countries is the result. Christians numbered some 54,000 in the Palestinian West Bank in 2013; 75,000 and more had lived there in the early 2000s. Fewer than 1,500 Christians resided in the Gaza Strip in 2013; they numbered 4,500 before 2000.91 This destruction of Christian communities and the two-millennia-old Eastern Orthodox Christianity and its churches has not produced the expected major protest or sympathy, certainly not of the same magnitude as the solidarity expressed in relation to other catastrophes, tsunamis, earthquakes or the plight of the Palestinians.92 Currently about 16.5 million Christians live in the Arab countries, Turkey and Iran – a small minority within a total population of around 286 million – and numbers are rapidly and continuously diminishing. Christians have lived in Iraq for almost two millennia; 1.4 million lived there before the 2003 American invasion precipitating President Saddam Hussein’s fall from power. At this writing in 2015, about 150,000 (!) Christians remain in Iraq; in 2010 Christians were 1.4 per cent of the Iraqi population.93 They were mainly Christian Assyrians whose ancestors began to convert to Christianity within a few years of Jesus’s death and kept their faith despite the rise of Islam in their homeland and, most shockingly, the genocide of the Assyrians in the 1910s and early 1920s.94 During this period, and parallel to the World War I genocide of Armenians and Anatolian Greeks in the Ottoman Empire, about 300,000 Ottoman Assyrians and Assyrians in neighbouring Persia were massacred by Ottoman troops. The 9 million Copts in Egypt face daily harassment and molestation, particularly after the fall in early 2011 of President Mubarak, who pointedly protected Egypt’s Christians during his 29-year regime in order to gain legitimacy in the West.95 In 1910, 18.7 per cent of Egypt’s population were Christians; by 2010, their numbers had fallen to 10.1 per cent.96 An acute lapse in security allows radical Muslim groups, mainly the ultra-conservative (Sunni) Salafists, to attack Copts, kidnap Coptic girls and force their conversion and marriage to nonCopts, and burn the Copts’ churches and property. Those who practise the Salafi theology – the word comes from salaf, forebear – seek to emulate the Islam of the Prophet Muhammad and his early followers, which they consider the purest form of Islam. Salafis, who are Sunni Muslims,

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are easily identifiable – the men are bearded and wear robes above the ankle, and the women often cover their faces.97 The movement’s imams call for a literal reading of the Koran, austere piety and strict separation of the sexes, and the simplicity of its message means that anyone can bend it to his own ends. Salafism, writes Elaine Ganley, should not be a cause for concern and the vast majority of Salafis are peace loving. Still, Salafism is considered the principal purveyor of radicalism, an inspirational force propelling young Muslims into Syria or Iraq to do battle for the so-called Islamic State. Some of its most radical adherents are heeding the call of jihad.98 The movement is now on the rise in Europe: there are about 7,000 Salafis in Germany, nearly double the 3,800 estimated in 2011. About 120 of Britain’s 1,740 mosques are now controlled by Salafis; in 2011 almost none were to be found. In France 100 mosques, out of more than 2,000, are now in Salafi hands, more than double the number in 2011.99 Since early August 2013 mobs have attacked 63 churches and ransacked Christian orphanages and businesses across Egypt. Allegedly, the attackers, supporters of the ousted Muslim Brothers’ President Mohammad Morsi, were seeking revenge for Christian support of the July 2013 military coup that toppled the Ikhwan (Muslim Brothers’) president. In many cases the Egyptian police did not intervene to stop the riots.100 Female Christian students were asked to wear veils on some Egyptian university campuses, and churchgoers were forced to lower the volume of their services in predominantly Muslim neighbourhoods.101 The Copts’ minority status deteriorated further because of the new 2012 Egyptian constitution, which proclaimed the prevalence of the Sunni Muslim law in any future legal enactments (article 219). Another article reaffirms the inferior dhimmi status of Christians (and Jews) in Egypt. These events and Egypt’s deteriorating economy caused half a million Copts to leave Egypt between 2003 and 2013.102 The numbers of Lebanese Christians, presently just over 1 million out of almost 4 million, are continuously declining. In 1910 Lebanese Christians were 77.5 per cent of their country’s population; they had fallen to 34.3 per cent in 2010 and numbers continue to slide.103 Lebanon has a turbulent recent history: civil war in the 1970s and 1980s; the wars from 1970 with Palestinian armed organisations that entered Lebanon from Jordan; intermittent wars with Israel; the presence of millions of Syrians in Lebanon and the practical subjugation of the country by Syria until the Syrian army’s 2005 retreat; the rise of the Shiite community and Hezbollah (Party of Allah); and the bloody feuds within the Lebanese Christian camp. All of this led to a massive Christian emigration and an estimated reduction of Christians from 39 per cent of the Lebanese people in the 1950s to 25 per cent or so in 2015. Jordan’s Christian community is in relatively good shape and numbers about



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a quarter of a million people who enjoy the protection of the king and the army; they benefit economically from global tourism to the country and Christian pilgrims who come to the holy sites along the Jordan River. Syria’s Christians, who numbered 2.3 million before the eruption of the 2011 civil war there, have shrunk to 400,000 (!) and their numbers continue to spiral downward. In the northern Syrian town of Raqqa, now controlled by the rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad, Christians are allowed to stay only if they pay a poll tax of $650 in Syrian pounds, worship in one only church, and do not ring bells, evangelise or pray within earshot of a Muslim. Christians in other parts of Syria are less fortunate: YouTube is full of horrific videos showing Christians being beheaded, attacked and, in one gruesome case, even crucified. No wonder many Christians are included among the close to 4 million Syrian refugees outside the country.104 In Iran the more than 220,000 established Armenian and Assyrian Christians, who are recognised by the authorities and represented in the parliament, enjoy a stable life. However, the 10,000-strong new Christian community (Muslims who converted to Christianity) is severely persecuted, so much so that their Christian worship is done clandestinely.105 Christians in Israel numbered 123,000 in 2008 and expanded to around 158,000 in 2012. About 80,000 Christian carers for the handicapped and elderly, migrants from the Philippines, have boosted Israel’s Christian community, so that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has a steadily rising number of Christians. Despite this rare increase in the Middle East, the overall percentage of Christians in Israel has decreased from almost 3 per cent after World War II to 2 per cent in 2015 (partly due to relatively faster increasing Jewish and Muslim populations). Formerly active, even vibrant Christian churches are presently empty and gradually becoming museums. The Christian fertility rate (2.17 children per woman in comparison to the Israeli Muslim rate of 3.5 per woman) is the lowest in Israel. Accordingly, the Christian community’s annual growth is the lowest in Israel at 1.9 per cent, while Israeli Muslims reach almost 3 per cent. The once Christian-majority city of Nazareth is now overwhelmingly Muslim; the 70 per cent Muslim–30 per cent Christian ratio today is the exact reverse of post-World War II Nazareth. This reversal of the Christian– Muslim demographic ratio is particularly felt in instances such as the building of mosques immediately next to churches. In Nazareth the Shihab al-Din mosque was erected near to the Church of Annunciation, which the Vatican branded a ‘provocation’ when the plans for the mosque were revealed.106 In divided, pre-June 1967 Jerusalem (just before the Six-Day War), the nearly 11,000-strong Christian communities were 4.1 per cent of the city’s population of about 267,000 (east and west sides of Jerusalem combined). As of

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December 2012, Jerusalem’s Christians totalled 14,700, or less than 2 per cent of the overall population. Particularly indicative of Christianity’s proportional depletion is the fact that Christians are now a minority in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.107 Israel’s remaining Christians not only feel the heat from Muslims and Jews in terms of numbers, but also because of persecution. Radical right-wing Orthodox Israeli Jews are suspected of regularly defacing Christian churches and seminaries in Jerusalem with anti-Christian slurs scrawled on their doors and walls. Since 2009 and into 2015, 44 mosques and churches have been torched, most probably by Jews, the latest being the Catholic Church of Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish by the shore of the Sea of Galilee.108

Europeans, Muslim migrants and threat perceptions Muslim immigration to Europe is portrayed as a threat that dilutes ‘Europeanness’, European culture, European customs and European languages, turning the continent, the EU and the single European state into a multicultural society. Eliza Manningham-Buller (Baroness Manningham-Buller), the Director General of Britain’s MI5 internal intelligence service from 2002 to 2007, reported that the service needed the help of translators in 50 (!) different languages.109 Still, attributing Europe’s deterioration and fragmentation solely to immigration is only part of the story because, despite the existence of the seemingly supra-national EU, whenever possible, the individual member states strongly adhere to their own sovereignty, ethnicity, culture, language, legal system and so on. In addition, as Sara Silvestri reports, the intermittent rivalry among Muslim individuals and organisations in order to access visibility and power is resulting in stronger European statecontrolled institutionalisation, domestication and securitisation of Islam in Europe. One could even go as far as to argue that, on balance, the presence of Muslim migrants is reinforcing rather than undermining the role of the European state.110 A cunning if not a sinister grand plan is attributed to Muslim immigrants who commit crimes against Europeans. According to this conspiracy theory, Europe is experiencing intentional efforts to Islamise it: halal meat; tall, eyecatching, outlandish mosques; Muslim attire in European cities; and other Sharia law elements and components are all means to achieving this goal. European women of all ages feel this more than men; immigrants molest and rape, according to precedents attributed to no less a figure than the Prophet Muhammad. (Reportedly, on New Year’s Eve of 2016, close to 100 German women were sexually assaulted by gangs of Muslim immigrants in the cities of Cologne and Hamburg.111)



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In Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens’ work on the English Defence League, one finds the following far-right images of the Muslim conspiracy vis-à-vis Europe: [I]t is worth taking stock of how such an organisation [the English Defence League (EDL)] has gained support, what it truly stands for and how it should be perceived within the spectrum of Europe’s far right. They point to a conspiracy to ‘Islamise’ Europe through the stealthy implementation of Sharia law, and hold that many of Europe’s Muslims, along with their liberal multi-culturalist allies, are actively engaged in this conspiracy. The actions of Muslims in the West are viewed almost solely through this frame, and evidence of so-called ‘Islamisation’ is seen everywhere from the availability of halal meat, to the construction of mosques. Relying on an essentialist reading of Islam and Muslims, the EDL argues that the men who carry out these rapes are acting in accordance with their religion; Mohammed married nine-year-old Aysha, so the argument goes, therefore modern day Muslims sanction paedophilia. Sexual attacks on Western women and girls that are carried out by Muslims are therefore presented as a specifically Islamic phenomenon, characteristic of a culture that has no place in the West.112

There are references from other far-right movements to proselytising attempts to Islamise the continent, among them the phenomenon called ‘soft evangelism’. No need to force people to convert; it is sufficient that they see, comprehend and become convinced that Islam is the right path to choose. Just by looking at Muslims and their religious fervour, they can be impressed by Islam. Humanity will then be saved, Western and European civilisations will be rescued and Islamisation will reign. Passive or silent da’wa – propagating Islam by exhibiting the positive ideas and features that mosques and minarets radiate, that modest women’s dress and behaviour demonstrate, that Muslim mutual aid exhibits and that the focus on Muslim children’s education manifests – will redeem Europe and its poor, shallow culture. There are those like a militant (jihadi) Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) member of the Gaza parliament who preaches that the same will come to pass through conquest and forced conversions. Others look to the well-known Muslim thinker Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s ‘soft evangelism’ approach (see below). Either way, the result of these da’was will be the same: Christian Catholic Rome will fall to Islam. From what will become Muslim Rome – fated like Constantinople once Christian, now Muslim – the light will spread across the continent and on to the Americas. The world will be redeemed. Together, ‘soft evangelism’ and aggressive, offensive jihad will achieve Islamisation and doom the Judean–Christian civilisation; the outcome of both methods will the saving of humanity from itself:

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Allah has chosen you for Himself and for his religion, so as that you will serve as the engine pulling this nation to the phase of succession, security and consolidation of power, and even to conquest through da’wa and military conquests, of the capitals of the entire world. Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople [now Istanbul] was, as was prophesised by our Prophet Muhammad. Today, Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam, and has planted the brothers of apes and pigs [Jews] in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam – the capital of theirs will be an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread to Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas and even Eastern Europe. I believe that our children or our grandchildren will inherit our jihad and our sacrifices and, Allah willing, the commanders of the conquest will come from among them. Today, we instil these good tidings in their souls, and by means of the mosques and the Koran book, and the history of our Prophet, his companions, and the great leaders, we prepare them for the mission of saving humanity, from the hellfire on the brink on which they stand.113

In the wake of the conquests, apes, pigs and Crusaders in the sermon of the Hamas member of parliament stand the Muslim thinker Sheik Qaradawi and his ‘soft evangelism’, or peaceful conquest. Qaradawi’s Islam is presented as the only salvation; the only means to heaven; the only way to avoid the hell that awaits the European civilisation because of its promiscuity, homosexuality and lesbianism. Islam à la Qaradawi is what will leave Europeans with their material achievements, power, science, etc. but will redeem their souls and spirits. When Islam prevails there will be no more promiscuity, homosexuals and lesbians. Rational Europeans will then realise and become convinced of the validity of Muslim truth. Another Muslim conquest is certain; Rome is doomed to fall before the Islamic tide. Some friends quoted a Hadith that says Islam would conquer Rome. Does this mean that we will vanquish the Europeans once again? The conquest of Rome – the conquest of Italy and Europe – means that Islam will return to Europe once again. Must this conquest necessarily be through war? No. There is such a thing as a peaceful conquest. The peaceful conquest has foundations in this religion. But I expect that Islam will conquer Rome without resorting to the sword or to fighting. It will do so by means of da’wa and ideology. Europe is miserable with materialism, with the philosophy of promiscuity, and with the immoral considerations that rule the world – considerations of self-interest and self-influence. It is high time Europe woke up and found a way out from this. Europe will find no life saver or life boat other than Islam. Islam will save Europe from the raging materialism from which it suffers. The promiscuity, which permits men to marry men, and women to marry women, is horrifying. All religions condemn this. [Islam] is capable



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of granting Europe and the entire West the world to come, without denying them this world. It can grant them faith without denying them science. It can grant them truth, without denying them power. It can connect them to the heavens, without tearing them away from the earth. It can grant them spirit, without denying them matter. The message of Islam is a message of global balance, and therefore, I believe the next conquest will be conducted through da’wa. But, of course, the Muslims must start acting in order to conquer this world.114

Not only do Muslim thinkers consider Western-sanctioned gay marriage and lesbianism wild promiscuity. The dehumanised behaviour of Western heterosexuals (who are even worse than animals – see below) is also perceived as part and parcel of the Western decadent culture. Dr Mahmud A-Zahar, cofounder of Hamas (with Sheikh Ahmad Yassin) and foreign minister of the Gaza Hamas government (2006–7), blamed secular Western women for making fools of their husbands: We are the ones who respect women and honour women … not you [the West] … You have no religion, you are secular. You do not live like human beings. You do not [even] live like animals. You accept homosexuality. And now you criticise us!? You use women as an animal. She has one husband and hundreds of thousands of boyfriends. Because of the way you ‘respect’ women, you don’t know who is the father of your sons … Is it a crime to Islamise the people? I am a Muslim living here according to our tradition. Why should I live under your tradition? We understand you very well, you are poor people; morally poor. Don’t criticise us because of what we are.115

According to Muslim theology, by the end of time and the ensuing two (still pending) Roman invasions into the Muslim world, a third attempt, almalhama al-kubra (the big battle/war) will result in a Roman defeat. The capital of Byzantium, Constantinople, fell to the Muslim army in May 1453, according to the Prophet’s predictions without bloodshed (‘they … [would] not fight with arms, nor throw arrows’). The 70,000-strong Muslim army, composed of the descendants of the Prophet Isaac (that is to say the People of Moses, the Israelites or Jews who converted to Islam; they were also called the Sons of Jacob, the son of Isaac), surrounded the city, chanting ‘La ilaha il Allah’ (There is no God but Allah) and the Takbeer: ‘Allahu akbar’ (Allah is the Greatest). The walls of Constantinople then opened on three sides before the Muslim army. (Note the similarity to the biblical account of Jericho’s walls collapsing before Joshua’s advancing Israelites: ‘the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat’ (Joshua 6:20).) The same fate awaits Rome. No war will be fought; instead, God will fight on the side of the Muslims.

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The Romans will say: we were fighting the Arabs, but now we [the Romans] are fighting our God and God has destroyed for them [the Arabs and Muslims] our city. The Muslims will grab the booties of war and gold. The Muslims will distribute among themselves the progenies of the Romans to the extent that each man will get 300 virgins to enjoy ...116

Homogeneity, heterogeneity, monoliths Neither the Europeans nor the Muslim migrants constitute monolithic entities. Islam means different things to different people in different countries. When asked, Muslims in Europe identify themselves as Sunni (45 per cent), Shia, Alawite (Alawi), Ismaili, Sufi and Zayadi.117 They do not represent one united group or one ‘Islamic Nation’. Many immigrants of Muslim background seem to pay no attention to the rites of the Muslim religion, nor are they affiliated with Muslim religious organisations. Muslim sending countries cannot claim a monolithic Islamic culture; Muslim communities in Europe are diverse. The way individuals are treated varies from one European country to another. For example, in Sweden one third of sub-Saharan Africans experience discrimination, Afrophobia, compared with only 10 per cent of Iraqis. Occasionally in Sweden black Africans are even assaulted, like the attack on an Afro-Swedish father and his one-year-old son by several people in Malmö on 8 September 2013, for no apparent reason other than their skin colour. Hate crimes against blacks are not unique to Sweden – they are a pan-European problem.118 North Africans in Italy experience the highest level of discriminatory incidents, far more than the average. In Belgium and the Netherlands, North Africans suffer from a higher level of discriminatory incidents than do Muslims of Turkish origin. In France, sub-Saharan Africans are the victims of more attacks than North Africans.119 The non-monolithic nature of Muslims alludes to the fact that Muslim communities are not always immigrant communities, although most people with a Muslim affiliation do have roots outside their European host countries. The prudent warning of Riem Spielhaus is therefore relevant to our work: ‘The focus on one faith group bears the risk of constructing Muslims as a coherent group while ignoring the characteristics that some of them share with other individuals and groups.’120 Diversity among immigrants in Europe is not a trait associated solely with Muslim immigration. Let us consider the present migrant communities in Europe and classify them according to countries of origin and host countries. Accordingly, a very useful recent categorisation by Andreas Zick, Beate Kupper and Andreas Hovermann shows that the community of immigrants in Europe is



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anything but a homogenous group. The expectation of one voice speaking for all immigrants or for a single European policy that suits all is not a serious option, and particularly so for Muslim migrants. Immigrants to Europe originate from very different countries, by no means forming a homogeneous group. In Great Britain many immigrants come from the former colonies of India, Pakistan and the Caribbean, while more recently many labour migrants have arrived from Poland. In Germany immigrants from Turkey who arrived as temporary labour migrants (‘guest workers’) but stayed, form the largest group. Germany also has many ethnic German immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe who enjoy automatic German citizenship. The third major group in Germany are labour migrants from southern European countries that are now in the EU, along with their descendants. Most immigrants in France have North African roots; many originate from the former colony of Algeria and possess French citizenship. The Netherlands is home to many immigrants from the former Dutch colonies of Indonesia and Surinam, as well as many people with Moroccan and Tunisian roots. In Italy the proportion of immigrants is considerably smaller, the main groups being undocumented migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and Roma from Romania seeking work. Migration from the Balkan States increased during the Yugoslavian wars. As a former colonial power Portugal also records considerable immigration from Africa, and has recently also attracted labour migrants from Ukraine.121

When it comes to Muslims, a fundamental question is if it is at all permissible for a Muslim to live in Europe or any other place not governed by Islamic law (Sharia). The many different solutions to this dilemma point to the multifaceted entity called ‘Muslim immigration in Europe’. This is one reason why, as Susanne Olsson writes, we often speak of ‘“Islams” today; Islam is not one but many’.122 Nor can one describe a ‘one European approach’ towards foreigners; while we have a secular assimilationist approach in France, we used to have a multicultural approach in Holland and the UK.123 For Sara Silvestri (see below), immigrants in Europe today are inclined to accentuate the unique traits (ethnicity, languages, customs) that characterise their countries of origin but, alas, make them seem foreign and exotic to the European eye, and different and strange to each other. Silvestri illustrates the differences and divisions discernible among immigrants, showing how difficult it is to generalise about ‘Muslim immigrants in Europe’. Sunni Muslims, Shiites, Wahhabis, Deobandis, Asians, North Africans, national ties, ethnicity and languages, to mention only some of the divisions, guarantee that no such thing as a monolithic Muslim immigrant community exists in Europe. Remember Baroness Manningham-Buller’s mention of the immigrants’ 50 languages – but only three are mentioned below:

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There are major differences, for instance, not only between Sunnism and Shiism but also within each of these traditions, between Wahhabism [a conservative and fundamentalist Sunni Muslim movement, originated in Saudi Arabia by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, an eighteenth-century Muslim theologian], and Deobandism [a movement of Sunni Islam that began in Deoband, India in the 1860s], for example. The characteristics that differentiate Muslims in the Muslim states are perhaps even more visible when they migrate into Europe because, when all these individuals are transplanted from Asia, from North Africa, from the Gulf, and so on, they end up constituting microcosms that coexist within Europe. Maybe they interact but do not really merge. People might live in a very short distance from each other, and yet perhaps not be communicating with each other. In fact people still socialise, worship and form organisations primarily along national, ethnic or linguistic lines. There are, for instance, mosques where people speak Arabic, because they are attended by Muslims of Arab origin; there are mosques where people speak Urdu, because their constituency comes from south Asia; or there are Turkish-speaking mosques and associations. Dynamics of rivalry are not infrequent among the multifarious components of the European ummah.124

The many divisions and even discord between migrant groupings testify to their limited ability to act as a harmful united entity in the midst of Europe. Nonetheless, Muslims in Europe are perceived as the threatening spearhead of a carefully planned campaign to challenge European liberal values like freedom of speech, democracy and human rights. Occasionally, they are portrayed as a body that strives to Islamise the continent. Others mention the various classifications that exist among Muslims and their theological disputes. Still others divide the world into those who have already responded to the Islamic call and those who have not yet done so but who are potential candidates for conversion.125 Anti-Muslim views of migrants are not limited to abstract or theoretical expressions. Male Muslim migrants are accused of watering down the European gene pool by seducing and marrying European women:126 ‘[Britain you] should have lost World War II. Your daughters would be getting impregnated by handsome blond Germans instead of Pakistani goat herders. Good job, Britain.’127 This, so says the theory, affects Europe intellectually: Thilo Sarrazin, a Social Democratic Party politician who sat on the Bundesbank board and is the former finance senator for Berlin, argues in his bestselling book, Germany Abolishes Itself, that Germany is becoming ‘naturally more stupid on average’ as a result of immigration from Muslim countries.128 A 2011 report about intolerance (see below), prejudice and discrimination in Europe specifically links anti-Muslim views and violence (‘barks’ and ‘bites’, respectively) to the rise of European right-wing and radical Right parties. It also explains that the present European social and political system cannot please



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those individuals who lack feelings of affiliation and solidarity, and consequently are attracted to right-wing, anti-Muslim populism. Is there really such a great gap between violent views and physical violence? Prejudices are the lifeblood of right-wing populism and extremism, both of which threaten social cohesion and peaceful coexistence in the European Union. Populists channel prejudice into calls for exclusion, while right-wing extremists take their prejudices further and often propagate ideologies of violence against those seen as ‘foreign’ or ‘different’. Populism barks, but Extremism bites. Both currents draw on and create prejudices. These developments can be observed in all the countries of the European Union. Where it succeeds in concealing its violent leanings, right-wing populism makes relatively successful use of prejudices by playing on people’s existing concerns and fears. Populism seeks to draw in people whose need for belonging, self-esteem, trust, control and understanding can no longer be satisfied by politics, parties and mainstream institutions, using prejudices that apparently satisfy these needs. We currently see this happening most of all in extremist (and mainstream) discourses that inflame and stoke anti-Muslim attitudes and thus allow the Union to slide to the right.129

All the above evokes doomsday forecasts, particularly because Muslim and Arab population growth in the countries of origin which is presently described as uncontrolled might be checked, but only by 2050. With millions of youngsters only now entering their prime childbearing years, their progeny will inevitably resort to mass migration, most probably to Europe. In ‘What defines us – how we believe?’ TIME magazine predicted that the growth rate of the global Muslim population from 2010 to 2050 would be 73 per cent, making Islam the only major religious group projected to grow faster than the world’s overall population.130 True, small signs indicate falling fertility among Muslim populations; hence projections for the years 2010–30 suggest an annual rate of increase of 1.5 per cent, as compared with 2.2 per cent between 1990 and 2010. The introduction of family planning, of a modest but continuing increase in secondary and higher education and further career development for Muslim girls and women, and of urbanisation, which encourages smaller families, as well as other reasons, may slow the growth of the Muslim population in a generation or two.131 The Pew Research Center shows that presently the Muslim-majority countries have young populations. In 2010 the under-30s made up about 60 per cent of their total population. By contrast, only about a third of all people living in the world’s more developed regions, such as Europe and North America, were under 30 in 2010. By 2030 the figures should drop, respectively, to 50 per cent and almost 31 per cent. Data on Europeans and Muslims alone show similar patterns: the under-30s comprised about 49 per cent of the Muslim ­population in

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Europe in 2010, compared with about 34 per cent of the non-Muslim population. In 2030, about 42 per cent of Europe’s Muslims will be under 30, compared with about 31 per cent of the non-Muslim population.132 Alas, according to the World Bank’s calculations, the Arab world will be simply unable to create a hundred million new jobs by 2030 to curb unemployment (in Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading oil-producing country, 27 per cent of the 20- to 30-year-olds are unemployed) or to halt emigration, mainly to European countries. To create new jobs, Arab economies must cooperate, but inter-Arab trade within the Arab world of 350 million is marginal, whereas intensive inter-Arab trade would be a hopeful indicator of economic cooperation. Arab markets are isolated from each other and the rest of the world due to cumbersome bureaucratic demands and excessive restrictions on investments and on the movement of goods and people across Middle Eastern borders.133 The present and future economic outlook acts as a pump to mass emigration from all Arab nations, particularly to Europe. The Islamic agenda and theology are said to lubricate this human movement. Outsiders describe Muslim population growth as a conspiracy, a cunning means to achieve political targets. Islam’s time, they say, is short, now or never, to fulfil its goal of world supremacy by exploiting the poor Arab and Muslim masses. The West in general and Europe in particular are seen as ageing and weak, economically sick and socially and politically bankrupted, hence the importance of timing. A secular Europe means an unarmed Europe, ripe for the picking by the proactive, dynamic and vibrant Muslim religion. Since the mass migration of the some 25 to 30 million unemployed Arabs will be a storming of the gates of Western Europe, Armageddon will be fought on European soil. The Middle East and North Africa are a long-term demographic nightmare. The US Census Bureau estimates that the Middle East is a region where the population will nearly double between now [2005] and 2030. Some of the most important, and sometimes troubled, countries in the region will experience explosive population growth. Population growth represents major problems for infrastructure. Much of the region has become a permanent food importer. Employment and education will become critical challenges to regional stability. All these and other features make the Middle East less competitive with the leading developing regions despite the recent boom in oil prices. The trends in population growth actually represent potential threats to security and stability. … [A]bout 2010 the pool of unemployed Arabs is expected to reach 25 million. True, this is first and above all an Arab problem. Yet, if the expectations are accurate, by 2050, according to the latest UN projections, the population growth rate of the Muslim world will converge on that of the United States (although it will be much higher than Europe’s or China’s). In the focus on the political processes in the Middle East, the demographic issue goes almost unnoticed, although this



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is the very source of future problems. However, we just ask: what will become of those 25 million idle young men in an Arab world where violence and terrorism seem to be generated by local as well as regional and international political interests, where the perspectives seem locked up and the future unsafe? What would we do if some reports claiming that the next ‘civilization clash’ will not spare the West, since some Islamic thinkers believe that Islam has one generation in which to establish a global theocracy before hitting a demographic barrier? Islam has enough young men, they claim, to fight a war during the next 30 years.134

The above earlier population and job-creation estimates may have missed the mark, which makes follow-up doomsday predictions more immediate, and so more threatening. The latest calculations find that the Middle East needs no fewer than 170 million new jobs by 2020! The inevitably gloomy warning that follows this mind-boggling figure is very clear: ‘If we can’t tackle this issue, we are going to be responsible for the largest talent pool for extremism.’135 Also, the remedy for out-of-control population bursts and to decrease fertility rates is said to be access to contraceptives and improvement of girls’ and women’s education.136 Alas, until that happens, the latest UN reports that combine fertility rates, life expectancy, mortality rates and other governmental data from all over the world do not see a slow-down or a levelling of the global population until 2050. On the contrary, the world’s population (7.2 billion in 2014) will probably pass the 11 billion mark by 2100 (80 per cent probability between 9.6 and 12.3 billion), in particular because of a steep population rise in Africa. There, in Africa, the increase is expected to be a quadrupling of the level in 2014 – from 1 billion to 4 billion (between 3.5 and 5.1 billion) by the end of the twenty-first century.137 The lone voice of the Vatican repeatedly warns that secular Europe is morally unarmed for the developing clash between the Muslims and the Western world. The Enlightenment thinking of Western Europe marginalised religion. By aggressively pursuing active secularism, the continent has lost touch with religion’s moral teachings and political messages. For the former Pope Benedict XVI, the nominal target and ‘usual suspect’ in his sermons was the secular West, which, he said, had committed the tragic error of discarding Christianity as being devoid of reason. The West has relegated Christianity to a minor role, consequently discarding its moral stature, and secularism has not filled the gap. In March 2007 the Vatican, in a sign of the times, sharply and bitterly criticised the EU for not mentioning God or Christianity during the 50th anniversary of the Union. But the greater ‘villain’ Pope Benedict had in his sights was Islam. He claimed that Islam is gradually filling the spiritual vacuum, although it undervalues rationality and is consequently more inclined to violence.138 If one needed ‘proof’ one

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need only look to the mass Muslim protests – often turning into violent, vicious riots – over Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses and the anti-Muhammad video play The Innocence of Muslims (see below). That ‘suffices’ to prove that Muslims cannot engage in reasonable debate. Muslim verbal aggression and physical violence have been described as more the rule than the exception.139 The German philosopher Max Weber (1864–1920) also equated Islam with violence: ‘Islam, in contrast to Judaism, lacked the requirement of a comprehensive knowledge of the law and lacked the intellectual training in casuistry which nurtured the rationalism of Judaism. The ideal personality type in the religion of Islam was not the scholarly scribe [Literat], but the warrior.’140 When burning Rushdie’s Satanic Verses in Bradford, England in January 1989, the Muslim protestors immediately raised cruel and threatening memories and images of Spanish inquisitors burning Jews who refused to convert, and of Nazis burning Jewish books and sacred scrolls in 1930s Germany. Some called to mind the Spanish auto da-fe and others, François Truffaut’s 1966 film, Fahrenheit 451 (paper starts to burns at 451° F or 233° C). Truffaut’s film portrays a group of people who go to the forests to memorise books because the dictatorial regime under which they live outlaws all books and burned them. Some quoted Heinrich Heine’s (whose works were burned in May 1933 in Berlin) 1821 play Almansor, which stated of Koran burning in the Spanish Inquisition: ‘Where they burn books, they will, in the end also burn people.’141 The Muslim riots after the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper’s publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad on 30 September 2005 resulted in over 100 deaths across the Muslim world; the Danish Embassy bombing in Pakistan; the torching of Danish embassies in Damascus, Beirut and Teheran; the burning of European national flags; the storming of European and Western buildings and institutions; and more. A reward of nearly $11 million was offered to anyone who would behead the Danish cartoonist who had caricatured Muhammad. In September 2012 an almost identical event occurred when the video The Innocence of Muslims was uploaded to the internet. Four American diplomats were killed in Libya, and Western embassies were attacked in Muslim countries. About 75 people died in Muslim lands and hundreds were injured. A large reward was offered for the death of the producer. In this video the Prophet Muhammad appears as an aggressor, paedophile and wanton womaniser. For some, this further attested to the gap between the brutal, non-democratic Muslim world and Western rights of free speech and liberal publication policies. Islam teaches that the face neither of God nor of the Prophet may be drawn. A strict interpretation of Islam prohibits the depiction of human faces. Accordingly, ‘The Romeisa Deeni Doll’, named after one of the female companions of the Prophet Mohammad, was offered to Muslim children in Britain; it has no eyes, mouth



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or nose and is therefore ‘Sharia compliant’.142 The Jewish biblical parallel to this prohibition is ‘Thou shall not make for thyself any carved idol or any likeness of anything in the heavens above …’ (Exodus 20:4). On the other hand, face details of God do appear in Michelangelo’s painting Creation of the Sun and Moon on the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel ceiling. In the struggle (others use more militant expressions like ‘conflict’, ‘invasion’ or even ‘attack’, ‘battle’ or ‘war’) between the two main monotheistic religions, Islam and Christianity, the sides are portrayed as unevenly matched. Because of Europe’s marginalised Christianity and the continent’s overwhelmingly secularist inclinations, Europeans have lost their missionary zeal and seem to move aside and yield in the face of the potent Muslim religion. ‘Triumphalism’ is the name of the game. Judaism had it, but forgot it long ago. Even if Judaism has the upper hand it does not spread a gospel, because Judaism is the faith of the Jewish people, not to be disseminated among the nations. Christianity lost its fervour in favour of the good life. Only Islam thrives on da’wa. See the following characterisations of the three religions by the eminent historian Bernard Lewis: The … thing more directly relevant … is the signs of a return among Muslims to what they perceive as the cosmic struggle for world domination between the two main faiths – Christianity and Islam. There are many religions in the world, but as far as I know there are only two that have claimed that their truths are not only u­ niversal – all religions claim that – but also exclusive; that they – the Christians in the one case, the Muslims in the other – are the fortunate recipients of God’s final message to humanity, which it is their duty not to keep selfishly to themselves – like the Jews or the Hindus – but to bring to the rest of humanity, removing whatever obstacles there may be on the way. This self-perception, shared between Christendom and Islam, led to the long struggle that has been going on for more than fourteen centuries and which is now entering a new phase. In the Christian world, now at the beginning of the 21st century of its era, this triumphalist attitude no longer prevails, and is confined to a few minority groups. In the world of Islam, now in its early 15th century, triumphalism is still a significant force, and has found expression in new militant movements.143

Perhaps the Buddhist interpretation, Taoist philosophies and the rule of complementary opposites and contrary forces might give us a clearer picture. Similar to the above-described spirit of ‘triumphalism’, the American historian Daniel Pipes described the possibility of Islam having the upper hand in Europe. ‘Europe will be Islamised because the yin of Europe and yang of Muslims fit quite perfectly: low and high religiosity, low and high fertility, low and high cultural confidence. … Europeans will quietly submit to the dhimmi status or convert to Islam.’ Pipes remains inconclusive about whether Islam will take over or be tamed and become Europeanised. ‘My crystal ball is cloudy,’ he said.144

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Conclusion The realities of Europe and its Muslim migrants paint a mixed picture: Europe needs immigration in order to function fully, both socially and economically. The encounter between the two sides is coloured by frictions and controversies. Deep emotions, derogatory images and long-held beliefs allow only slow progress and small steps as each population adapts to the other. The profound changes that both sides have to make are substantive and often painful. In this hectic process one comes across many examples that both sides use, culled from another encounter no less painful: the European–Jewish histories and presents. The next chapter focuses on the exemplary European realities surrounding the ‘triangular’ interactions and relations between the Europeans, Muslims and Jews and the various arguments and policies that each brings forth to support, prove and justify their separate and joint views and predictions.

Notes 1 One example of using ‘white’ to distinguish Europeans from Muslim migrants is seen in an interview with French philosopher Alan Finkielkraut: ‘It is a revolt when an Arab burns a school; it is fascism when a white [German] does it in Rostock. But I am colour-blind.’ In D. Mishani and A. Smotriez. ‘What sort of Frenchmen are they?’ interview with A. Finkielkraut, Haaretz Magazine (18 November 2005), www. haaretz.com/what-sort-of-frenchmen-are-they-1.174419 (accessed 23 July 2015). 2 Jocelyne Cesari, When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims in Europe and in the United States (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 3. 3 EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), Minorities and Discrimination Survey (EU: MIDIS 02, 2009), Data in Focus Report/Muslims, p. 3, http://fra.europa.eu/ sites/default/files/fra_​uploads/448-EU-MIDIS_​MUSLIMS_​EN.pdf (accessed 23 July 2015). A total of 25,000 immigrant and ethnic minority people were surveyed in face-to-face questionnaire interviews in all 27 member states of the EU during 2008. A further 5,000 people from the majority population living in the same areas as minorities were interviewed in 10 member states. Ibid., p. 2. 4 Sam Vaknin, ‘Op-Ed: Muslims are Europe’s new Jews?’ Digital Journal (26 July 2011), http://digitaljournal.com/article/309558 (accessed 23 July 2015); Daphna Elfersy, ‘The Muslim civil ethic and the concerting of secularism: Islam in France and the Netherlands’, Paris Institute of Political Studies, Sciences Po Doctoral School, Center for International Studies and Research, CNRS, National Centre for Scientific Research, CERI, Doctorate in Political Science, jointly supervised with Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv (PhD diss., Tel Aviv University, 2014), p. 272.



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5 Fjordman (blog name), ‘Are Muslims the Jews of today?’ (28 November 2005), http://fjordman.blogspot.co.il/search?q=Are+Muslims+the+Jews+of+today (accessed 4 September 2015). 6 Baron Bodissey, ‘The Gates of Vienna: The New York Times and Sweden – the Dark Side of Paradise’ (22 May 2006), http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/05/ new-york-times-and-sweden-dark-side-of.html (accessed 13 December 2015). ‘The Gates of Vienna’ is a symbolic term. One often sees graffiti or hears declarations that in 1683 Europeans fought hard at the Gates of Vienna to stop the Ottoman invasion of Europe. 7 Paul Mason, ‘The EU is ignoring the human rights abuses behind Morocco’s razor wire’, Guardian (2 September 2013), www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/ sep/02/eu-ignoring-rights-abuses-morocco (accessed 23 July 2015). 8 Andreas Zick, Beate Kupper and Andreas Hovermann, Intolerance, Prejudice and Discrimination: A European Report (Berlin: Forum Berlin, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2011), p. 105. For the complexities surrounding Muslim numbers in Europe, see Riem Spielhaus, ‘Measuring the Muslim: About statistical obsessions, categorisations and the quantification of religion’, in Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, vol. 3, ed. Jorgen S. Nielsen (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), pp. 695–715. 9 Independent (2 January 2015), reprinted in Panayote Dimitras, Anti-Racism News (January 2015), 1–5; James Kanter, ‘European Union predicts economic gains from influx of migrants’. New York Times (5 November 2015), www.nytimes. com/2015/11/06/business/international/european-union-economic-forecastmigrants-refugees.html?_​r=0 (accessed 19 February 2016). 10 Sara Silvestri, ‘Does Islam challenge European identity?’, in L. Faltin, and M. Wright (eds), The Religious Roots of Contemporary European Identity (London: Continuum, 2007), p. 20. 11 Silvestri, ‘Does Islam challenge European identity?’; Goran Larsson and Riem Spielhaus, ‘Europe with or without Muslims – two contradicting histories’, 13th Mediterranean Research Programme, Mediterranean Program of the Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Montecatini Terme (21–24 March 2012); Riem Spielhaus, ‘Measuring the Muslim: About statistical obsessions, categorisations and the quantification of religion’, in Jorgen S. Nielsen (ed.), Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, vol. 3 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), p. 708; Sonja Haug, Anja Stichs, Stephanie Mussig and Katy Otto, Muslim Life in Germany: A Study Conducted on Behalf of the German Conference on Islam (Nurnberg: Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, 2009), p. 12. 12 Zick et al., Intolerance, Prejudice and Discrimination, p. 21. 13 Ibid., pp. 41, 69. 14 Suzanne Daley and Nicholas Kulish, ‘Germany fights population drop’, New York Times (13 August 2013), www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/world/europe/ger​ many-fights-population-drop.html?_​r=0 (accessed 23 July 2015). 15 Ibid. 16 Francis I, ‘Visit of His Holiness Pope Francis to the European Parliament and to

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the Council of Europe; Address of Pope Francis to the European Parliament’, Strasbourg, France, 25 November 2014, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/ en/speeches/2014/november/documents/papa-francesco_​20141125_​strasburgoparlamento-europeo.html (accessed 23 July 2015). Daley and Kulish, ‘Germany fights population drop’. Ingo Kramer, Head, The Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA), interview, Focus, 2 January 2015, reprinted in Panayote Dimitras, Anti-Racism News, 1–5 January 2015. Kramer and German Chancellor Angela Merkel protested against PEGIDA, (‘Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West’), who in early January 2015 organised a rally against Muslim immigrants in the city of Dresden. PEGIDA’s manifesto lists policies to deal with migrants including integration, ‘sexual self-determination’, and the stopping of the ‘almost obsessive’ movement against gendered German language. PEGIDA’s focus is said to be the preservation of ‘JudeoChristian Western culture’ against what they claim is the rise of radicalism and ‘parallel societies with Sharia police’. Ibid. Floyd Norris, ‘Working longer in the developed world’, New York Times (19 October 2012), www.nytimes.com/2012/10/20/business/economy/working-longer-inthe-developed-world.html?_​r=0 (accessed 23 July 2015). Ibid. Ibid. Others quote 47 years and even 40 as the average life expectancy for men in the years 1900–10. See Tali Herooti-Sober, Haaretz, TheMarker (13 May 2012, Hebrew), p. 2. See also Haaretz (14 April 2010, Hebrew). Daley and Kulish, ‘Germany fights population drop’. Ioana Patran and Sam Cage, ‘Poverty drives central Europe’s great exodus’, Reuters, 29 March 2012, www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/29/us-europe-populationidUSBRE82S08N20120329 (accessed 23 July 2015). Ibid. Roderick Parkes quoted in Ibid. Parkes was the director of the Brussels office of the German Institute of International and Security Affairs in 2009–12. Dafna Maor, ‘Europe – you are ageing, tired and need immigration’, Haaretz, TheMarker (27 November 2014, Hebrew), p. 26. Christina Boswell, ‘Migration in Europe’, Policy Analysis Research Program, Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM) (September 2005), p. 5; Klaus Brinkbäumer, ‘The New Mass Migration (2)’, Spiegel On Line, International (24 January 2007), www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/the-onslaught-of-the-poorthe-new-mass-migration-a-461120.html (accessed 23 July 2015). Oriana Fallaci, The Rage and the Pride (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 2003), p. 98. ‘Where are the English?’ dr1 (17 January 2013), ‘Nominated the best joke of the year’, www.dr1.com/forums/clown-bin/130154-where-english.html (accessed 23 July 2015). Boswell, ‘Migration in Europe’.



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Vaknin, ‘Op-Ed: Muslims are Europe’s new Jews?’ Ibid. Brinkbäumer, ‘The New Mass Migration’. Branson MacKinley, International Herald Tribune, reprinted in Haaretz (27 June 2005, Hebrew); Peter Schneider, ‘The new Berlin wall’, New York Times (4 December 2005), www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/magazine/the-new-berlin-wall.html (acc­ es­sed 23 July 2015); Boswell, ‘Migration in Europe’. Claudio Fassio, Fabio Montobbio and Alessandra Venturini, ‘Do native and migrant workers contribute to innovation? Patents and dynamics in France, Germany and the UK’, Italy, European University Institute, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Migration Policy Centre, EUI Working Paper RSCAS 2015/41 (June 2015); Claudio Fassio, Sona Kalantaryan and Alessandra Venturini, ‘Human resources and innovation: total factor productivity and foreign human capital’, ibid. Vaknin, ‘Op-Ed: Muslims are Europe’s New Jews?’ See Keith Thomas, ‘What are universities for?’ Times Literary Supplement, 7 May 2010; Martha Nussbaum, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010); Martha Nussbaum, ‘Skills for life’, Times Literary Supplement (30 April 2010); Anthony Grafton, ‘Britain: The disgrace of the universities’, New York Review of Books (9 March 2010). Peter Schneider, ‘The New Berlin Wall’; Boswell, ‘Migration in Europe’; UK Home Office, Race Equality in Public Services, 2005 (London: Race Cohesion, Equality and Faith Directorate, 2005), p. 8. Feysa Demie and Steve Strand, ‘English acquisition and educational attainment at the end of secondary school’, Educational Studies, 32:2 (June 2006), 215–31. BBC News, ‘Immigrants drive Spanish growth’, quoting Miguel Sebastian, the Spanish Government Top Economic Advisor (15 November 2006); EXPATICA (News and Information for Expats in Spain), ‘Immigrants behind 50pc growth over past 5 years’ (16 November 2006), www.expatica.com/es/news/country-news/ Immigrants-behind-50pc-growth-over-past-5-years_​141167.html (accessed 23 July 2015). Israel Fisher, ‘215 million people cross any border’, Markerweek, the annual magazine of TheMarker (20 December 2012, Hebrew), p. 26. Guardian, quoted in Haaretz (23 October 2006, Hebrew). General Medical Council, List of Registered Medical Practitioners (LRMP) – Statistics (7 October 2015), www.gmc-uk.org/doctors/register/search_​stats.asp (accessed 26 October 2015). Assaf Oni, Haaretz (4 July 2007, Hebrew). J.F.O. McAllister, ‘A secret success’, TIME (28 February 2005) (emphasis added). Amnon Kartin, Tel Aviv University, quoted in Israel Fisher, ‘215 million people cross any border’, Markerweek (20 December 2012, Hebrew), p. 24. Bhikhu Parekh, The Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain – The Parekh Report, The Runnymede Trust (London: Profile Books, 2002), p. 191. The Policy Studies Institute is a British think-tank at the University of Westminster in London, ­specialising

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in environmental studies and in work and social policy. The Manufacturing, Science and Finance (MSF) union was a trade union in Britain which became part of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union in 2001. 49 Migration in an Interconnected World: New Directions for Action (Geneva: The Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM), October 2005), p. 10. 50 New York Times, reprinted in Haaretz (3 March 2005, Hebrew). 51 Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, quoted in Alexandra Frean, ‘Schools must confront the problem of marginalised white pupils’, The Times (24 January 2007), www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/education/ article1799590.ece (accessed 14 March 2016). 52 Mason, ‘The EU is ignoring the human rights abuses’. 53 McAllister, ‘A secret success’, quoting Christian Dustmann, Director of the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration at University College, London. 54 Cesari, When Islam and Democracy Meet, p. 21. 55 Zick et al., Intolerance, Prejudice and Discrimination, p. 61. 56 Dan Eggen, ‘Ashcroft invokes religion in U.S. War on Terrorism’, Washington Post (20 February 2002), www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/02/20/ ashcroft-invokes-religion-in-us-war-on-terrorism/4b24e576-1aa2-4d6b-80db071b162da742/ (accessed 23 July 2015). See also Cesari, When Islam and Democracy Meet, p. 41. 57 Khalid Kishtainy, ‘There’s suicide and there’s suicide’, Al-Sharq al-Awsat (London, 26 April 2015). Kishtainy is referring to the initiative by Marchs One, a non-profit organisation based in the Netherlands that has put forward plans to land the first humans on Mars and establish a permanent human colony there by 2027. See MEMRI, The Middle East Media Research Institute (6 May 2015), www.memri.org/report/ en/0/0/0/0/0/0/8551.htm (accessed 14 July 2015). 58 Cesari, When Islam and Democracy Meet, p. 33. Cesari is quoting here the Italian Cardinal Biffi. 59 Peter Walker and Matthew Taylor, ‘Far right on rise in Europe, says report’, Guardian (Sunday, 6 November 2011), www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/06/far-rightrise-europe-report (accessed 23 July 2015). 60 Ofer Aderet, ‘Protest against immigration’ Haaretz (8 September 2013, Hebrew). 61 Oriana Fallaci, quoted in Vaknin, Digital Journal, ‘Op-Ed: Muslims are Europe’s New Jews?’ In his article Vaknin heavily criticised Fallaci; Oriana Fallaci, The Rage and the Pride (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 2003), pp. 129, 137–8. 62 Matt Carr quoting Christopher Caldwell, in ‘Christopher Caldwell dissected’, book review of Christopher Caldwell, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West (New York: Doubleday, 2009), Institute of Race Relations (2 July 2009). Carr is extremely critical of Caldwell’s theses and does not agree with many of Caldwell’s insights and conclusions. See review, www.irr.org.uk/2009/july/ ha000011.html (accessed 23 July 2015). 63 Soeren Kern, ‘Ban remains on Muslim prayer in Spanish cathedral’, Gatestone Institute, International Policy Council (14 February 2013), www.gatestoneinstitute.



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org/3589/Córdoba-cathedral-muslim-prayer (accessed 23 July 2015). Al-Andalus – according to some the name means ‘paradise’ – is the Arabic name of those parts of Spain, Portugal and France that were occupied by Muslim conquerors, the Moors, between 711 and 1492. 64 Ibid. See also Isabel Romero, Córdoba’s Islamic Association, quoted in Rachel Donadio, ‘Name debate echoes an old clash of faiths’, New York Times (4 November 2010), www. nytimes.com/2010/11/05/world/europe/05Córdoba.html?pagewanted=all&_​ r=0 (accessed 23 July 2015). 65 Kern, ‘Ban remains on Muslim prayer in Spanish cathedral’. 66 Ibid. 67 Atika Shubert, ‘Muslims in Spain campaign to worship alongside Christians’, CNN (30 August 2010); also Donadio, ‘Name debate echoes an old clash of faiths’. 68 Donadio, ‘Name debate echoes an old clash of faiths’. 69 Quoted in Daniel Pipes, ‘Mosque in Córdoba, church in Damascus: Basilica San Juan, Damascus’ (26 December 2006), www.danielpipes.org/blog/2006/12/ mosque-in-Córdoba-church-in-damascus (accessed 23 July 2015). See also ‘El obispo de Córdoba: “Abrir la Mezquita a los musulmanes significa: católicos váyanse”’ (The Bishop of Córdoba: ‘Open mosque to Muslims means: Catholics go away’), El Mundo (14 June 2010, Spanish). 70 For more on the Hagia Sophia, the Bir Seb’a mosque and the Be’er Sheva Muslim Culture Museum, see Sahni Litman, ‘Curating the prayers’, Haaretz, Galleria (21 December 2014, Hebrew). 71 Donadio, ‘Name debate echoes an old clash of faiths’; Ben White, ‘Be’er Sheva’s masquerade’, Aljazeera (4 September 2012), www.aljazeera.com/indepth/ opinion/2012/09/20129475526951177.html (accessed 23 July 2015); Seth J. Frantzman, ‘Terra Incognita: The re-Islamification of Beersheba’, The Jerusalem Post (5 September 2012). 72 Pipes, ‘Mosque in Córdoba, church in Damascus’. 73 Daniel Pipes, ‘The Vatican confronts Islam’ [‘Quest for reciprocity’. Jerusalem Post (5  July 2006)], www.danielpipes.org/3729/the-vatican-confronts-islam (accessed 23 July 2015). 74 Pope Benedict XVI (May 2006), Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican equivalent of foreign minister (late 2003), respectively; quoted in Pipes, ‘The Vatican confronts Islam’. 75 Patrick Sookhdeo, Director, The Barnabas Fund, quoted in Pipes, ‘The Vatican confronts Islam’. The Barnabas Fund, active in over 40 countries, is a Christian organisation established in 1993 to serve the suffering Church and make their needs known to Christians around the world. 76 Richard John Neuhaus, ‘What the Pope gets right …’, TIME (27 November 2006), p. 26. Father Richard John Neuhaus is editor in chief of First Things, a monthly magazine on religion and culture. 77 Pope Benedict XVI, quoted in Pipes, ‘The Vatican Confronts Islam’. 78 Greg Botelho, ‘Amid killings and kidnappings, can Christianity survive in the Middle

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East?’ CNN (27 February 2015). In Saudi Arabia the religious police dictate that only Islam can be practised. Saudi Arabia’s control over religious matters is defined as ‘complete’. Thomas L. Friedman, ‘Democracy’s root: Diversity’, New York Times (11 November 2007), www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/opinion/11friedman.html?hp (accessed 23 July 2015). Ayaan Hirsi Ali, ‘Swiss ban on minarets was a vote for tolerance and inclusion’, Christian Science Monitor (5 December 2009), www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/ Opinion/2009/1205/p09s01-coop.html (accessed 23 July 2015). Stephan Astourian, ‘Modern Turkish identity and the Armenian genocide’, in Richard Hovannisian (ed.), Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999), p. 28. Search Truth. The Hadith Book: The Book on Salutations and Greetings (Kitab as-salam) from Sahih Muslim, Hadith No. 5389, www.searchtruth.com/book_​display.php?book=2 6&translator=2&start=10&number=5383 (accessed 23 July 2015). The full Hadith 5389 reads: ‘Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Do not greet the Jews and the Christians before they greet you and when you meet any one of them on the roads force him to go to the narrowest part of it.’ ’Umar ibn al-Khattab, ’Umar (Omar) son of Al-Khattab (579–644), known also as Caliph Omar, was the second Muslim caliph (ruler) and one of the most powerful rulers of the Muslim empire; he ruled over the whole Persian Empire and most of the Eastern Roman Empire. Uzayr, identified as Ezra, is mentioned in the Koran (Sura 9:30) as considered by the Jews to be the son of God. The Bible gives him the title Ezra Hasofer, Ezra the Scribe. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah describe how Ezra returned to Jerusalem from the Babylonian exile and reintroduced the Torah. Tafsir ibn Kathir, Quran Tafsir, ‘Paying jizyah is a sign of kufr and disgrace’ www. qtafsir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2566&Itemid=64 (accessed 23 July 2015). Quoted in Pipes, ‘The Vatican confronts Islam’. Ifigeneia Kokkali mentions that in 2012 Athens was the only European capital not to have a mosque. Bishop Anthimos of Thessaloniki linked the request to build a mosque in Athens to the reopening of the Greek Orthodox Theological School in Halki, Turkey. (Heybeliada is the Turkish name for Halki.) The Halki school hosted the main seminar of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (Istanbul) until the Turkish government closed it down in 1971. In Greece, as in other places in Europe that encountered the Ottoman Empire over the years, there is a near equivalence between Muslims and Turks. The Archbishop of Greece, Christodoulos said on June 2002, ‘We, being Greeks, were subjected to the [rule of the] Turks for 400 years. … In the mind of the Greeks everything Islamic is Turkish. … Thus there is hatred … For this reason [the Greek government] has chosen a place outside the city of Athens, so that [the Muslims] are not right in the middle … we are afraid that such a mosque right in the centre of Athens with a minaret … and a muezzin who will be heard five times a day performing



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the prayer, will provoke a reaction from the Greek people, the extend of which we cannot know.’ See Ifgeneia Kokkali, ‘Greece without (anymore) Muslims: silencing religious difference in the context of migration’, The 13th Mediterranean Research Programme, Mediterranean Program of the Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Montecatini Terme, 21–24 March 2012. See also Eleytherotypia (26 March 2006, Greek). Botelho, ‘Amid killings and kidnappings’. Pew Research Center report, quoted in Botelho, ‘Amid killings and kidnappings’. Aryn Baker, ‘Unholy choices: Christians in the Middle East find themselves at crossroads in a region rocked by war and revolution’, TIME (21 April 2014), p. 25. Ibid. Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Information Department (Middle East, Religion Affairs, Political Research Center), Christian Communities in the Middle East, 2013 (17 March 2013, Hebrew). Bat Ye’or, a historian of the Middle East, said the following regarding the mild Western reaction to the massacre of Middle Eastern Christians: ‘Maybe it is one more sign of Western decadence, of a deliberate policy of deleting Christian identity by choosing globalisation and Islamisation – a policy based on the rejection of Judeo-Christian values rooted in our actual Western culture of execration of Israel. … Europe has desisted from defending itself, how would it defend others?’ quoted in Giulio Meotti, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, ‘The extinction of Eastern Christianity may figure Europe’s own future’ (5 April 2015), www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/16737#.VSKP05t02pp. Botelho, ‘Amid killings and kidnappings’. Ibid. Baker, ‘Unholy choices’, pp. 25–6. Botelho, ‘Amid killings and kidnappings. Elaine Ganley, ‘Austere brand of Islam on rise in Europe, stirring concerns’, Associated Press (21 June 2015), http://bigstory.ap.org/article/f011f5c4c5654dcf9a7666ef2355ffce/austere-brand-islam-rise-europe-stirring-concerns. Ibid. Ibid. Lauren E. Bohn, ‘In Egypt, Christians caught in cross fire’, TIME (9 September 2013), p. 8; also Baker, ‘Unholy choices’. Baker, ‘Unholy choices’. Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Christian Communities in the Middle East, 2013. Botelho, ‘Amid killings and kidnappings’. Baker, ‘Unholy choices’, pp. 24, 27. Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Christian Communities in the Middle East, 2013. Matthew Kalman, ‘Mosque destroyed, Nazareth remains divided. Muslims vow they’ll try to rebuild’, San Francisco Chronicle (6 July 2003), www.sfgate.com/news/ article/Mosque-destroyed-Nazareth-remains-divided-2604477.php (accessed 23 July 2015).

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107 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Christian Communities in the Middle East, 2013. 108 Botelho, ‘Amid killings and kidnappings’; also ‘Till when will Israel let its churches and mosques be burnt?’ (editorial), Haaretz (21 June 2015, Hebrew). 109 Joseph Milman, Haaretz, Galleria (9 September 2011, Hebrew). 110 Silvestri, ‘Does Islam challenge European identity?’, p. 24; see also McAllister, ‘A secret success’. In discussing Britain and immigration, McAllister argues that British state successes are, by extension, good for the EU. 111 BBC News, ‘Germany shocked by Cologne New Year gang assaults on women’ (5 January 2016), www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35231046 (accessed 15 February 2016). 112 Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, ‘Under the skin of Britain’s neo-nationalists’, Politics UK (7 March 2013), www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2013/03/07/ analysis-under-the-skin-of-britain-s-neo-nationalists (accessed 23 July 2015). Aysha (Aisha) was one of Muhammad’s wives. Aysha was betrothed to Muhammad at age six and married him when she was nine. Meleagrou-Hitchens is head of research at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at King’s College, London. Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens and Hans Brun. A Neo-Nationalist Network: The English Defence League and Europe’s Counter-Jihad Movement (London: The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR), 2013), http://icsr. info/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ICSR-ECJM-Report_​Online.pdf (accessed 21 February 2016). The English Defence League (EDL) is a militant British far-right, anti-Muslim, Islamophobic organisation founded in 2009. Its foundation is linked to demonstrations by Muslims in various UK towns against parades of British units on their return from military duty in Afghanistan. Others explain the EDL’s establishment as a counter-activity to Muslim protests during the funerals of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan. See also Nick Fagge, ‘Muslim extremists protest at soldiers’ homecoming parade’, Daily and Sunday Express (16 June 2010), www.express.co.uk/ news/uk/181185/Muslim-extremists-protest-at-soldiers-homecoming-parade (acc­ essed 23 July 2015). 113 Yunis al-Astal, cleric and Hamas MP (member of the Palestinian Legislative Council) of Khan Yunis, ‘Islam: Muslim will conquer Rome – Islam will rule the world’, Al-Aqsa TV, MEMRI TV Project (11 April 2008), Arabic, translated by memritv.org, www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXxDAVshjgU (uploaded 3 January 2009, accessed 31 October 2016). 114 Zick et al., Intolerance, Prejudice and Discrimination, p. 21. 115 Crispian Balmer, ‘Don’t preach to us, Hamas tells secular West’, Reuters (28 October 2010), http://uk.reuters.com/article/2010/10/28/uk-palestinianshamas-interview-idUKTRE69R21120101028 (accessed 23 July 2015). 116 Nuaim bin Hammad, Kitab al-Fitan, Sahih Muslim, Suyuti, and Al-Albany, Discovering Islam. ‘Romans invasions and the conquest of Constantinople and Rome. The role of European Christian and Jewish converts to Islam’, www.discoveringislam.org/ roman_​invasions.htm (accessed 23 July 2015). Another explanation of ‘the sons of Isaac’ is that these were Christian Europeans who converted to Islam. Ibid.



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117 EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), p. 17. 118 European Network Against Racism (ENAR) (12 September 2013), www.enar-eu. org (accessed 23 July 2015). 119 EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), p. 6. 120 Spielhaus, ‘Measuring the Muslim’, p. 714. 121 Zick et al., Intolerance, Prejudice and Discrimination, p. 20. 122 Susanne Olsson, ‘Contested Islamic authority – Europe as an “Abode of Islam”?’ 13th Mediterranean Research Programme, Mediterranean Program of the Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Montecatini Terme, 21–24 March 2012. 123 Silvestri, ‘Does Islam challenge European identity?’, p. 25. 124 Ibid., p. 18. 125 Claudia Corsi, ‘“Muslim communities’” path in Europe: from acknowledgement to legal recognition’, 13th Mediterranean Research Programme, Mediterranean Program of the Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Montecatini Terme, 21–24 March 2012. 126 John Harris, quoting a supporter of the British National Party (BNP), Guardian (22 April 2006). 127 ‘Twitter and Facebook allowing Islamophobia to flourish’, Independent (2 January 2015), reprinted in Panayote Dimitras, Anti-Racism News, 1–5 January 2015. 128 Quoted in Ayhan Kaya, Islamophobia as a Form of Governmentality: Unbearable Weightiness of the Politics of Fear, Willy Brandt Series of Working Papers in International Migration and Ethnic Relations, 1/11, Malmö University, Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare (MIM), 2011, p. 43. See also Thilo Sarrazin, Deutschland schafft sich ab: Wie wir unser Land aufs Spiel setzen (Munich: DVA Verlag, 2011). Sarrazin, on a visit to Berlin’s Kreuzberg neighbourhood, was asked to leave a Turkish restaurant that sells doner, a Turkish meat sandwich that has become very popular in Germany. There are more doner stands in Berlin than in Istanbul. See James Angelos, ‘There’s nothing more German than a big, fat, juicy doner kebab’, Wall Street Journal (18 April 2012), http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304432 704577350194262835880.html (accessed 23 July 2015). 129 Zick et al., Intolerance, Prejudice and Discrimination, p.159. 130 ‘What defines us – how we believe’, TIME, The Answers Issue (6–13 July 2015). 131 Pew Research Center, Forum on Religion and Public Life, The Future of the Global Muslim Population, Projections for 2010–2030, Washington, DC: Pew – Templeton Global Religious Futures Project (January 2011), pp. 13, 16. Globally, despite the decrease in its annual growth, the Muslim population is forecast to grow at about twice the rate of the non-Muslim population by 2030: an average annual growth rate of 1.5 per cent for Muslims compared with 0.7 per cent for non-Muslims. Ibid. 132 Ibid., pp. 41–3, 135. 133 Scott Carpenter, ‘Euro-Islam: The dynamics of effective integration’, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC (21 June 2006), www. wilsoncenter.org/event/Euro-islam-the-dynamics-effective-integration (accessed 23

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July 2015); Marchiam Fam and Alaa Shahine, ‘Arab spring turns to economic winter as unemployment accelerates’, Bloomberg (28 March 2012), reprinted in Haaretz, TheMarker (29 March 2012, Hebrew). Hichem Karoui, ‘Middle East-North Africa population explosion’, World Security Network Foundation (5 April 2005) (emphasis added). Tarek Sultan Al Essa, Board of Agility (a Kuwaiti logistics company), The World Economic Forum, Istanbul (28–29 September 2014), quoted in Jerusalem Post (1  October 2014), p. 8. Nikita Mehta, ‘World population to cross 11 billion by 2100: UN study’, Live Mint and Wall Street Journal (19 September 2014), www.livemint.com/Politics/xJbXw8wzQiKRuSlnj510qK/World-population-to-cross-11-billion-by-2100-UN-study. html (accessed 23 July 2015). Ibid. The Asian population (now 4.4 billion) will peak at around 5 billion people in 2050 and then begin to decline. Populations in North America, Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean are projected to stay below 1 billion each. David van Biema and Jeff Israely, ‘The passion of the Pope’, TIME (27 November 2006), p. 24; Colin Nickerson, ‘As a mosque rises, a dispute flares in Berlin’, Boston Globe (9 January 2007), www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2007/01/09/as_​ a_​mosque_​rises_​a_​dispute_​flares_​in_​berlin/. Tariq Ramadan, ‘A struggle over Europe’s religious identity – Editorials & Commentary – International Herald Tribune “A struggle over Europe’s religious identity: The Pope and Islam”’, International Herald Tribune (20 September 2006), www. nytimes.com/2006/09/20/opinion/20iht-edramadan.2876272.html?_​r=0 (acc­es­ sed 29 October 2015). Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963), p. 132. Gilles Kepel, Allah in the West: Islamic Movements in America and Europe (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), p. 138; Scott Poynting and Victoria Mason, ‘The resistible rise of Islamophobia: Anti-Muslim racism in the UK and Australia before 11 September 2001’, Journal of Sociology, 43:1 (2007), 68; Stephen J. Whitfield, Brandeis Review, Brandeis University, 17:1 (Fall 1996), www.archive.org/stream/brandeisre​ view1714bran/brandeisreview1714bran_​djvu.txt (accessed 23 July 2015). Rose Troup Buchanan, ‘Leading Islamic academic labels faceless Muslim Deeni Doll “foolish”’, Independent (15 December 2014), www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ home-news/leading-islamic-academic-labels-faceless-muslim-deeni-doll-fool​ish9926028.html (accessed 29 October). The producers of the faceless doll attracted criticism from Muslim scholars because of their ‘foolish’ and ‘silly’ interpretation of Islam. Ibid. Bernard Lewis, ‘The 2007 Irving Kristol Lecture’, American Enterprise Institute Annual Dinner (7 March 2007), www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.25815/ pub_​detail.asp. Daniel Pipes, in Kemal Silay, Stephen Schwartz, Irfan Al-Alawi, et al., ‘Euro-Islam: The Dynamics of Effective Integration’, conference transcript, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC (21 June 2006), www.



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islamicpluralism.org/493/Euro-islam (accessed 23 July 2015). Taoism is a Chinese philosophy identified with the School of the Way: the comprehensive structure and dynamics of the cosmos are to be understood through the path people take in order to conduct life in harmony with the world. Yin and Yang describe the interdependence between opposites.

2 European realities: aspects of the ‘triangular’ relations between Europeans, Muslims and Jews Who are the Muslims in Europe? Who are the migrants in the various European countries? For example, 10 per cent of the 16.3 million Dutch population are immigrants; 886,000 of them, 5.5 per cent, are Muslims, mainly Moroccans and Turks; 60 per cent are under 35, compared to 40 per cent in the general Dutch population. Many of the allochtonen (immigrants) live in ‘the Muslim ghettos’ that nowadays surround the Dutch urban centres. So much of what tolerant Dutch society allows – the smoking of marijuana, showing nude women and men on public TV channels, legal gay marriage (the first country to do so), officially sanctioned prostitution, medically authorised euthanasia, etc. – rankles with the conservative Muslim minority. On the Dutch side of the divide, criticism is growing against immigrants who allegedly abuse the system, garnering large government benefits that practically make idleness a feasible way of life. Also, Dutch opposition to Muslim immigration has increased, which is quite a turnabout for a country that not many years ago posed no significant hurdles before Muslim migrants came on the scene. Calls are even heard for the enforced obligatory identification of young Muslims, despite the Calvinist values of freedom and democracy among the indigenous majority. In fact, in 2015, the Netherlands seems to be the European country with the toughest restrictions on immigrants.1 It is certainly so following the assassination of Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam on 2 November 2004 by a Dutch Moroccan Muslim (see below). Ten years later, Muslim migrants were still complaining that since that murder ‘all Muslim men here [in the Netherlands] became suspect, you are confronted on a daily basis with an amount of hatred’. The growing alienation that the murder still produces leads the Dutch-born children of Muslim immigrants to photograph themselves holding their Dutch passports and post them online with the hashtag ‘bornhere’.2 The extremely permissive Dutch society has voiced or adopted some of the



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harshest declarations and measures against Muslim immigrants. Daphna Elfersy has specified some of them in her superb doctoral thesis on Muslim immigration in the Netherlands and France.3 Elfersy found that the place of religion in general, and of Islam in particular, has become a topic of heated discussion. Muslims in the Netherlands have been called on to renounce their faith, and integration of foreigners into Dutch society and multiculturalism have been declared failures. Polls show support for the deportation of Muslims who are sympathetic to terrorism and for the banning of the Koran. The Prophet Muhammad has been titled a paedophile, tyrant and Hitler; in public discourse, Islam has been termed as a primitive culture and the Dutch atheist way of life as superior. Islam has been depicted as fundamentally alien and a worrying, irrational, tribal and archaic phenomenon that challenges the notion of the Netherlands as a free and emancipated secular society. Muslims have been accused of being involved with gangs and the raping of Dutch women, female genital mutilation, attacks on homosexuals, honour killings, etc. Mandatory abortion has been suggested for Muslim teenagers. Hate crimes against Muslims have soared and bombs have been thrown at Islamic centres and schools.4 At the level of the state, Elfersy noted that the Dutch authorities have dramatically increased their intervention in Muslim denominational schools, mosques, imam training and the process of integration and immigration. ‘For most of the Dutch, the fact that Muslims had succeeded to break their nonchalant approach stood as proof to Islam’s assault on the enlightenment and its most tolerant protégés,’ Elfersy concludes.5 Dutch declarations and actions against Muslims, as well as the authorities’ massive intervention in Muslim affairs, ‘send out a clear message to its [the Netherland’s] Muslim citizens: whoever does not accept the Dutch secular and ultra-liberal way of life – was free to leave’.6 Profaning God is no longer a crime in the Netherlands. In November 2012 the Dutch parliament – in spite of far Right and conservative opposition – revoked the 1930s Blasphemy Law that forbade the profanation of God. The Act created another thorny issue between the Dutch people and the Muslim minority, although the law had not been enforced for the last 50 years. Criticism of Islam and its sanctities thus became legitimate discourse.7 The move to lift the ban on blasphemy was an indirect result of a legal case involving Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom: in June 2011, a Dutch court ruled that he had the right to criticise Islam, even though his opinions insulted many Muslims. Wilders, who demanded that the Netherlands should have ‘fewer Moroccans’,8 described Islam as ‘fascist’ and compared the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. An Amsterdam judge said that Wilders’ comparisons of Islam to fascism were directed at Islam and not at Muslims: Wilders’ statements were ‘gross and

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denigrating’ but still ‘acceptable within the context of public debate’. Even after the repeal of the Blasphemy Law, it remains an offence under Dutch law to insult police officers or the Dutch royal family. Dutch laws also protect individuals and groups from hate speech. 9 In spite of complaints that they violate basic rights like freedom of expression, laws against blasphemy still exist in several European countries and charges on grounds of religious hatred have been enforced. Several countries have replaced such laws with more general legislation criminalising religious hatred. Britain, for example, annulled a blasphemy law, which had made it illegal to profane Christianity, and replaced it with a more general law against incitement to religious hatred, the Racial and Religious Hatred Act of 2007. The new law implies a sentence of up to seven years and an unlimited fine for intent to stir up religious hatred.10 Ireland introduced a new law in 2010 that makes blasphemy a crime punishable by a fine of up to €25,000. The Irish law defines blasphemy as ‘publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted’.11 In Poland causing offence to religious feelings is considered a crime, even though no separate blasphemy law as such is in force. In May 2008 a Finnish court sentenced the far-right activist Seppo Lehto to two years and four months in jail for defamation, inciting ethnic hatred and religious blasphemy against Islam, drawing humiliating caricatures of Muhammad and expressing sexual slander against Muslims. His internet blogs were shut down by order of the court.12 Nor has Muslim sanctity enjoyed immunity at the hands of the Lazio-based Italian Orizzonte Company. The company unveiled a new collection of bathroom products in central Italy (for example, in the town of Latina, 60 km south of Rome) and offered the public Chinese-produced toilet seats featuring verses (ayats) from the Koran, including the iconic verse, ‘ayat al-Kursi’, the throne verse: ‘His throne is as vast as the heavens and the earth’ (Koran, 2:255, Surat al-Baqarah, The Chapter of the Cow). Protests by Muslims in Italy caused the Italian police to raid stores in Latina and to confiscate over 2,000 of the seats.13 An ‘innovative’ way to show disdain for Muslims was the initiative of a Czech member of parliament, Tomio Okamura, head of the Czech opposition Dawn of Direct Democracy Party, who called on people to walk their pigs and dogs – unclean animals according to Islam – near to mosques and other sites visited by Muslims.14 Another instance where disrespect for Islam was not considered blasphemy was the initiative of the far-right Italian senator Roberto Calderoli. The senator, then deputy speaker of Italy’s Senate, outraged Muslims by organising a Pig Day to protest against the planned construction of a mosque in the



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city of Bologna, in northern Italy. The senator offered to bring his own pet pig to defile the site where the mosque was to be built. ‘I am making myself and my pig available for a walk at the site where they want to build the mosque … [I would eat] a nice plateful of pork chops to show my lack of sympathy for those who consider pork forbidden meat.’15 Theo van Gogh (1957–2004), a playwright, dramatist and film producer, spoke out, insulted and acted aggressively against minorities living in the multicultural Netherlands, including Jews and Muslims, occasionally using the most vulgar and obscene language. In the late 1990s van Gogh started to pick on Muslims and find fault with Islam. He was accused of being a ‘free speech fundamentalist’, roaring his Muslim critics into silence with obscenities – certainly an ‘abuse of his right to free speech’. Van Gogh caused widespread resentment in the Muslim community by consistently referring to Muslims as geitenneukers (those who have intercourse with goats or, very derogatively, ‘goat fuckers’). It is not clear whether van Gogh actually coined the term, but he certainly popularised it, making it very widespread. Vulgar and anti-Muslim as he appeared, van Gogh brought Muslim actors onto Dutch television, as in Najib and Julia, a Romeo and Juliet story that was broadcast in 2002.16 In 2004 Theo van Gogh produced the movie Submission 1 from a script written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Muslim black woman, who was a Liberal Party member of the Dutch parliament and who rose to fame for her criticism of Islam, in particular, the suppression of women. In 2004 she resigned her seat in parliament, had her citizenship revoked (later reinstated) and left Holland for the US, because it was discovered that she had given false details (fleeing from an arranged marriage) when applying for asylum in the Netherlands in 1992. In 2014 Brandeis University withdrew an invitation to Hirsi Ali to accept an honorary degree, citing her criticism of Islam. ‘The way Ms. Hirsi Ali talks about Islam strikes American liberals as strangely intolerant; [that] it was necessary to “defeat” Islam, and that “we are at war with Islam”, including in the military sense of the word; [her calling] Islam “the new fascism” and “a destructive, nihilistic cult of death”; characterizing an entire religion in this way is considered entirely beyond the pale in educated American society’.17 Replying, Hirsi Ali insisted that fundamental issues raised by Submission 1, including the oppression of women in Islam, have not gone away.18 The 11-minute film Submission 1 tells the stories of four abused, bruised and beaten Muslim women. The first woman is caned for fornication; the second was married against her will, experiences intercourse with her husband as rape and tries to keep him at bay as long as possible by pretending to be menstruating; the third is beaten by her husband for disobedience; and the fourth, raped and impregnated by her uncle, could not denounce him because that would call his

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honour into question.19 The women’s naked breasts and bodies, with Koranic verses unfavourable to women painted on them in Arabic, are veiled with semitransparent shrouds as they kneel in prayer, telling their stories as if they are speaking to Allah. The movie’s title has a double meaning: the word ‘Islam’ in Arabic means submission and the title refers to the submission of women. Thus, Islam and the oppression of women are identical. After the film was released in 2004, van Gogh received death threats. He did not take them very seriously, refusing police protection (given to Hirsi Ali) and reportedly saying, ‘No one kills the village idiot’.20 Van Gogh felt strongly that political Islam is an increasing threat to liberal Western societies and insisted that he was entitled to his views and to the right to publicise them. On 2 November 2004, van Gogh was murdered by Muhammad Bouyeri, a Dutch Moroccan Muslim, who shot him eight times and then slit his throat. Using another knife he stabbed van Gogh in the chest, leaving a five-page, poison-pen letter pinned to the corpse with the knife. The writ was a fatwa, a Muslim verdict, a death sentence for ‘infidels who deserved to be slaughtered’. The repeated stabbing, the bloodletting, the virtual beheading of van Gogh, the attached fatwa and the ‘strict order’ of each move caused some to term the assassination a ritual murder.21 In late 2014 the Dutch government said that it would reopen its investigation of the van Gogh case, including what the Dutch secret service may have known about the killer, Muhammad Bouyeri, in advance. A far-fetched theory was hatched, speculating that the American CIA was somehow responsible for the murder. American agents, it was surmised, pressured the Dutch secret service not to arrest Bouyeri – whom the Dutch authorities had been monitoring – so as to use him in order to get closer to a more prominent figure with ties to al-Qaeda.22 Not surprisingly, van Gogh had earlier incurred the wrath of the Dutch Jewish community by making comments about what he termed the tiresome Jewish preoccupation with Auschwitz, including the ‘smell of caramel’, presumably unique to diabetic Jews, stating that ‘today they’re only burning diabetic Jews’ (burned sugar produces the smell of caramel). When the Dutch Jewish historian Evelien Gans criticised van Gogh, his reaction was ‘I suspect that Ms Gans gets wet dreams about being fucked by Dr Mengele.’23 In the late 1990s, van Gogh’s focus switched to Islam and Muslims, following a well-known pattern for European skinheads and racists who start out as antiSemites and move on to targeting and finding fault with Muslims, thus bringing a temporary ‘relief’ to Jews. Thus, an Israeli Channel 1 TV interview in May 2006 with Jewish families in Lund, Sweden, revealed a mood of relief when the local skinheads and other thugs, traditionally anti-Semitic, reduced their harassment of the Jews of Lund and began bullying Muslims instead. Indeed, as of the early 2000s, Sweden had one of the highest rates of anti-



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Semitic incidents in Europe – coming third after Germany and Austria. However, surprisingly, a 2013 survey found that Sweden’s level of prejudice against Jews (4 per cent) had dropped to the lowest in Europe. Greece topped the list at 69 per cent. One explanation was the ethnic or religious affiliation of the interviewees: a deeper look into Sweden’s youth in 2009 revealed that while 18.6 per cent of secondary school students held negative views about Jews, anti-Jewish prejudice among Muslim students was 55 per cent. An earlier survey in 2006 showed a similar segmentation: 5 per cent of Swedes harboured anti-Semitic views in comparison to 39 per cent of Muslims who then lived in Sweden.24 Malmö, Sweden’s third-largest city, is one of the most unsettling places in Europe for Jews. Anti-Semitic attacks tripled between 2010 and 2012, when the Jewish community there recorded 60 incidents, including the bombing of the Jewish community centre in October 2012. Malmö is a ‘prime example’ of where hatred of Israel is used to disguise hatred of Jews.25 In this context Malmö (30 per cent Muslim; in all, 40 per cent foreigners, 31 per cent of the population born outside Sweden, coming from 178 countries)26 is the fourth in a list of seven European cities that will have a Muslim majority by the middle of the twenty-first century, perhaps before. Marseille tops the list (40 per cent Muslims), followed by Barcelona (30 per cent) and Brussels (25–30 per cent). The other three cities, each with 25 per cent Muslims, are Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Luton. Birmingham in Britain already has a 22 per cent Muslim population. Notwithstanding the above-mentioned 2006 Lund ‘remission’, many places in Europe, Sweden included, experienced vicious anti-Jewish attacks in December 2008–January 2009, the period when Israel was attacking Palestinian rocketlaunching sites in Gaza. Anti-Jewish attacks that hitherto had been associated with the far Right were now being perpetrated by young Muslims.27 Sweden was not spared and anti-Semitic events occurred in Malmö. The trend continued in 2010 and 2011. A report published by the Swedish National Institute for Public Health in January 2011 showed a rise in the number of Jews who had suffered anti-Semitic harassment. One and half thousand Jews live in Malmö, less than 10 per cent of Sweden’s Jews; but at times one third of Sweden’s anti-Semitic events were occurring there. Accordingly, in 2010, in Malmö 54 per cent of the Jews answered that they had encountered anti-Semitism, in Gothenburg 35 per cent and in Stockholm 26 per cent. Ten years earlier the figures were 24 per cent in Malmö, 29 per cent in Gothenburg and 24 per cent in Stockholm.28 In early 2009 arsonists attacked the Malmö synagogue in nearby Helsingborg, and the Jewish cemetery chapel was desecrated with petrol bombs. After the previously mentioned 2012 bombing of Malmö’s Jewish community centre, masked men mockingly chanted ‘Heil Hitler’ in the streets. The city’s synagogue has

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since employed guards and installed bullet-proof windows, while the Jewish kindergarten can be reached only through thick steel security doors.29 The Norwegian writer Erik Eigald reported on ‘a certain Dan Park [who] expressed himself with subtle and profound artistry: outside the [Malmö Jewish] cemetery he left cans illustrated with the Star of David [Magen David in Hebrew] and the label Zyklon B’ [the chemical agent used in the gas chambers in the Holocaust].30 A Malmö Jewish family received a letter in March 2010 that read, ‘Hello and welcome to the final Holocaust. Now we have mapped all the Jews in Sweden and especially in Malmö. You have been selected for annihilation.’ Vandalism and desecration of Jewish cemeteries also occurred in Stockholm, where the memorial to Raul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, was spray-painted with anti-Semitic graffiti and swastikas.31 According to the findings of the Tel Aviv University Moshe Kantor Database for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism, cyberspace with its websites, social networks, forums and blogs has become the major conveyor of hatred, bigotry and racism in general, and anti-Semitism in particular. The internet has developed into ‘a free-for-all tool’, with the potential to reach the widest of audiences, to recruit new supporters to a cause and to spread hate propaganda. The phenomenon has trended across the entire EU. Although anti-Semitism is still disseminated by traditional means (religious ceremonies, preachers’ sermons, pamphlets, books, etc.), cyberspace plays the major role.32 The Swedish Forum for Living History, tasked with combating anti-Semitism, racism and intolerance, published a report stating that the number of racist sites in Sweden had almost doubled in two years: 15,000 xenophobic sites in 2011, compared with 8,000 in 2009.33 Fifty per cent of Swedish Jews – the highest number in Europe – informed the European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA, an EU agency) that they were afraid to identify as Jews in public. The Swedish number is twice the average polled in nine EU countries. Next to Sweden’s 50 per cent were France’s 40 per cent and Belgium’s 36 per cent of their Jews who were afraid to identify openly as Jewish. Of particular interest to our research is the FRA’s finding that 27 per cent of attacks on Jews in EU countries were carried out by Muslims, 22 per cent by the far Left and 19 per cent by the far Right.34 The proportion of attacks by Muslims is almost three times greater than the Muslims’ proportion of the population in the EU or in any single member state; the highest estimate of Muslims in any given country does not go beyond 10 per cent – which is in France – and the majority of estimates in other countries hover around 3–5 per cent. Hate crimes, mainly directed against Malmö’s Jews, doubled in 2009, with police recording 79 incidents; far more probably went unrecorded. During the



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2009 tensions, when the Malmö authorities admitted that they could not guarantee security, Sweden and Israel were forced to play their Davis Cup tennis matches in a nearly empty stadium as the 1,000-strong police force held off some 6,000 stone-throwing anti-Israel activists outside, whose aim was to stop the competition completely. The Malmö Jewish community expressed the view that local authorities had little desire to deal with the problem. Sixty thousand Muslims live in Malmö, originating from Middle Eastern and Balkan countries, making up close to a third of the city’s population, while the Jewish community numbers fewer than 1,500.35 The city’s left-wing mayor, Ilmar Reepalu, who was considered lax in his duties, cited Israeli policies as an excuse to practise European-style anti-Semitism. Reepalu declared that what Jews perceive as naked anti-Semitism is in fact ‘just a sad, but understandable consequence of Israeli policy in the Middle East’ (see more in chapter 6). Others attributed young Muslims’ fury to unemployment and frustration: ‘[They are] confined to life on bleak estates where the Scandinavian dream of prosperity and equality seemed far away.’36 Be that as it may, the conclusion drawn by Belgian insurance companies reflects this sad and violent reality: they cancelled the Jewish kindergarten’s insurance due to the ‘high risk’ of anti-Semitic attacks.37 Since the year 2000 ongoing events in Europe show a connection between the three communities that form the ‘triangle’. As noted above, the Muslims’ share in attacks on Jews is rising sharply. Likewise, the number of attacks on Muslims by those who had previously targeted Jews is growing. Back in the 1950s, a theoretical assumption by Gordon Allport, the founder of modern prejudice research, had already explained this linkage: ‘people who reject one out-group will tend to reject other out-groups. If a person is anti-Jewish, he is likely to be anti-Catholic, anti-Negro, anti any out-group.’ A person with a generalised negative attitude towards immigrants is likely also to target Jews, black people, Muslims, homosexuals and women. It was found that, similar to Jews – ­occasionally even more than Jews – Muslims are frequently regarded as ‘foreign’ rather than as an integral component of the fabric of society.38 The infamous elderly Jews’ ‘smell of caramel’ of Theo van Gogh; van Gogh’s references to the Holocaust, Dr Mengele and his sexist expressions; the present European thugs’ targeting of and picking of fights with Muslims and the consequent temporal, yet only virtual ‘relief’ and ‘remission’ enjoyed by Jews; the Muslim ‘new other’ replacing the Jewish traditional other; the recurrence of attacks on Jews (some say they never stopped) – all lead our focus to a major aspect of the ‘triangle’: the use of the Holocaust in the present interactions between Europeans, Muslims and Jews. Its connotations are very heavy; its legacy and lessons – the verbal use of it, the use of symbols or the making of practical policies – occasionally create impossible situations that place a very

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heavy burden on Europe, its Jews and its Muslim minorities. By focusing on the legacy of the Holocaust in the next chapter our work will detail the mutual views and practices of Europeans and Muslim immigrants and the relevance of European–Jewish histories in this latest encounter.

Notes  1 Leon de Winter, ‘The Netherlands: Tolerating a time bomb’, New York Times (16 July 2005), www.nytimes.com/2005/07/16/opinion/tolerating-a-time-bomb.html?_​ r=0 (accessed 16 August 2015); Matthew Campbell, ‘Holland fears killings over ban on burqa’, Sunday Times (16 October 2005), www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/ world_​news/article152277.ece (accessed 16 August 2015).  2 Rachel Donadio, ‘Provocateur’s death haunts the Dutch’, New York Times (30 October 2014), www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/arts/provocateurs-death-haunts-thedutch-.html (accessed 16 August 2015).  3 Daphna Elfersy, ‘The Muslim civil ethic and the concerting of secularism: Islam in France and the Netherlands’. Chapter 4 of PhD thesis, ‘Islam in the Netherlands’. Paris Institute of Political studies, Sciences Po Doctoral School, Center for International Studies and Research, CNRS, National Centre for Scientific Research, CERI, Doctorate in Political Science, jointly supervised with Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv (PhD diss., Tel Aviv University, 2014).  4 Ibid., pp. 187, 189.  5 Ibid., p. 187.  6 Ibid., pp. 185–7.  7 Haaretz, ‘Dutch parliament determined that blasphemy is not anymore a criminal offence’ (30 November 2012).  8 Donadio, ‘Provocateur’s death’.  9 Frud Bezhan, ‘Dutch parliament to revoke blasphemy law’, quoting Marc Veldt, a media-law lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences in Utrecht, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty (29 November 2012) www.rferl.org/content/dutch-parlia​ ment-revokes-blasphemy-law/24785198.html (accessed 16 August 2015). 10 RT News App, ‘Netherlands to abolish blasphemy law’ (30 November 2012), www. rt.com/news/netherlands-abolish-blasphemy-law-933/ (accessed 16 August 2015). 11 Bezhan, ‘Dutch parliament to revoke blasphemy law’. 12 RT News App, ‘Netherlands to abolish blasphemy law’. 13 The Opinionator, ‘Muslims flush toilet seats in Italy’ (14 November 2007) and Hadi Yahmid, Part Two, ‘Italy seizes Quran-printed seats’, Islam On Line, http://theopinionator.typepad.com/my_​weblog/2007/11/muslims-flush-k.html (accessed 16 August 2015); Aaron Dohogne, ‘Quran on toilet seats’, Faith in Focus (29 October 2007), http://faithinfocus.wordpress.com/2007/10/29/quran-on-toilet-seats/ (accessed 16 August 2015).



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14 Prague Post, ‘MP urges Czechs to bother Muslims, says it is not xenophobia’ (3 January 2015), reprinted in Panayote Dimitras, Anti-Racism News, 1–5 January 2015. The Dawn of Direct Democracy Party entered the Czech Chamber of Deputies with 14 seats in the 200-seat Chamber for the first time in the October 2013 elections, gaining 6.88 per cent of the votes. 15 Silvia Aloisi, ‘Italian senator calls for “Pig Day” against mosques’, EuropeNews (13 September 2007), http://europenews.dk/en/node/921 (accessed 16 August 2015). 16 Wikipedia, ‘Theo van Gogh’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_​van_​Gogh _​ (film_​director) (accessed 16 August 2015); Donadio, ‘Provocateur’s death haunts the Dutch’. 17 ‘Ayaan Hirsi Ali – enlightened intolerance’, Economist (16 April 2014), www. economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/04/ayaan-hirsi-ali (accessed 4 November 2015). 18 Donadio, ‘Provocateur’s death haunts the Dutch’. 19 See also Rudolph Peters, ‘“A Dangerous Book”, Dutch public intellectuals and the Koran’, European University Institute, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Mediterranean Programme Series, RSCAS No. 2006/39 (December 2006), p. 1. 20 Donadio, ‘Provocateur’s death haunts the Dutch’. 21 Gitit Ginat, Haaretz, weekend supplement (5 May 2006); Jane Kramer, ‘The Dutch model: Multiculturalism and Muslim immigrants’, Internet Centre Anti-Racism Europe (I CARE), The New Yorker (8 April 2006), www.icare.to/article.php?id=2907&lang=en (accessed 16 August 2015); Wikipedia, ‘Theo van Gogh’; CNN.com, ‘Dutch lawmaker quits in asylum row’, The Hague, Netherlands, Associated Press (15 May 2006); Mark Mardell, ‘Dutch MPs to decide on burqa ban’, BBC News, Europe (16 January 2006); Timothy Garton Ash, ‘Islam in Europe’, The New York Review of Books, 53, 15 (5 October 2006). 22 Donadio, ‘Provocateur’s death haunts the Dutch’. 23 Quotations from Folia Civitatis Magazine, ‘Theo van Gogh: His views, and after’, Freedom of speech (8 November 2004), http://indymedia.nl/nl/2004/11/22932. shtml (accessed 16 August 2015); Islam in Europe, ‘France: Green star to oppose Islam debate’ (28 March 2011), http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2011/03/francegreen-star-to-oppose-islam.html (accessed 16 August 2015). 24 David Stavro, ‘The situation becomes Islamic’ (Hebrew), Haaretz, weekend magazine (20 February 2015), p. 36. 25 Gregg J. Rickman, Contemporary Global anti-Semitism: A Report Provided to the United States Congress, Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, US Department of State, Washington, DC (2008), www.state.gov/documents/ organisation/102301.pdf (accessed 16 August 2015); Adam LeBor, ‘Exodus: Why Europe’s Jews are fleeing once again’, Newsweek (29 July 2014), www.newsweek. com/2014/08/08/exodus-why-europes-jews-are-fleeing-once-again-261854.html (accessed 16 August 2015). 26 David Stavro, ‘Malmo: Leading in accepting refugees, leading in anti-Semitism’, Haaretz (16 October 2015).

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27 Karl Ritter ‘Muslim-Jewish tensions roil a Swedish city’, Bloomberg Business (21 March 2010), www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9EIPJV00.htm (accessed 16 August 2015). 28 Tel Aviv University, Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, Moshe Kantor Database for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism, Antisemitism Worldwide 2011, General Analysis, p. 9; Stavro, ‘Malmo: Leading in accepting refugees’. 29 Stavro, ‘The situation becomes Islamic’, p. 36; Nick Meo, ‘Jews leave Swedish city after sharp rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes’, Telegraph (21 February 2010), www. telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/7278532/Jews-leave-Swedishcity-after-sharp-rise-in-anti-Semitic-hate-crimes.html (accessed 16 August 2015). 30 Erik Eiglad, The Anti-Jewish Riots in Oslo (Porsgrunn, Norway: Communalism Press, 2010), pp. 70–1. 31 Tel Aviv University, Kantor Center, Antisemitism Worldwide 2011, p. 11. 32 Ibid., pp. 15–16. 33 Ibid., p. 16. 34 ‘New survey: 25% of EU Jews afraid to identify as Jewish in public’, The Algemeiner (16 October 2013), www.algemeiner.com/2013/10/16/new-survey-25-of-eujews-afraid-to-identify-as-jewish-in-public/ (accessed 16 August 2015). Many Jews reported that they experienced anti-Semitism at first hand in 2012: Romanian Jews, 37 per cent; Hungarian Jews, 35 per cent; Belgian Jews, 3 per cent; Britain, 21 per cent; Sweden, 21 per cent. The survey covered Sweden, Romania, Belgium, France, Hungary, Britain, Germany, Latvia and Italy. Three-quarters of the respondents who said they had personally experienced anti-Semitic attacks did not report the incidents to the authorities, and half claimed that nothing would have been done if they had. Ibid. 35 Ritter ‘Muslim-Jewish tensions’. Israel won 3:2. The city of Malmö was banned from hosting further Davis Cup matches. The city was also fined and forced to pay an additional amount of money, altogether 20,000 dollars, to compensate for revenues lost because the match was held before an empty stadium. Ibid. 36 Meo, ‘Jews leave Swedish city’. 37 Shlomo Papirblat, ‘Firm cancels Belgian Jewish kindergarten’s insurance due to “high risk” of anti-Semitic attack’, Haaretz (1 April 2015) (Hebrew). 38 Quoted in Andreas Zick, Beate Kupper and Andreas Hovermann, Intolerance, Prejudice and Discrimination. A European Report Forum (Berlin: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2011), pp. 37, 69; see also Gordon W. Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (Reading, MA: AddisonWesley Publishers, 1954), pp. 41, 68.

3 Haunted presents: the Holocaust as a yardstick The memory of the Holocaust is intensively used, often as a theoretical and practical yardstick, by both Muslim migrant minorities and the European ‘white’ majority. The fate of European Jewry in World War II is highly discernible in the perceptions and mutual relations between Europe and its Muslim migrants. Muslim migrants’ attitudes towards the Holocaust’s legacy constitute a useful starting point. With necessary caution one can say that, with exceptions, Muslims in Europe are ill-disposed to accept that the Holocaust ever took place, hence they are inclined to deny it, reluctant to hear and learn about it and refuse to discuss its lessons and implications. Alas, the Holocaust is probably the most important event in recent European history. As Philip Toynbee wrote to his father, Arnold, ‘But the massacre of the Jews by the Nazis seems to me to have been, without any exception, the most important and the most dreadful thing that has happened in Europe since the beginning of Christianity.’1 French President François Hollande declared, ‘The Holocaust is not the history of the Jewish people, its history is our history.’2 Hence, whoever relocates to Europe and fails to recognise this striking singularity, by definition separates himself from one of the most important elements that defines European history and Europeanness.

On symbols and realities – yellow badge and green star The use of symbols has been a common way of bringing the legacy of the Holocaust into present European Muslim migrants’ realities. In the previous chapter we mentioned the chilly memories evoked by the Jewish Star of David and the Zyklon B gas cans left in the Malmö Jewish cemetery. Equating the Nazis’ treatment of Jews with France’s treatment of Muslims today prompted Islamic leaders to call on all of France’s 6 million Muslims (France’s 6 million Muslims parallels the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust) to wear a green

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badge, thus marking themselves as the Jews were marked out for discrimination with yellow badges by the Nazis. Being a symbol of the ‘less than second class status’ and badge of shame associated with anti-Semitism, the call protested against Islamophobia and France’s prohibitive laws – for example, against wearing the burqah and niqab.3 The French burqah ban of 2010 makes it illegal for anyone to cover his or her face in public, including the wearing of balaclavas and hoods, and also requires the removal of helmets when not on a motor vehicle, and yet the ban was and is perceived as targeting Muslim women in particular.4 Like all symbols, the green badge alludes to much more than meets the eye. It encompasses the whole gamut of majority–minority relations: the growing role of the European Right in the present relations between Europeans and Muslim migrants, the secular–religious clash on French and European streets and the impact of the Holocaust on European–Muslim relations. Still, marking people with special identification signs was not something solely suggested by immigrants. In a radio interview (27 October 2015) Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon detailed the new security measures for refugees that he had recently suggested. ‘They [are] meant to grant protection to immigrants,’ insisted Jambon. Among other measures, Jambon called on refugees to wear special badges so that the police could identify them more easily. Reactions to the measures quickly dubbed them as ‘stigmatising’, and ‘are we protecting the asylum seekers, or marking them so that the mob will be able to find them?’ And worse, ‘Jan Jambon wants an identification badge for the refugees? Where did I see that before?’5 The French journalist and BBC contributor Agnes Poirier lambasted the aforementioned French Muslim badge as an idiotic call that makes every Frenchman angry. She urged Muslims to find another way to express their objections to the then French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s policy and accused him of flirting with France’s extreme Right, which prompted the Muslim Green Star protest. ‘[Sarkozy had] been blowing on the ferments of division within French society instead of being a pacifying and unifying force.’ Still, linking the ill-treatment and prejudice that Muslims in France experience to the extermination of the Vichy French Jews and the Holocaust prompted Poirier to denounce the green badge as ‘obnoxious and abysmally stupid’. The current stigmatisation of French Muslims as compared to the World War II persecution of French Jews is not only historically and philosophically wrong, but ‘extremely pernicious and potentially dangerous for France’s civil peace’, she protested, continuing, Many editorialists, politicians and intellectuals in France were split as to how to react to such a call. Should they pretend they hadn’t heard nor seen anything in order to stifle the Green Star campaign, or should they talk about it because, after all, this



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was the most senseless and offensive political initiative they had seen in years? … ‘We are confronted here with everything that tires me most in life: crass un-culture, vulgar impudence, historical relativism, political marketing … I’m perhaps even more shocked by the insult made to intelligence and history, than by the insult made to the victims of the Nazi regime.’ […] The ban of the niqab and burqah in the streets of France, which took effect on April 11 [2011], was rightly perceived by many French Muslims as the last straw. Such a ban was in fact unnecessary and hypocritical. Unnecessary because the 2004 law banning conspicuous religious signs from schools, courts and hospitals was already banning the face veil from where it matters, public spaces, where citizens intermingle as equals; and hypocritical because it was, in fact, only aiming at Islam, thus breaking the sacrosanct neutrality of the State in matters of religion.6

The niqab and burqah ban mentioned in the quotation is also part of the ‘triangle’ (see below). Suffice it to say that reminders of the Jews’ dreadful World War II experience exert their implications on present-day European–Muslim migrant relations. As symbols, their impact is highly emotional and raises reactions. But the Holocaust has more than symbolic relevance to the tri-partite relations.

Blaming the Jews for so many Muslims in Europe Question: why are there so many Muslims in Europe? Answer: because of the Jews. Europe’s present-day guilty conscience works overtime reconsidering the World War II atrocities that the continent committed against its Jewish population. Europe, which was extremely intolerant towards its first ‘other’, namely the Jew, now feels forced to demonstrate politically correct behaviour and exhibit tolerance towards its Muslim migrants. It has become problematic, for example in Britain, because ‘“politically correct” multiculturalism … made a fetish of the difference instead of encouraging minorities to be truly British’.7 The argument is that the Holocaust has become the agent of the European political correctness that eventually resulted in the admission and acceptance of Muslim immigration, i.e., in a multicultural Europe, a community of communities (see below). ‘Things are not simple,’ Yigal Bin-Nun, a reader in history and biblical studies at the Sorbonne, has written. We should not be surprised, nor impressed, by the ‘sudden eruption’ of European niceties, kindness and benevolence which tolerate the customs and ethnicity of the communities of immigrants and allow multiculturalism. It is more of a form of indirect or reverse apartheid – one not inflicted by one race on another, but a voluntary form of ‘apartheid’ that suits both the majorities and the minorities. Bin-Nun attributes the creation

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of m ­ ulticultural societies to deliberate attempts by the Western and European ‘haves’ to preserve their supremacy and to perpetuate the gap between themselves and the ‘have-nots’. It is in the rich peoples’ direct interest to keep the immigrants in their poor and Third World status, i.e., to allow them to practise their culture. Multiculturalism is their means. Things are not simple: the rich countries defend themselves [against the immigrants] by using sophisticated ways. After colonialism, years of exploitation, discrimination and prejudices, it is now the turn of friendly treatment and a welcoming face. In North America, particularly in Canada, a new terminology was invented: ‘multiculturalism’. This sympathetic couple of words means: you, too, immigrants from backward countries, you too have a culture. We respect it the same as we respect our culture. We won’t impose our culture on you. On the contrary: we will help you to preserve yours. To maintain their supremacy the [Western and European] cultural establishments enclosed the immigrants within the folklore of their countries of origin and created segregation, a genteel kind of apartheid to separate between them and the cultures of the immigrants (who are Arabs, Indians, Chinese, Africans, and more). The result: the universal cultural achievements remain solely in the hands of the ‘the enlightened peoples’; the rest [i.e., the immigrants] have been put in a prison of popular folklore and traditions.8

Before we discuss the implications of the present-day seemingly tolerant behaviour towards minorities and immigrants – that according to some stems from World War II intolerance towards minorities – we need to recognise the current situation: the admittance of millions of immigrants to Europe and the resulting multicultural life. What is more is the fact that the immigrants do not comprise a united community. A (British) committee of inquiry describes the importation of parallel communities, a ‘community of communities’, who pursue only minimal interaction among themselves. When will a ‘non-white’ meet a ‘white’? How much fear and threat results from this alienation and lack of contact? See the findings in Britain of the Community Cohesion Report Team (CCRT), headed by Ted Cantle: Executive Summary Our findings: 2.1 Whilst the physical segregation of housing estates and inner city areas came as no surprise, the team was particularly struck by the depth of polarisation of our towns and cities. The extent, to which these physical divisions were compounded by so many other aspects of our daily lives, was very evident. Separate educational arrangements, community and voluntary bodies, employment, places of worship, language, social and cultural networks, means that many communities operate on the basis of a series of parallel lives. These lives often do not seem to touch at any point, let alone



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overlap and promote any meaningful interchanges. 2.2 A Muslim of Pakistani origin summed this up: ‘When I leave this meeting with you I will go home and not see another white face until I come back here next week.’ Similarly, a young man from a white council estate said: ‘I never met anyone on this estate who wasn’t like us from around here.’ 2.3 There is little wonder that the ignorance about each other’s communities can easily grow into fear; especially where this is exploited by extremist groups determined to undermine community harmony and foster divisions.9

Similar conclusions emerge from the Guardian’s reports about attempts to bridge the gaps between ‘all Asians’ and ‘all whites’ in the city of Bradford, England. Often they amounted to pathetic efforts to cause ‘non-whites’ and ‘whites’ just to meet each other for the first time. They had never met before the bussing/bridging efforts were made. Today, cultural segregation in Bradford is so profound that the local education authority has started bussing children from all-Asian schools to all-white schools, and vice versa. The so-called ‘linking project’ aims to break down barriers between children, many of whom have never interacted with a child from the other community. I travelled with a group of Asian 10 year olds from the all-Asian Farnham Primary School in Great Horton as they visited their white counterparts at the largely white St Anthony’s Catholic school. For most of them, it was their third trip. ‘What was it like the first time you visited St Anthony’s?’ I asked one child. ‘I was nervous,’ he said. ‘Why were you nervous?’ ‘Because I didn’t know what they’d be like. I’d never met them before.’ ‘You’d never met white children before?’ ‘No.’ ‘Do you know any white children apart from those at St Anthony’s?’ ‘No.’ Could this really be Britain, 2003?10

The argument goes that European tolerance towards diversity and racial harmony is in fact a camouflage for deep anxieties. Europe is described as being practically helpless when facing non-Europeans. Nothing less than ‘monsters’ pose challenges to the continent, which, alas, cannot react. According to the quotation below, the reason for the inundation of Europe by immigrants is the Holocaust; the winners are Muslim migrants. European opinion leaders and elites were so affected by Holocaust guilt and anti-­ racism that they recklessly celebrated diversity and bred monsters in their midst.

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These worthy sentiments were transformed by ‘the pressure of mass immigration’ so that ‘post-Holocaust repentance became a template for regulating the affairs of any minority that could plausibly present itself as seriously aggrieved’ while Europeans engaged in … ‘fear masquerading as tolerance’. The main beneficiaries of Europe’s ideological sickness … were Muslims, who were ‘a living, thriving, confident European ethnic group with a lot of claims to press’.11

Indeed, politically correct behaviour towards Muslim immigrants is a controversial issue that has aroused much debate and correspondence. ‘[I]mportant aspects of Muslim life are deliberately hidden or ignored in order to avoid being offensive’ is a claim repeatedly made in relation to Europeans who, allegedly, turn their heads, ignore and tolerate various ‘unpleasant’ things among the communities of Muslim migrants such as intolerance towards other minorities, religious or sexual harassment, disrespect for freedom of speech, imposition of religion and negation of life outside it, discrimination of women, etc. The following call is for Europeans to be politically incorrect, and for Muslims to accept it: If there were one thing that I would wish Muslims in Europe would learn today, as fast as possible, it would be this: You have no right in this society not to be offended. You have no right to say that because you don’t like something you turn to violence, or you would like something to be stopped, or censored. You have no right to have more hate laws, or hate crime laws, or hate speech laws, just to defend Islam. You have to realise, Muslims in Europe have to realise, that the society that even your deepest feelings can be toddled upon, is the only society worth living in. And the sooner we can learn that, the sooner that Islam can learn that within Europe, the better.12

Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron practically emphasised the same in his important statement in Munich, February 2011, that British multiculturalism has failed because Britain has turned into a community of communities with very little shared between them. Multiculturalism – in practice toleration, even encouragement of the existence of other cultures by the receiving country – emphasised differences, dwarfed common values, and discouraged contacts. The result is radicalism – in other words, extreme phenomena that otherwise are not accepted in the host country.13 Cameron explained the failure of multiculturalism: by its very definition some unacceptable minority values were tolerated (e.g., forced marriage), lest comments or objections to them would be perceived as racist and offensive. The result is Muslim migrants’ sense of rootlessness. Although Cameron naturally focuses on British realities, by extension his remarks are applicable to the continent. Note the terms ‘white person’ and ‘someone who isn’t white’ that Cameron uses, when referring to English-born people in comparison to Muslim immigrants:



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Identity and radicalisation The root lies in the existence of this extremist ideology. And I would argue an important reason so many young Muslims are drawn to it comes down to a question of identity. What I’m about to say is drawn from the British experience, but I believe there are general lessons for us all. In the UK, some young men find it hard to identify with the traditional Islam practised at home by their parents whose customs can seem staid when transplanted to modern Western countries. But they also find it hard to identify with Britain too, because we have allowed the weakening of our collective identity. Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream. We have failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong. We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values. So when a white person holds objectionable views – racism, for example – we rightly condemn them. But when equally unacceptable views or practices have come from someone who isn’t white, we’ve been too cautious, frankly even fearful, to stand up to them. The failure of some to confront the horrors of forced marriage, the practice where some young girls are bullied and sometimes taken abroad to marry someone they don’t want to is a case in point. This hands-off tolerance has only served to reinforce the sense that not enough is shared. All this leaves some young Muslims feeling rootless.14

Several European leaders supported Cameron’s views about the detrimental results of cultural fragmentation. Multiculturalism has apparently failed; as a result, these leaders do not reveal more than a minimum of tolerance towards any identity other than the European one. Milos Zeman, president of the Czech Republic (president since March 2013; prime minister, 1998–2002), saw no other option for Muslim migrants but complete assimilation, otherwise estranged and alienated ghettoisation prevails, a sure recipe for the disintegration of society. I don’t think that the original concept of multiculturalism is still relevant. We have bad experiences with the Muslim ghettos in France, Germany and Britain. This experience [was meant to] lead to a new concept of multicultural cooperation. There is something that is called a melting pot. In it you have assimilation of cultures. It is O.K. if you get such an assimilation. If you do not, then ghettos are created. In that case not only that you do not get multicultural cooperation, but instead you get separation and isolation of cultures from each other.15

In a very important but equally painful article by the eminent scholar Fuad Ajami (1945–2014), ‘Why is the Arab world so easily offended?’ the author analysed the furious Arab and Muslim reactions, and the anti-American and

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a­nti-Western riots, that followed the publication in America in July and September 2012 of the anti-Muhammad video play The Innocence of Muslims. Ajami made it clear that ‘Modernity requires the willingness to be offended. … [T]hat willingness is something the Arab world, the heartland of Islam, still lacks.’ Muslim immigrants offended by complaints and criticism – particularly from non-Muslims – is perhaps a state of mind they have yet to adopt. 16 People in Muslim countries and Muslim immigrants in Western lands (defined by Ajami as ‘Muslims [who] have left their places of birth in search of greater opportunities in the Western world’) are the subject of Ajami’s article. The analysis touches on a long list of issues: humiliation and pride, pasts and presents, God’s promises, periods of great successes versus times of meagre achievements and poor performance; freedoms and liberties versus order, discipline, restrictions and limitations; the commitment to free speech and uncensored publications versus the 2004 assassination of Theo van Gogh and so on. Discussion and analysis of these issues furnishes us with the roots of Muslim and Arab rage, according to Ajami. Criticism of Islam is permissible under two conditions: first, it should not come from the outside, i.e., only a Muslim may criticise Islam. Second, even if an insider expresses reservations and doubts (like Salman Rushdie in The Satanic Verses), this will be tolerated only as long as it avoids the Prophet and his family (see the following quotation). Incidentally, the sociologist Keith Kahn-Harris asserted that Muslim immigrants are subject to similar taboos when referring to the Middle East’s various conflicts. Apparently, these migrants’ wrath is aroused not by Muslims who kill Muslims, but only when one of the belligerents is a non-Muslim. While there are other, much bloodier conflicts in the Middle East, they are between Muslims, while the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has a non-Muslim side who is seen by Muslims in Europe as colonialist occupiers. It’s easier therefore for Muslim Europeans who have found it hard to integrate to identify with the Palestinians.17

As Ajami concludes, the encounter with the West, with modernism and with freedom of expression is very painful. What is perceived as the non-integration of Muslim migrants – the ‘dish cities’ of many TV satellite dishes tuned to Arabic or Muslim channels – is a result of this encounter. In painful, even cruel words Ajami focuses on some of the ruins and disasters of this encounter: There is an Arab pain and a volatility in the face of judgment by outsiders that stem from a deep and enduring sense of humiliation. A vast chasm separates the poor standing of Arabs in the world today from their history of greatness. In this context, their injured pride is easy to understand.



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In the narrative of history transmitted to schoolchildren throughout the Arab world and reinforced by the media, religious scholars and laymen alike, Arabs were favored by divine providence. They had come out of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century, carrying Islam from Morocco to faraway Indonesia. In the process, they overran the Byzantine and Persian empires, then crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Iberia, and there they fashioned a brilliant civilisation that stood as a rebuke to the intolerance of the European states to the north. Cordoba and Granada were adorned and exalted in the Arab imagination. Andalusia brought together all that the Arabs favored – poetry, glamorous courts, philosophers who debated the great issues of the day. If Islam’s rise was spectacular, its fall was swift and unsparing. … The blessing of God, seen at work in the ascent of the Muslims, now appeared to desert them. The ruling Caliphate, with its base in Baghdad, was torn asunder by a Mongol invasion in the 13th century. Soldiers of fortune from the Turkic Steppes sacked cities and left a legacy of military seizures of power that is still the bane of the Arabs. Little remained of their philosophy and literature, and after the Ottoman Turks overran Arab countries to their south in the 16th century, the Arabs seemed to exit history; they were now subjects of others. The coming of the West to their world brought superior military, administrative and intellectual achievement into their midst – and the outsiders were unsparing in their judgments. They belittled the military prowess of the Arabs, and they were scandalised by the traditional treatment of women and the separation of the sexes that crippled Arab society. Even as Arabs insist that their defects were inflicted on them by outsiders, they know their weaknesses. Younger Arabs today can be brittle and proud about their culture, yet deeply ashamed of what they see around them. They know that more than 300 million Arabs have fallen into economic stagnation and cultural decline. They know that the standing of Arab states along the measures that matter – political freedom, status of women, economic growth – is low. In the privacy of their own language, in daily chatter on the street, on blogs and in the media, and in works of art and fiction, they probe endlessly what befell them. But woe to the outsider who ventures onto that explosive terrain. The assumption is that Westerners bear Arabs malice, that Western judgments are always slanted and cruel. In the past half-century, Arabs, as well as Muslims in non-Arab lands, have felt the threat of an encircling civilisation they can neither master nor reject. Migrants have left the burning grounds of Karachi, Cairo and Casablanca but have taken the fire of their faith with them. ‘Dish cities’ have sprouted in the Muslim Diasporas of Western Europe and North America. You can live in Stockholm and be sustained by a diet of Al-Jazeera television. We know the celebrated cases when modernity has agitated the pious. A little more than two decades ago, it was a writer of Muslim and Indian birth, Salman Rushdie, whose irreverent work of fiction, The Satanic Verses, offended believers with its portrayal of Islam. That crisis began with book-burnings in Britain, later saw ­protests in

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Pakistan and culminated in Iran’s ruling cleric, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issuing a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death in 1989. The protesters were not necessarily critics of fiction; all it took to offend was that Islam, the prophet Muhammad and his wives had become a writer’s material. The confrontation laid bare the unease of Islam in the modern world.18

As mentioned earlier, the bizarre charge against Jews is that Europe has been forced to conduct politically correct behaviour towards its Muslim migrants because of the continent’s past, viz., its extermination of its Jews. Among other things, this behaviour has allowed the admittance of millions of Muslims into Europe, resulting in the continent’s non-enforcement of its culture, laws and norms in the face of its immigrants, who have brought with them their ways of life, propped up by Ajami’s ‘dish cities’. The Booker Prize-winning British novelist Howard Jacobson interrogatively raised a similar charge against Jews in a Jerusalem lecture: ‘Will Jews ever be forgiven the Holocaust?’ and ‘Will Jews ever be forgiven anti-Semitism?’19 The German journalist Henryk Broder, in The Eternal Anti-Semite, makes a similar sardonic remark: ‘The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.’20 In a related event, a Swedish public radio station, Sveriges Radio, challenged the Israeli ambassador to Stockholm by asking him whether Jews themselves are responsible for anti-Semitism. The question came in the wake of a shooting attack, in early February 2015, on a synagogue in neighbouring Denmark, which killed a Jewish volunteer security guard.21 Another parallel view attributes Jewish responsibility for the calamities that befall Jews, namely, their expulsion and extermination by the modern European nation-state, chiefly by Germany. That is, the Jewish Bible states, ‘It is a people that shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations’ (Num. 23:9), which is seen as a call for non-integration and the eternal separation of Jews from their surroundings. Ironically, the same Bible verse and others thus inspired the idea of purifying the German nation of non-German elements, of ethnic cleansing, persecution and, ultimately, extermination. Germany and its ultra-nationalistic policies under the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s made Jews their foremost victims by means of the Jews’ own ‘invention’, Judaism. Jews themselves are blamed for all the calamities that befall them. Modern nationalism is nothing but a copy of the spirit of haughtiness of the Jewish people, who lives according to the commandment: ‘It is a people that shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.’22

Jews emphasise their separate existence, exclusiveness and rejection of universalism; Nazi Germany only copied Judaism and carried this notion one step



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further. In Norman Rose’s The Cliveden Set: Portrait of an Exclusive Fraternity, the author cogently captures the anti-Jewish attitude of Britain’s upper class. Here, too, the idea of ‘auto-blame’ prevailed: the victim is responsible for the calamities that befall him. Anti-Jewish strains permeated much of Western Christian civilisation, and upper-class English society was not immune to these prejudices, writes Rose. He adds, ‘It was not the paranoid, murderous antiSemitism of Continental Europe, but a more genteel variety, insidious in its own right because of its sophisticated veneer. As the British diplomat Harold Nicolson (1886–1968) noted after the Holocaust: “The Jewish capacity for selfdestruction is really illimitable”, adding in a revealing turn of phrase, “Although I loathe anti-Semitism, I do dislike Jews.” ’23

The legacy of past and present Muslim use of violence Radical Muslims justify their use of violence by pointing to atrocities committed against Muslims by non-Muslims all over the globe (see also chapter 6). They also attribute their vengeful acts of today to atrocities committed against them by their ex-colonial masters. In Great Britain, for example, they merely claim to be following the example of the British colonial legacy: the contents of the British Museum are proof of Britain’s having plundered the world, viz., ‘There is nothing British in the British Museum.’ [Britain] took over my father’s homeland, the [Indian] subcontinent, they reaped the resources, they raped the lands, even now the Queen’s crown is made from jewels that don’t belong to Britain. I’ll hold my Islamic beliefs. I’m just continuing a trait of the British people.24

One finds Europeans – as much as the term ‘Europeans’ can be generalised – who suffer from colonial guilt, and Muslim migrants who justify their present violence on the grounds simply of emulating their former colonial masters. In fact, this is colonial debt collection, tit for tat: you robbed me; I do the same to you. This European colonial guilt is prevalent particularly among the Left and liberals of the continent’s political map and is a paralysing drug. These circles feel guilty because of their countries’ imperialism, slavery, ethnocentrism, racism and oppression of minorities in Europe and suppression of national aspirations in the colonial world.25 They consequently reveal their understanding and even express empathy with the Muslim migrant who reacts violently against the ‘white’ majority. The paralysing result is manifested in calls for European

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authorities not to insist on the assimilation of the newcomer, not to block further immigration nor to expatriate immigrants already on the continent. On the other hand, the French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, in reference to the October 2005 riots in the Paris suburbs carried out mainly by Muslim migrants of North African origin, sought to refute the justification of the ‘what you did to me, I do to you’ trade-off. He vehemently rejected the inevitability of violent Francophobia among Muslim migrants in France and revealed no sympathy towards the resort to violence under the pretext of past colonial atrocities. Jewish Holocaust survivors have a perfect justification to hate and act violently against the European state because of past atrocities; they do not, insists Finkielkraut. I was born in Paris, but I am a son of Polish [Jewish] migrants. My father was expelled from France. His parents were expelled and killed in Auschwitz. This country [France] deserves our hatred: what she did to my parents was much more violent than she did to the [Muslim and Arab] Africans.26

Colonial evils and vengeful reactions to them on the part of Muslim migrants, including the recent take-over of Palestinian lands by Jews and Israelis, are an inherent part of the ‘triangle’ that justify the ensuing reactions of Muslim migrants against European Jews because of Israel’s actions against its Arab neighbours (see below). When one follows the analysis of the renowned British historian Arnold Toynbee (1889–1975), then Jews, later Israelis, followed the tit-for-tat recipe alluded to earlier. True, the geography, the stage and the players are not identical all along the way, but this is exactly what, according to Toynbee, turned the procedure into gross injustice, morally sinful and extremely wrong. Toynbee linked the destruction of European Jewry in World War II directly to the establishment of the State of Israel, hence to the calamity that befell the Palestinian Arabs. With regard to Israel’s establishment, he made no allowances for any of the millenniaold Jewish historical (biblical) connections to the Holy Land. Christian Europeans sinned, but Muslim Arabs paid the price. Toynbee’s equation ran thus: atrocities committed against Jews were countered by Jewish atrocities against Palestinian Arabs. The Western world was ashamed of the atrocities done to the Jews by Germany and her European allies, ostensibly Western nations. Consequently, the West sympathised with the Jews and their national aspirations and therefore condoned the violation of Arab rights in Palestine. This cynical principle resulted in making the defenceless pay, insisted Toynbee: The Zionists on the 14th May, 1948, had set up a State of Israel in Palestine by force of arms in a war that had resulted in more than half a million Palestinian Arabs losing



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their homes, in compensation for the atrocities committed against Jews in a.d. 1933– 1945, not in the Levant, but in Europe, and not by Arabs, but by Germans. An impartial non-Western observer’s verdict would assuredly have been that, however grievously the Western peoples might have sinned against one another and against the Jewish stranger in their midst, and however desirable it might be that they should make atonement at their own expense, there was neither merit nor justice in their compensating their victims at the expense of innocent third parties.27

Therefore, a painful Day of Judgement awaits the Jewish people. According to Toynbee the quality and heinousness of Jewish outrages in 1948 against the Palestinians were graver and more severe than those committed by the Nazis against the Jews and other minorities. Zionism pursued a ‘demonic effort to build a community that was to be utterly Jewish’;28 Nazism attempted the same for the Arians in Germany. Jews, however, were greater sinners than the Nazis because the latter did not know ‘how is it to be exterminated’. Jews knew. ‘Jews had had much more experience than the Germans had had of the sufferings that they were inflicting,’ argued Toynbee.29 Hence, on the Day of Judgement, because of their crimes against the Palestinians, it would be Israeli Jews who would have to atone for ‘the most perverse of all the base propensities of Human Nature’. Toynbee specifically referred to the Jewish infliction of murderous blows on, and the seizing of Lebensraum for themselves by force of arms from, the weaker Palestinian Arabs because of similar blows inflicted earlier on the Jews by the much stronger Germans. Drawing on his amazing storehouse of knowledge from early Greek history and mythology to evaluate modern ‘nationalistic histories’, Toynbee became the greatest ‘historical prosecutor’ of Jews and Israelis of all time. The Germans were defeated in World War I; the Jews paid for the German defeat during World War II; and in 1948 the Palestinians paid for the genocide of the Jews in World War II. Little wonder that various Muslim circles in Europe demand that Toynbee’s books be studied in European schools (see below). Toynbee’s extremely harsh charge sheet included the following, and is quoted here in spite of its length: On the morrow of a persecution in Europe in which they had been the victims of the worst atrocities ever known to have been suffered by Jews or indeed by any other human beings, the Jews’ immediate reaction to their own experience was to become persecutors in their turn … and this at the first opportunity that had since arisen for them to inflict on other human beings who had done the Jews no injury, but who happened to be weaker than they were, some of the wrongs and sufferings that had been inflicted on the Jews by their many successive Western Gentile persecutors during the intervening seventeen centuries [starting with the destruction of the Second Temple, the expulsion from the Holy Land by the Romans, and the beginning of the Jewish

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Diaspora]. … In a.d. 1948 the Jews knew, from personal experience, what they were doing; and it was their supreme tragedy that the lesson learnt by them from their encounter with Nazi German Gentiles should have been not to eschew but to initiate some of the evil deeds that the Nazis had committed against the Jews. On the Day of Judgment the gravest crime standing to the German National Socialists’ account might be, not that they had exterminated a majority of the Western Jews, but that they had caused the surviving remnant of Jewry to stumble. The Jews in Europe in a.d. 1933–45 had been the vicarious victims of the Germans’ resentment over their military defeat at the hands of their Western fellow Gentiles in the war of a.d. 1914–18; the Arabs in Palestine in a.d. 1948 became in their turn the vicarious victims of the European Jews’ indignation over the ‘genocide’ [sic, quotation marks in original] committed upon them by their Gentile fellow Westerners in a.d. 1933–45.30

A poor and despicable barter – for destroying their Jews Europeans got millions of suicide bombers One gets the impression, reading the passage below, that all the Jews of Europe before World War II were Einsteins, Freuds, that all were Arnold Schoenbergs, etc. In their place came Muslim migrants – all superstitious and illiterate. The reaction of the Spanish journalist Sebastian Villar Rodriguez (most likely not his real name, most likely he is not Spanish or a journalist) is no less shocking and chilling. Rodriguez claims that following the gassing of European Jewry in World War II, present Muslim migrants – who are all fanatics, all living on the dole, all preparing another 11 September 2001, another bombing like 11 March 2004 against the Madrid train system, all are suicide bombers, and all want to bring death and calamity on Europe – replaced the Jews. A very poor swap indeed. Hundreds of internet sites have replicated Rodriguez’s article, which has been translated into more than 12 languages. Herewith, directly related to the triangle, is reproduced ‘Europe died in Auschwitz’, almost in full: I was walking along Raval [in Barcelona, a neighbourhood of about 50,000 people, about 50 per cent immigrants – Pakistanis, Indonesians, South Americans, and Eastern Europeans], when all of a sudden I understood that Europe died in Auschwitz. We assassinated 6 million Jews in order to end up bringing in 20 million Muslims! We burnt in Auschwitz the culture, intelligence and power to create. We burnt the people of the world, the one who is proclaimed the chosen people of God. Because it is the people who gave to humanity the symbolic figures who were capable of changing history (Christ, Marx, Einstein, Freud ...) and who is the origin of progress and well-being. We must admit that Europe, by relaxing its borders and giving in under the pretext



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of tolerance to the values of a fallacious cultural relativism, opened its doors to 20 million Muslims, often illiterates and fanatics that we could meet, at best, in places such as Raval, the poorest of the nations and of the ghettos, and who are preparing the worst, such as the 9/11 and the Madrid bombing and who are lodged in apartment blocks provided by the social welfare. We also have exchanged culture with fanaticism, the capacity to create with the will to destroy, the wisdom with the superstition. We have exchanged the transcendental instinct of the Jews, who even under the worst possible conditions have always looked for a better peaceful world, for the suicide bomber. We have exchanged the pride of life for the fanatic obsession of death. Our death and that of our children. What a grave mistake we made!31

Europe has two main complaints against the migrants. The first revolves around their taking advantage of European democracy, human rights and social and political liberties, often to act against the European state and its norms. The second allegation is that the migrants, many of whom opt to be unemployed, rob the European welfare system, exploit its benevolence and abuse its benefits. This is a heavy yoke, which European society – itself in the midst of one of the longest economic recessions of modern times – can hardly bear. ‘Europe died in Auschwitz’ and Barcelona’s wretched Raval district of 2005 have a parallel in 2014, also in Spain, in the Basque town of Vitoria. The allegations are the same: the migrants – Moroccans, Algerians and Nigerians to be precise – abuse the European welfare system. However, in Vitoria, the mayor, who dared to criticise the migrants, was labelled a Hitler, a racist, a fascist who uses means similar to those of the Nazis against the Jews, ‘and that had the consequences it had’. A decade elapsed (2005 to 2014) and the Basque politicians are at loggerheads with each other – and another manifestation of the ‘triangle’ prevails: Spanish mayor compared to Hitler over immigrant claims The mayor of a town in northern Spain has been accused of racism and even of aping Hitler, after he claimed that immigrants are sponging off the state. Javier Maroto, of the conservative Popular Party (PP), has [lately] been … even more outspoken, targeting North Africans in particular. ‘A majority of some ­communities – Moroccans and Algerians to be precise – live off our land, especially the social support that we all pay for … I know it’s not politically correct to say so, but as it’s so obvious I’m saying it so that things change and improve.’ He added that he had ‘never had so much support from people on the street on an issue’. Politicians from several other political parties have accused Maroto of populism and needlessly stirring up racial tensions. Xabier Agirre, of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) went even further, warning that the mayor’s comments made him ‘the Hitler of Vitoria’. ‘It’s important to remember that Hitler won elections by deepening the confrontation against Jews and that had the consequences it had,’ he said.32

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‘Europe died in Auschwitz’ and the continent’s World War II attempt to cleanse itself of Jews brings to mind the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. The ‘incredulous’ Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II sent a whole fleet to bring the expelled Jews to the Ottoman Empire: ‘such a prize, of doctors, lawyers, scientists and traders, could not be allowed to slip by. Do they call this [Spanish king] Ferdinand a wise prince who impoverishes his kingdom and enriches mine?’ wondered Bayezid.33 An ‘improved’ version of Rodriguez’s article, ‘All European life died in Auschwitz’, appeared a few years later in an unidentified Spanish newspaper. The gist of the new version is a list of Jewish, Muslim and Arab Nobel laureates. The abundance of Jewish recipients compared to the handful of Muslims and Arabs (11 as of 2014) was quoted to substantiate Europe’s historically absurd exchange of minorities.34 If one follows ‘Rodriguez’s’ analysis, then Europe does not have much hope left after having replaced its Jews with Muslim immigrants. But this process of the European scientific brain drain started long before the mass Muslim immigration. The mass emigration of Jewish European scientists from the early 1900s onward, mainly to England and North America, indeed depleted the continent’s scientific community. The 2004 Israeli Nobel Prize winner in chemistry Aaron Ciechanover (shared with the Israeli Avram Hershko and the American Irwin Rose) explained the ‘Jewish anomaly’ and the Nobel Prize. About a quarter of all Nobel laureates are Jews. This is rather astonishing, as Jews number less than one quarter of 1 per cent of the world’s population, meaning that the Jewish population pool that produced these laureates ought to be one hundred times larger. According to Ciechanover, one explanation for this impressive phenomenon is linked to the Jews’ unique history, in which Jews focused on the world of learning. Persecutions, expulsions, escape and wanderings caused Jews to gravitate to professions focusing on knowledge – an imminently transportable asset for people without a home – like medicine, science, law, business, trade, diamond cutting, watch making, Jewish studies, etc. Learning thus has become a typical Jewish occupation.35 Europe indeed lost a promising stable of eventual Nobel Prize winners to North America, but this process started almost a century before the mass immigration of Muslims to Europe.

Destruction of German Jewry signals no hope for Muslim integration in Europe Before World War II, the German Jews’ allegiance to the German state was to all intents and purposes total. Did it help them that they were so loyal to the



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German state and so familiar, acquainted and conversant with German society and culture that ‘they were more German than the Germans’? Did it help them when the European majority came to destroy them? Consequently, some interpret German Jewry’s fate as an admonition to Muslim migrants. More specifically, it serves as a warning to Muslims not to be deceived into believing that Europeans will be satisfied when the immigrants integrate or even assimilate into European culture. Some migrants have perceived the fate of European Jewry, and that of German Jewry in particular, as a reason and proof why they should maintain their own culture. This means avoiding acceptance of the country’s culture, while building their own mini-sending countries within the host countries (‘dish cities’) and pursuing a process perceived and defined as ghettoisation and fostering a parallel society. Host countries’ perceptions of immigrants from poorer places are often coloured by contempt, and Europeans are no exception. Consequently, Muslim migrants are looked down upon. Integration then seems difficult if not remote. Indeed, the Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM) recommended that migrants should leave a host country if they reject the very notion of integration or feel that they are unable to live within its laws, constitution and culture. The Commission referred to this scenario as ‘dangerous’.36 But cultural differences do exist and raise serious reservations as to the relevance of expectations of integration and hopes for assimilation. Language courses and national heritage seminars for Muslims in Europe are provided in order to ease their integration. The following quotation demonstrates the gaps between Turks in Turkey and Turkish migrants to Europe, and by extension between immigrants from other Muslim and Arab societies and Europeans. The differences are emphasised: the weaknesses of Western, European and Arab cultural and social ills are exposed and presented as the opposite of Turkish merits. They do not make integration an easy process. True, the accuracy of the Turkish advantages over the West is challengeable; nevertheless, it furnishes us with another explanation of why migrants tend not to mix with Europeans, why incomers look down on the indigenous people and why the former stick to their own cultures and kin and discourage integration. Turkish culture is very different from the West. Concepts such as strong family ties, respect for elders and unconditional love of, and commitment to children sound like clichés in the West but form the basis of Turkish society. Loneliness is a rare phenomenon. Relationships are not based on manipulation, and the foremost motivation of individuals is not greed. The people of Turkey are enamored of foreigners, and racism seems to be distant from everyone’s mind, even though the West tries to portray

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Turks as ogres … On the political side, Turkey could slowly but politely let Europe stand on the sidelines while the republic looks to itself, to its other friends and to the Turkic nations of Asia. We are culturally more akin to them than to the West, with its excessive and exploitative nature, or to the Arabs, with their strange views of women and their theocratic political systems. Turkish culture, since its origins on the steppes, has always put women on the same horse as men.37

The above 1999 Turkish Daily News quotation described Turkish and Western and European realities, the latter presented as implicit opposites of Turkish norms. Fifteen years later, in some ways confirming the Turkish view, Pope Francis I addressed the European parliament in November 2014. He stated that loneliness is the fate of the elderly poor – many are abandoned and uncared for. Equally worrisome is the encroachment on the family unit, which is the fulcrum of any society. Acute greed exploits and squeezes people to the extreme. Pope Francis said, ‘The poorest of the poor … Men and women risk being reduced to mere cogs in a machine that treats them as items of consumption to be exploited … the sick, the terminally ill, the elderly, children … are killed in the womb.’ Society will get rid of its weaker members with few qualms whenever they are no longer useful for running the machine. These and other observations about the cruel and merciless elements of European society comprised the Pope’s criticism that focused on ‘the most common diseases in Europe today’.38 The following is Pope Francis’ 2014 wish for the resurgence of the ideal family and the role of the elderly in it: [T]he family [is] the fundamental cell and most precious element of any society. The family, united, fruitful and indissoluble, possesses the elements fundamental for fostering hope in the future. Without this solid basis, the future ends up being built on sand, with dire social consequences. Then too, stressing the importance of the family not only helps to give direction and hope to new generations, but also to many of our elderly, who are often forced to live alone and are effectively abandoned because there is no longer the warmth of a family hearth able to accompany and support them.39

Jewish integration in Europe has not been easy either, with all the detrimental and exclusionary consequences associated with non-integration. Jewish emphasis on literacy was one of the reasons for the lack of Jewish integration. For example, the Jewish Pale of Settlement in Tsarist Russia, traditionally agrarian, was perceived as the most backward and poorest part of Europe. For centuries its population consisted of landed nobility, who were often impoverished and closed to the outside world, yet arrogant and haughty, living side by side with millions of poor serfs, ignorant and woefully exploited. In their midst were the Jews, living under this feudal system which effectively lacked an indigenous



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middle class. The lack of a literate class created a niche for the Jews. Literacy and numeracy, which had always been a must for hundreds if not thousands of successive Jewish generations, endowed the Jews with social and economic advantages, ‘something specific to a minority subjected to a constant need to justify its separateness by means of self-projection’.40 And ‘[e]ven if the Jews were ready to surrender their Jewish identity and integrate within the majority that surrounded them, it is doubtful whether they could do so: the nobility was too high, the peasantry too low’.41 Integration and adoption of European culture and ethnicity had no influence on solving conflicts or preventing genocide, no matter what the victims had contributed to their countries’ well-being. Muslim intellectuals in Britain asserted that German Jews proved this axiom in the 1930s and 1940s, and similarly, Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s. An instructive illustration is provided by the treatment of Jews in pre-war Germany. Despite the fact that they were well integrated culturally even to the extent of being leaders in various arenas of German culture, other reasons were readily fabricated to justify genocide. Bosnian Muslims also contributed greatly to the cultural life of their nation. The Serbs, however, differentiated and isolated the Muslim community by creating a straw-man Islam and Muslim stereotype and by setting and emphasising cultural markers which stigmatised Islam and Muslims as alien, backward, culturally and morally inferior, threatening and perversely exotic. It is quite clear that Serbian orientalists, by bending scholarship and blending it with political rhetoric, defined Islam and the local Muslim community in such a way as contributed significantly to making genocide acceptable.42

Repeated examples are enumerated of violent and racist attacks against immigrants or their descendants, despite the victims having dressed and behaved like Europeans, even being born in Europe and holding local citizenships. These immigrants are almost fully integrated, except for one ‘minor’ aspect: ‘they just did not change their skin’; intermingling with Europeans does not help to protect them. Allegations are made that even a Muslim’s allegiance to his new receiving country (be it in North America or in Western Europe) during the naturalisation process is in reality a pretence, and the migrant’s first loyalty is to his country of origin, and certainly to his religion. In May 2015, a member of the Belgian parliament of Muslim Turkish origin, Mahinur Ozdemir, refused to follow her party’s recognition of the Armenian genocide in World War I. She was expelled from her party, the Humanist Democratic Centre, and was asked to resign her seat in parliament. In particular, Ozdemir was accused of greater commitment to her Turkish allegiance

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than to her Belgian citizenship. Before her expulsion from the party Ozdemir boycotted a minute’s silence in the parliament to mark the 1915 genocide. She was supported by a demonstration of around 3,000 Turkish nationals who gathered in Brussels and protested the notion that the parliamentarians of various countries, not historians, should determine ‘what is or what is not a genocide’.43 Latifa Ibn-Ziaten, the mother of French paratrooper Master Sergeant Imad ibn-Ziaten, who was murdered in Toulouse by the French Muslim Jihadist Mohammed Merah (see below for the March 2012 ‘Midi-Pyrenees’ shootings, known also as the ‘Toulouse Attacks’), observed that even though her son had joined a French military commando unit and fought for France, ‘it is impossible to integrate more than I did. The word integration is a lie, because you could integrate as much as you wish, but the moment you have an [immigrant’s] name, another colour or an accent, you will always remain different.’44 One way or another, Muslims in Europe are said (by Europeans and Muslims alike) to be there on probation. The continental nations could start deporting their Muslim migrants, and this could be just a terror attack away.45 Bernard Lewis, the renowned historian and chronicler of Middle Eastern affairs, gave a personal observation that he recorded at a meeting with Turkish migrants in Berlin. The painful Jewish experience tinges his forecast for the future. [I]n Germany … the Muslims are mostly Turkish. There they have often tended to equate themselves with the Jews, to see themselves as having succeeded the Jews as the victims of German racism and persecution. … The phrase which sticks most vividly in my mind from one of them was ‘In a thousand years they [the Germans] were unable to accept 400,000 Jews. What hope is there that they will accept two million Turks?’46

Incidentally, Lewis saw this expression as an artful means used by Turkish Muslim migrants in Germany to suppress German opposition to them: ‘They used this very skilfully in playing on German feelings of guilt in order to inhibit any effective German measures to protect German identity, which I would say like others in Europe, is becoming endangered.’47

The school curriculum The school curriculum is one battlefield on which differences between Muslim migrants and the European state are brought to the fore. The strange if not impossible combination of a Muslim Senegalese pupil and Gallic French history serves as a prime example of this conflict.



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In history lessons in [French] elementary schools they continue to talk about ‘our Gallic forefathers.’ How is a boy who was born in France, to parents who came from Senegal, Algeria or Morocco, expected to react when he is told about his Gallic forefathers? These children enter school and immediately feel their identity is divided. It starts in the kindergarten, but the state does not see a problem and does not help the children to cope with the problem. Instead of providing them with psychologists, educators and social workers who will tackle the problem already at the kindergarten or elementary school level, the state waits until the children grow up and become juvenile delinquents and law breakers. Then it sends out the police.48

Alienation and extremism among young Muslim immigrants that eventually ends in confrontation with European authorities does not necessarily result from school curricula. More probably, the second- and third-generation Muslim young migrants will almost certainly be alienated. The intimate contact, including language and heritage, that the parents’ generation had with their sending countries is weakened among the second-generation offspring. The receiving country – not always smiling and welcoming – is not the same as the place that their parents enjoyed when remembering and reflecting sentimentally on their country of origin. Comparisons contribute to the feeling of uneasiness. From the money and income perspective, when first-generation parents compared their situation in the receiving country to that in the country of origin, they were grateful for the very opportunity given to them to immigrate to Europe. They hardly criticised the realities that they encountered (‘the approach of their [the younger generation’s] parents … was to try to make themselves invisible to the rest of society’).49 While in Europe, these veteran Muslim generations practised their faith and lived their ethnicity as inconspicuously as possible. Clearly, their children do not follow this path. They take pride in their values and faith, and insist on getting the facilities, space, permissions and tolerance that they need so as to be able to pursue them. And second- and third-generation migrants no longer compare themselves to the populations in their parents’ sending countries, but instead to young Europeans of their age group. Comparison causes alienation, distress and anger. Being a young Muslim migrant is therefore a sensitive position. The Swiss-born British scholar Tariq Ramadan points to the almost impossible situation that a young Muslim finds himself in. Belonging to a minority and harbouring a sense of guilt lest integration into the majority should cost him his heritage makes this immigrant easy prey for escapism, manipulation and extremism. In Ramadan’s words, ‘The easy way is to become an extremist.’ Integration is not seen as a sin and is encouraged as long as it does not cause one to violate the message of Islam.

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Too much of the internal conversation within the Muslim community at present nurtures a sense of guilt, inadequacy and alienation. ‘Young people are told: everything you do is wrong – you don’t pray, you drink, you aren’t modest [and] you don’t behave.’ They are told that the only way to be a good Muslim is to live in an Islamic society. Since they can’t do that, this magnifies their sense of inadequacy and creates an identity crisis. Such young people are easy prey for someone who comes along and says, ‘there is a way to purify yourself’. Some of these figures even keep the young people drinking to increase their sense of guilt and make them easier to manipulate…. Our young people need to be told, you can dress in European clothes – so long as you respect the principle of modesty. Democracy and pluralism aren’t against your Islamic principles. Anything in Western culture that does not contradict the message of Islam can be accepted and integrated.50

The private school curriculum might include religious classes, something that Muslim students usually do not find in state-run, mainstream schools. A British report asserts that failure to include the faith and religious needs of Muslim pupils casts detrimental implications on their identity. It certainly interiorises them and their faith, and cruelly tears apart their identities. [It] may not only alienate pupils and make them feel that they are not valued, but may also give rise to inappropriate assumptions that in order to progress in society they will have to compromise or give up aspects of their core identity, including their religious beliefs and values. Muslim pupils are sometimes placed in situations where they feel pressured into acting contrary to their beliefs and conscience. This, in conjunction with Islamophobic attitudes and comments within schools, can have a reciprocally negative effect on the child’s opinion of the school and, indeed, of education itself.51

The poor, low-level schooling of their children is a repeated complaint from French Muslims. Muslim pupils leave school unqualified to work – they are below the French average in all educational fields and, no wonder, in French language – and the results are marginalisation and discrimination. ‘A child born [a Muslim] is already condemned to be excluded from society, because he lives in a slum and has not been educated properly. … There is a ghettoization that creates an injustice.’52 The under-achievement of Muslim students in the British education system produces dire implications for their future; their lack of educational qualifications is the highest of any faith group. One third of the 16- to 64-year-old Muslim age group lack educational qualifications; for all others in this age group, it is one in nine. Fewer Muslim 16-year-olds are in education, training or employment than any other group of the same age.53 In the French system, Muslim pupils demand the inclusion of Arabic and Muslim history in the curriculum; they generally object to studying European



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history and specific episodes in it, and they refuse to study the Jewish Holocaust. Some insist that the 1948 Palestinian plight, the Nakba, meaning catastrophe or disaster, should be taught instead of the Holocaust, or that a parallel be drawn between the two and both be studied. The equation is clear: Europeans perpetrated the Holocaust against the Jews and now Israelis are committing genocide, i.e., the ‘Palestinian Holocaust [which] is unsurpassed in history’.54 Naturally, those who insist that the Holocaust is not unique enthusiastically adopt this equation. Hence, neither German history nor Hitler’s atrocities are unparalleled; on the contrary, they are more than matched by the Israelis’ horrendous sins and, incidentally, Stalin. Thus, Arnold Toynbee’s comparative analysis of the Palestinian calamity, discussed above, which apparently proves that Jewish atrocities were even more appalling and dreadful than the Nazi crimes against humanity, has brought about persistent Muslim demands to include Toynbee’s A Study of History in the syllabus. The schooling of young Muslim migrants is anything but simple in a country with a colonial history. French education and France’s colonial heritage are like red flags between ‘whites’ and immigrants, something which mars relations between the two communities. In France the authorities are accused of being too soft and lenient, too full of guilt, when it comes to educating Muslim immigrants. Here too the past (colonial history) dictates a sort of politically correct behaviour vis-à-vis the migrants. It hurts when my country is ashamed as regards its culture and values. When my country disassociates itself from its history, goes on apologising non-stop for slavery, occupation and colonialism, is it any wonder that the migrants rise up against it? They do not respect our country. I am sorry, because France never asked them to change. My country has allowed them to speak Arabic and cherish their legacy at the expense of French culture. Today we are paying for our indifference. Who knows how the story will end.55

In order to avoid conflicts, or because studying the Holocaust ‘offends’ the Muslim population or because Muslim students claim the Holocaust never happened, some European teachers avoid controversial issues or even remove them from the syllabus. Indeed, teaching the recent history of the Middle East or commemorating the Holocaust is bound to arouse controversial views or violent acts. Reportedly, in Malmö, Sweden, Muslim schoolchildren often ignored or deliberately disrupted lectures by Holocaust survivors about their experience in the camps.56 In Amsterdam, in May 2004, after the national commemoration of World War II victims, a small group of youths in De Baarsjes, one of the city’s predominantly Muslim immigrant neighbourhoods, played football with the

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wreaths that had been laid at a monument. In other neighbourhoods anti-Semitic slogans were shouted during the commemoration.57 In Swedish schools, where religious studies are mandatory, pupils sometimes react very strongly when Islam is described as a religion that grew out of a tradition largely inspired by Judaism; they reject the notion that there could be any connection between the two religions.58 The request for the removal of various topics (the Holocaust) from school curricula, lest it offend Muslim students or those who deny it ever happened, clashes with the postulate that states whoever comes to Europe and does not recognise the Holocaust, by definition is separating himself from one of the most important defining elements of European history and Europeanness. This leads to a related matter – the absence of the legacy of European–Jewish histories from the encounter between Muslim migrants and Jews. Unlike Europeans, Muslims believe that they bear no responsibility for the Holocaust. I owe you nothing. My [Muslim] grandfather did not kill your [Jewish] grandfather. If there has been any contact between them, most probably it was your grandfather who killed my grandfather.59

The situation becomes even more complex and predictions about future Jewish–Muslim relations on the continent become more uncertain when Muslim and Arab immigrants are elected to public and leadership positions in European countries. This scenario is not hypothetical or imaginary. A top candidate who ran (unsuccessfully) for mayor of Berlin in the December 2014 elections was a Palestinian-born immigrant.60 The connection between European–Jewish histories, the Holocaust, politically correct behaviour, controversial Israeli policies and the shift in Israel’s legitimacy, the uneasy encounter between Europeans and Muslim migrants, and present-day Muslim anti-Jewish acts, unrestrained and undeterred by the painful European Jewish past, has been fully covered by American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg in an Atlantic magazine article. The Shoah [the Holocaust] served for a while as a sort of inoculation against the return of overt Jew-hatred, but the effects of the inoculation, it is becoming clear, are wearing off. What was once impermissible is again imaginable. Memories of 6 million Jewish dead fade, and guilt becomes burdensome. … Israel is coming to be understood not as a small country in a difficult spot, whose leaders, especially lately, have (in my opinion) been making shortsighted and potentially disastrous decisions, but as a source of cosmological evil – the Jew of nations. … That the chief propagators of contemporary European anti-Semitism may be found in the Continent’s large and disenfranchised Muslim immigrant communities – ­communities that are themselves harassed and assaulted by hooligans associated with



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Europe’s surging right – is flummoxing to, among others, Europe’s elites. Muslims in Europe are in many ways a powerless minority. The failure of Europe to integrate Muslim immigrants has contributed to their exploitation by anti-Semitic propagandists and by recruiters for such radical projects as the Islamic State, or ISIS.61

This raises a serious issue: Holocaust denial. General Dwight Eisenhower’s initiative to document Nazi atrocities followed his visit on 12 April 1945 to the Ohrdurf forced labour and concentration camp near Weimar, which was part of the Buchenwald concentration camp network and was liberated on 4 April 1945, the first Nazi concentration camp to be liberated by US troops. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander Allied Forces in Europe, is quoted as saying that he ‘made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations to mere ‘“propaganda”’.62 Dubious as the following paraphrase of Eisenhower’s memoirs may be, it raises the point whether, in future, similar sensitivities might result in acquiescence to demands for the removal from school curricula of events like the 9/11 terror attacks in New York and Washington. [W]hen the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead. He did this because he said in words to this effect: ‘Get it all on record now – get the films – get the witnesses – because somewhere down the road of history someone will get up and say that this never happened.’ Recently, the UK debated whether to remove the Holocaust from its school curriculum because it ‘offends’ the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it. … Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be ‘a myth’, it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets. How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Centre ‘Never Happened’ because it offends some Muslim in the United States? 63

Attempts to dispose of the Holocaust are not without parallel. Darwin’s theory of evolution, for example, is not taught in certain schools and communities. Teaching about the Crusades is also omitted because teachers do not want to cause offence ‘to children from certain races or religions’. The atrocities that the Crusaders inflicted on Muslim communities (among others, including Jews) are considered as the epitome of viciousness.64 In France, people complain that in order to placate Muslim students ‘schools are becoming nicer’, for example, by teaching colonial history as an exclusively negative history.

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We [the French] don’t teach anymore that the colonial project also sought to educate, to bring civilisation to the savages. They [teachers] only talk about it as an attempt at exploitation, domination and plunder.65

And yet, attempts are also made to deal with the issue of the Holocaust and not to avoid or ignore it. Because teaching the Holocaust or the Arab–Israeli conflict arouses emotions among Muslims students, the Amsterdam City Council, to the great relief of its teachers, sponsored a unique educational project. Peer educators (university students with a Muslim background) were invited to teach about World War II and the Holocaust and about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in secondary schools with large Muslim populations. After a year, this peer-­ education project evolved into a Muslim–Jewish peer programme, with educators from each background going to schools in pairs for a series of six lessons: three on World War II and three on the conflict in the Middle East.66

Be aware of the 1930s References to the ‘triangle’ repeatedly mention the precedent of European realities in the 1930s and 1940s. The gist of the matter remains intolerance towards the ‘other’ – although villains and victims often change places. Will Europe treat its Muslim minorities as it did its Jews? Are Muslims a threat? Are they the new Fascists? Who should be listening carefully to the ticking bomb and be deeply concerned or even afraid: Europe or the Muslim migrants? The inevitable comparison harking back to Europe’s 1930s Jews has produced the following wake-up call to Muslim migrants: Every society has to be really careful so the situation doesn’t lead us to a time when people’s minds can be poisoned as they were in the 1930s. If your community is perceived in a very negative manner, and poll after poll says that we are alienated, then Muslims begin to feel very vulnerable.67

On the other hand, attempts to differentiate between Muslims and Jews and between the 1930s and the early twenty-first century mention the following: ‘I don’t recall Jews carrying out suicide bombings or calling for their own form of law in Germany.’ Or, ‘In Nazi Germany … it was Jewish children who were rounded up to be killed. Not the Jewish children who were trained to do the killing.’68 Be this as it may, it is amazing how both sides, Europeans and Muslim migrants alike, are quick to carry their responses to the extreme. Europeans lament their



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idiocy for having gassed the Jews, while graffiti in Muslim ghettos (written by Muslims) warns Muslims of gas chambers that will be used against them. The 1930s return when ‘whites’ complain that Europe is too tolerant and laid back; the majority of Europeans are complacent in the early twenty-first century, as were the democracies that failed to comprehend the approaching Nazi threat in the 1930s. Europe needs to wake up now, to watch, listen and perceive an imminent Muslim fascist threat. Do you really want me to quote from the [1930s] newspapers headlines how Jews defended the Nazi regime that came to power in 1933, and argued that whatever has been said about Hitler and the Third Reich is one big slander? We have been in this story before, and we are in it again now, at this very moment.69

Similarly, Muslim anti-Jewish riots in Oslo in early 2009, with their verbal and violent attacks on freedom, democracy, the shallowness of Western values, the promiscuous behaviour of ‘white’ women, homosexuals, etc., drew comparisons with the 1930s: In the name of democracy and freedom of expression, we apparently tolerate people [i.e., Muslims who are] openly attacking democracy and freedom. How is that possible? Have we learnt nothing from the 1930s? Have we forgotten that the NSDAP [The National Socialist German Workers’ Party, i.e., the Nazi Party] gained power in Germany by electoral means, on a program that called for the destruction of that very system?70

Muslims in Europe warn about impending catastrophes arising from intolerant, right-wing, white European racists who vilify, interiorise, treat them violently, call for their expulsion or plot their extermination, the same as they did to the European Jews in the 1930s and 1940s. Thus, events in the 1990s and the early twenty-first century focus attention on deeper, grimmer issues dating back to the 1930s. As already mentioned, in their report ‘Are Muslims the Jews of Today?’ Scandinavian intellectuals found a parallel between the dehumanisation of Jews in World War II Europe and the treatment of Muslims today (see below). Descriptions of Jews as a cancer and an existential danger are echoed today against Muslims. The present Muslim demand to apply the Millet system in Muslim neighbourhoods has been likened to Jewish codes and norms that prevailed in places and professions where Jews predominated. In the Millet system a community of people enjoys the right to organise its life in accordance with its culture and religious beliefs (on the Muslim demand for the Millet system, see chapter 6). An example of the dominance of Jews and Jewish norms was witnessed in the Ottoman-ruled port city of Thessaloniki,

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where all activity ceased on the Sabbath (Saturday) because the vast majority of stevedores and dockers were Jewish. The Sabbath-day work stoppage ended when the Greek regime was restored and Greek Orthodox Christians from Asia Minor were resettled in Thessaloniki in their thousands during the 1920s and 1930s.71 The pinnacle of the comparison between 1930s and 1940s European Jewry and present-day European Muslim migrants is the accusation on theological grounds, namely, that neither Jews because of their rigid adherence to the Talmud and Halacha (Jewish law) nor Muslims because of their inflexible interpretation of the Koran and Sharia law could integrate into European culture and society. In the case of the Jews, this charge against them ended in Auschwitz. Where will the alienated and disparate Muslim migrant end?72 Of course there are differences. First, we have already noted the ‘philological acrobatics’ in which the Christian God sacrifices his son to save humanity, whereas Allah demands that children should die for him (chapter 1). This comparison of the murder of children is accompanied by reference to the Nazis’ extermination of Jewish children in the death camps, while Muslim children are raised to become suicide bombers and jihadists. Second, far more Muslims reside in Europe now than Jews ever did, and Muslim immigrant numbers are rising fast. (It is estimated that altogether 1.12 million Jews live now in the EU countries; presently about 50 million Muslims are living in Europe.73) Jews did not pose a military threat, nor were they labelled as suicide bombers. Indeed, until 1948 Jews did not even enjoy statehood, in comparison to the Muslim migrants’ sending countries to which they could repatriate. Since 1948, those who would like to see Europe rid itself of its Jews have designated Israel as the country of Jewish repatriation. In fact, ever since the rise of Zionism in the late nineteenth century, anti-Semites have considered Palestine (Palestina) as the receiving country for European Jews. However, unlike today’s Israel, before 1948 Jews could not emigrate freely to Palestine because the Ottomans, and later Great Britain, the ruling imperial powers there, objected. Also, the Islamisation of Europe – quite an issue in Europe nowadays (see below) – never had any parallel in Judaism. Nonetheless, anti-Semites point to a negative Jewish influence on Europe, termed ‘Judaisation’ (see chapter 5). Swedish writer and publisher Jan Guillou notes that Nazi-style rhetoric against the Jews is now aimed at Muslims.74 The Nazis declared that all Jews belonged to an international conspiracy to control the world and subdue others in their own lands; Hitler’s Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion clearly manifest this belief. Similarly, the Koran is said to call for a world hegemony of Muslims, used as a scare tactic by those who object to their presence in Europe, just as Jewish people were targeted previously. The Koran’s commandments are



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perceived as committing every Muslim, without exception, to fight an uncompromising holy war against non-Muslims. Guillou claims that this latest smear campaign makes Muslims the victims of hate – especially those living in Europe, who are said to be the spearhead of the Islamisation of Europe.75 Europe’s critique of immigrants from Muslim countries is a criticism of the Muslim religion, more specifically of the Koran, because Islam is quite literally equated with the Holy Book’s text (‘Islam is the Koran’). In anti-immigrant circles the Koran is presented as a text that resists interpretation; it is argued that Muslims hold that the Koran is God’s final word and testament revealed to humankind, thus superseding the Bibles of Christianity and Judaism. Hence, there can be no compromise with its absolute truth; any compromise will lead ‘to the slippery slope to unbelief that so many Christians have taken’.76 The Jewish and Muslim resistance to integration or assimilation is said to derive from adherence to the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud and to the Arabic Koran and the Hadith (‘commentary’ on the Koran, on a par with the Talmud). There is a pervasive assumption in the media and public culture that Muslims in Britain are immune from integration because of their religious attachment to a scriptural text (the Qur’an) and foreign law (the Sharia), in the same way that Jews were previously perceived as being wedded to the Old Testament and the Talmud.77

The critics add that the Koran was relevant in its historical context, but there is no way that present-day Muslims can claim that every word of it has relevance in the here and now, especially not the fatal, violent or inferior fate that is said to await the secular world. All the above has led some antagonists to declare that the Koran is a dangerous, illegal publication, as did the Dutch right-wing Freedom Party (PVV).They demanded that the Dutch parliament should follow suit: ‘Enough is enough, ban the Koran [which] is a fascist book … that is why this book, just like Mein Kampf, must be banned.’78 In the context of the apparent resemblance between the 1930s and the early twenty-first century, and the similarities between Jews and Muslims, one needs to pay attention to the September 2009 warning of Britain’s John Denham, the then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, in a Guardian article headlined, ‘Minister warns of 1930s-style fascists on Britain’s streets’.79 The 1930s right-wing marches in Britain’s Jewish neighbourhoods were designed to provoke violence and riots; similar marches occurred in the 2000s in Britain’s Muslim neighbourhoods, with the same kind of provocations in mind. The Secretary of State spoke about the English Defence League’s agitation aimed at Muslims and ‘the spectre of a return to 1930s fascism, warning of “parallels” between right-wing groups planning protests in Muslim n­ eighbourhoods and

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Oswald Mosley’s incendiary marches through Jewish areas of East London in the 1930s’.80 The minister also announced a drive by the British government to address issues that were ‘alienating white working-class people at risk of being “exploited” by the far-right’. You could go back to the 1930s if you wanted to, warned John Denham: ‘Cable Street and all of those types of things. The tactic of trying to provoke a response in the hope of causing wider violence and mayhem is long established on the far-right and among extremist groups.’81 The rallies and marches that the Secretary of State warned about have already fomented public disorder in London, Birmingham and Bradford, as well as in several places across Europe. The street violence provoked reactions from Muslims, producing an escalating spiral of action and counteraction.82 Indeed, the Battle of Cable Street on Sunday, 4 October 1936, in London’s East End was a fierce fight involving 10,000 London police, including 400 on horseback, who were overseeing a march by the British Union of Fascists, the black shirts, headed by Oswald Mosley. A multitude of an estimated 300,000 Jews, socialists, communists, anarchists, Irish and anti-Fascists confronted the march with roadblocks, barricades and all sorts of improvised weapons. Women threw the contents of full chamber pots. Hundreds were injured, including policemen; hundreds more were arrested and imprisoned; several police constables were held captive.83 The aforementioned far Right, with its hard-line, nationalist, anti-immigrant parties, movements and factions is presently on the rise across Europe, particularly among young men aged under 30, who are most likely to be unemployed. Efforts to supply cheaper energy, to reduce inflation, focus on export and the like might ease unemployment and reduce benefits claims. But in spite of these efforts, unemployment is still rampant at this writing in early 2015 – for instance, in Spain it is 23 per cent (over 50 per cent among certain age groups) and International Monetary Fund forecasts are that it will return to its pre-2008-crisis level only in 2017.84 At the end of 2012 and in early 2013, the average rate of unemployment in the EU was 11.6 per cent, the highest level since 1995 for the 17 countries that now make up the eurozone. Eighteen and a half million people were without jobs in the eurozone nations. In Spain and Greece, unemployment was around 26 or 27 per cent, i.e., one in four was unemployed. Among young Spaniards aged under 25, unemployment rose to a staggering 54.2 per cent.85 Far-right radicalism is now on the rise in Europe, and unemployment (particularly in the southern and eastern parts of Europe) is a fertile soil that stimulates and sustains it. The internet is the main and most efficient means of communication serving the growth of radicalism, and anti-immigration policies are the cornerstone of ultra-conservatism. And when right-wing extremism



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reaches its tipping point, as in the Anders Breivik attack in Norway, no country is immune, not even the nations of Scandinavia, which are best known for their tranquillity and complacency.

The Anders Breivik attack The rise of the extreme Right is discernible in liberal Western countries that hitherto were thought to be resistant to this trend, like the Netherlands and Scandinavia (Sweden, Denmark and Norway). Anders Breivik’s attack (22 July 2011) on government buildings in Oslo was particularly vicious. It resulted in eight deaths. Later that same day Breivik committed a further massacre of 69 people, mostly teenagers, in a camp of the Workers’ Youth League of the Norwegian Labour Party on the island of Utoya (25 km north-west of Oslo). Altogether, Breivik killed 77 people and wounded 242.86 Among Breivik’s self-confessed motives for his actions were obsessive and extreme objections to multiculturalism, to ‘Eurabia’ (Europe becoming Arabised and Islamised, a word coined by Gisele Littman, under her pseudonym Bat Ye’or),87 to Muslim immigrants, to European governments allowing Muslim immigration, and a call for the aggressive and violent expulsion of all Muslim immigrants from Europe in defence the continent’s Christians. Neither the Holocaust nor Israel and the Jews were absent from this event; indeed, all three elements played out in it. At the time of the attack, the immigrant sector amounted to 30 per cent of Oslo’s 620,000 inhabitants, and 14 per cent of Norway’s total population of 5 million. Muslim immigrants originating from Morocco, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and Somalia numbered around 170,000. Of particular concern were the Somalis. At the time, about 25,000 ethnic Somalis were living in Norway, 17,000 in Denmark and 44,000 in Sweden, the majority having arrived after Somalia’s collapse as a state in 1991. Most were grateful for the sanctuary that they found. However, a very small minority became radicalised, especially among those who had come as children, and they fell in with Arab and south Asian extremists in hard-line Salafi mosques across Scandinavia. Ethnic Somalis attempted to carry out acts of terrorism in Scandinavia, focusing on cartoonists who published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and on their newspaper offices. Video warnings were sent to the cartoonists: ‘We will catch you wherever you are…. In whatever hole you are hiding – know what awaits you – as it will be nothing but this: slaughter (an imitation of slitting a throat is added).’88 One of Breivik’s friends argued that the killer’s motivation had stemmed from his lack of high school and university qualifications, which had made him fall further and further behind his peers. When he was aged 17 Breivik had dropped

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out of the prestigious Oslo Handelsgymnasium (formerly the Oslo Commerce School), a public high school that specialises in financial and business management. In his manifesto (see below) he claimed to have spent 16,320 hours studying online, giving him ‘an informal education consisting of the equivalent of eight university years, or equivalent to two bachelors’ degrees and one master’s degree’. Later, while a prisoner, Breivik caused a furore when he applied to study political science at the University of Oslo, with Norway’s education minister going so far as to consider changing the law to prevent him from doing so.89 In an extremely long manifesto of 1,516 pages, entitled ‘2083: A European Declaration of Independence’, distributed electronically to thousands of people just an hour before the Oslo attack, Breivik declared himself a ‘warrior in the present European civil war’. In 1683 the Ottoman thrust into Europe had been stopped at the gates of Vienna and the siege of the city had been lifted. Hence, the symbolic connotation of a successful resistance to Islam was embodied in the date and in the expression ‘The Gates of Vienna’. According to Breivik, in 2083, 500 years after ‘The Gates of Vienna’ and following a long and bloody civil war, all European Marxists would be eliminated and all Muslims would be expelled from the continent.90 Thus, according to his manifesto, the Breivik way of eliminating the ‘other’, i.e., the massacre of July 2011, was not directed against immigrants; his victims were Norwegians who supported immigrants’ rights. Breivik’s tolerance of immigrants themselves is, logically, far less. Breivik’s own words and atrocities make him a person of interest in the present investigation. He described himself, simultaneously, as ‘pro-Zionist’ and anti-Semitic. Despite his admiration for Israel and its victories over Arab armies, he had no qualms about saying that Europe has a ‘considerable Jewish problem’. He considered himself anti-Nazi but pro-mono-culturalism.91 But, bizarre as it may sound, one theory explaining Breivik’s atrocities included a Jewish/Israeli conspiracy including acts by agents provocateurs that were meant to foment antiIslamic retaliation in the West. This weird scenario follows on from past alleged Mossad operations. According to this, Israel’s overseas intelligence service was said to be behind the 11 September 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, DC (2,996 dead). The fact that the 9/11 perpetrators were Muslims should not confuse anyone: they were fooled into doing this by Israel. More ‘persuasive’ is the argument that the 9/11 culprits were Jews or Americans disguised as Muslims.92 This fits into the broader story in which the Mossad was behind the October 2002 terror attack on Bali, the Indonesian-island tourist resort (202 dead, 209 injured). Similarly, the Mossad systematically spreads AIDS; and Israel (and India) are behind the Asian tsunamis. The Mossad is also responsible for spread-



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ing a chewing gum among Muslim women that is laced with an aphrodisiac that causes adultery. The Mossad was behind the Egyptian football team’s World Cup loss to Algeria in November 2009. The Mossad operated GPS-guided sharks to attack female tourist swimmers at Egypt’s Sharm-el-Sheikh tourist resort at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula. Accordingly, it was obvious to the Turkish Prime Minister Reçep Tayyip Erdogan that Israel was behind the military coup d’état that toppled Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi of the Moslem Brotherhood Party in June 2013.93 Linked to these Mossad atrocities are doctors and pharmacists from ‘the Children of Israel’ who own 95 per cent of the world’s pharmaceutical industry. To avoid unemployment and increase profits they are trained to create new diseases. ‘Many diseases were created in labs – viruses created by doctors who were bought, trained and taught by the Rothschild family, the Freemasons, the Zionists, or the Jews to create and spread disease so they will be able to sell medicine for it.’94 Israel also sends hordes of deliberately starved white mice and boars – another example of agents provocateurs who do not know that they are being manipulated by the Mossad – to forage freely in West Bank Palestinian fields and olive groves and wreak havoc on Egyptian and Jordanian agriculture. Special farms breed these poor rodents and animals; they are then starved for three days and nights and then, at midnight, trucks take them to the Jordanian and Egyptian borders, where they are released to roam the agricultural regions of Jordan and Egypt and consume whatever grows there. Israel is ‘forced’ to use these animals because she has peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan and cannot destroy the latter using traditional means such as firearms, fighter jets or other weapons. There is also a theological explanation: According to epidemiologists, the Israeli wild boars and white mice have another devastating mission, which is part of the foundations of the Talmud and Torah; one of whose texts states: Send a disease to your neighbor – meaning here a non-Jewish neighbor – since it is forbidden to do damage to a Jew, but harming and striking a non-Jew is permissible.95

The rationale behind the Mossad’s sophisticated capacity to manipulate others without the latter’s being aware of it is to be found in an inherent childish defect in Muslim mentality: The Mossad can ‘motivate’ any Muslim group to become ‘terrorists’ … The Muslims are often emotional and unsophisticated … rather lousy material for terrorists. They bomb and then usually declare to the whole world that they did it; which is exactly what the Mossad wanted them to do, or instructed them to do.96

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Likewise, Israeli interests chose to manipulate Breivik; through him, Israel wanted to ‘discipline’ Norway’s government to rethink its stated intention to recognise a Palestinian state. The date of 22 July 2011 that Breivik chose on which to act in Oslo was said to recall the 22 July 1946 (sic) Jewish terrorist bombing of the Palestine British Mandatory Government headquarters in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Breivik and ‘the Judeo-Christian side of his network’97 also had a connection with the July 1973 arrest of Israeli agents in Norway after a botched Mossad operation in the town of Lillehammer. There, Israeli agents killed a Moroccan waiter, whom they had wrongfully identified as the leading Palestinian terrorist Ali Hassan Salameh, the mastermind behind the 1972 Munich massacre of Israel’s Olympic athletes. Thus, ‘unequivocal’, ‘direct’ and ‘convincing’ Jewish and Israeli interests were apparently joining forces to divert Norwegian anger and fury against Muslim migrants and to ‘punish’ Norway. And in this way Jewish/Israeli sophistication manifested itself in the use of a non-Jew/non-Israeli to commit the atrocity. Thus, Breivik became the ‘Sabbath goy’ – the non-Jew who performs tasks in Jewish homes that Jews are not allowed to do on the Sabbath. Here Breivik, the gentile, commits crimes for the Jewish State that accord with its interests. Compatibility of inspiration thus links the Sabbath goy with Zionist strategy, motivated by Islamophobia, xenophobia and anti-Communism, all clear and pure Israeli interests.98 All this, claim the supporters of the Sabbath goy conspiracy theory, rang ‘very sensibly and logically’ true and led to a ‘clear’ Israeli/Jewish involvement in the Oslo massacre. In fact, as in many other calamities, and as quoted by Günther Jikeli and the Kantor Center at Tel Aviv University, ‘pure logic’ prevails that proves all the above. For example, 9/11 was not committed by Muslims (this is a ‘bullshit’ explanation) but was, rather, a Jewish pre-emptive move to prevent a devastating future Muslim attack on world Jewry. This 9/11 thing, I don’t believe it was actually Muslims who’ve done that. This is just bullshit because … these two planes would not have taken this building down … And it’s not only that. When the bomb went off … there’s so many Jews working in that block. None of the Jews were working that day, so what happens here? … It’s all planned out. Muslims are supposed to be the Jewish’s [sic] worst enemies. The way I’d say the planning is: ‘cause in the Qur’an it says there will be a holy war. One solid war that will end the world and for the first couple of hundred years, Muslims will suffer but then the Muslims will overcome and they will take the pride. They will win the war. And the way it’s goin’ on, as far as Islam and Jew … the time is actually comin’, it’s not very far. It’s comin’ there. So the reason I think, this is part of the Jewish plan. They are planning it all out, ‘so let’s take out all the Muslims, make their side weaker’. ‘cause that’s what they are trying to do.99



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Among other sources, this weird conspiracy analysis was presented in Norway by Professor Ola Tunander, a researcher at PRIO, the respectable Peace Research Institute Oslo. Tunander published his work on Breivik’s collusion with Israel in the Norwegian academic journal Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift (New Norway Journal). His article claims that Breivik embarked on his homicidal rampage on 22 July 2011 because Jewish terrorists had bombed the King David Hotel on 22 July 1946, and this was sufficient evidence to link the Mossad with Breivik’s Oslo attack. No wonder that Tunander’s explanations were not accepted by all! One of the objections to it maintained that ‘There is about as much evidence to link Israel to the Breivik attacks as there is to New Zealand.’100 Presumably, it is not so difficult to support the following view: ‘This [Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift] is a peer-reviewed journal, so what the hell is wrong with the reviewers and the editor to allow such a slanderous and bizarrely nuts article into what is supposed to be an academic journal?’101 Gilad Atzmon, a gifted, Israeli-born jazz saxophonist who lives in London, also accepted the Sabbath goy theory. Atzmon, also a novelist and a writer, has renounced his Israeli citizenship and persistently spreads anti-Israel views in his publications. The electronic media, numerous internet sites and Al-Jazeera TV, among others, gave Atzmon a platform to air his views about the link between Breivik and the Mossad. The elements here that help Atzmon to deduce his collusion theory are completely baseless. Among other things he weaves in the Norwegian Labour Party youth movement; a call to boycott Israel and in favour of the BDS movement against it (BDS = boycott, divestment and sanctions); the manipulation of Anders Breivik into becoming a Sabbath goy; the Israeli Mossad and its manipulation of agents; Zionism; Palestine; the Hitler Youth movement; World War II Allied air strikes; and more. The conclusion of Atzmon’s article called for an urgent and transparent investigation into the possibility that Israel had backed Breivik’s killings. Atzmon’s groundless accusations notwithstanding (‘solid and valid’), they should nevertheless motivate Western intelligence agencies: ‘[They] must immediately crackdown on Israeli and Zionist operators in our midst, and regarding the terrible events of the weekend, it must be made clear who it was that spread such hate and promoted such terror, and for what exact reasons.’102 Atzmon found that just two days before the massacre, the AUF’s (Labour Party’s youth movement) leader, Eskil Pedersen, had given an interview to the Dagbladet, Norway’s second-largest tabloid newspaper, in which he called for more drastic measures against Israel, including an economic boycott. His argument went thus: Israel ignores the whole world’s expectations that it will settle its conflict with the Palestinians once and for all; hence, an international boycott should be imposed on Israel. In the beginning, Norway should be the beacon, to be followed by others, for a much stricter boycott than before:

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‘We in Labour Youth will have a unilateral economic embargo of Israel from the Norwegian side,’ declared Pederson. Thus, Israel’s need to punish Norway, its Labour Youth in particular, is ‘obvious’, certainly to Atzmon, hence the linkage between the Mossad and Breivik. Moreover, Atzmon knew how enthusiastic Anders Breivik was about Israel. Most probably Breivik was an agent of Israel, a sayan (Hebrew, collaborator). Hence, ‘assembling the information together, and considering all possibilities may suggest that Anders Behring Breivik might indeed, have been a Sabbath goy’.103 Other things being equal, the Sabbath goy would do minor tasks that Jews are forbidden to do during the Sabbath. But we do not live in ordinary times. We are now ‘within the Zion-ized reality we tragically enough live in’. Hence the Sabbath goy might even kill for the Jewish state, even voluntarily. Breivik had a model he admired: he applied against his hated leftist fellow countrymen the methods that the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) uses against the Palestinians. Thus, according to Atzmon, the Breivik–Israel linkage is actually proved – or at least deserves a thorough international investigation. It is certainly proved according to the following comments he found from enthusiastic Israeli supporters of Breivik’s massacres in Oslo and on Utoya Island: Devastatingly enough, in Israel, Behring Breivik found a few enthusiastic followers who praised his action against the Norwegian youth. In the Hebrew article that reported about the AUF camp being pro-Palestinian and supportive of the Israel Boycott Campaign, I found the following comments amongst other supporters for the massacre: 24. ‘Oslo criminals paid.’ 26. ‘It’s stupidity and evil not to desire death for those who call for a boycott of Israel.’ 41. ‘Hitler Youth members killed in the bombing of Germany were also innocent. Let us all cry about the terrible evil bombardment carried out by the Allie[s] […] We have a bunch of haters of Israel meeting in a country that hates Israel in a conference that endorses the boycott. So it’s not okay, not nice, really a tragedy for families, and we condemn the act itself, but to cry about it? Come on! We Jews are not Christians. In the Jewish religion there is no obligation to love or mourn for the enemy.’104

The above conspiracy theories are welcomed by Arab and Muslim immigrants in Europe. These immigrants carry anti-Jewish and anti-Israel baggage (diaspora Jews are rarely distinguished from Israel) that they absorbed from the education they received in their mother countries and from their cultures.105 Eric Justin, who writes for The Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, heard the conspiracy theories and read them while touring in Arab countries. Early education and earlier reading about Jewish cunning and omnipotence, particularly in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Justin: ‘Harry



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Potter for skinheads’), greatly fan the flames of the conspiracy perception. The phenomenon prevails in the migrants’ countries of origin. ‘I anticipated encountering anti-Semitism, but I expected it to be avoidable. I could not anticipate, nor could I have truly imagined, its systemic nature,’ lamented Justin.106 Inevitably, anti-Semitism and Jewish conspiracy theories also thrive among Muslim and Arab immigrants in Europe who formerly resided in these Arab countries. The exaggerated attention given to Israel, particularly in the form of conspiracy theories, remains the clearest evidence of anti-Semitism. Take, for instance, the popularity of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fraudulent treatise – originally of Russian origin – all about the pending Jewish plans for world domination.107 It is Harry Potter for skinheads. According to research conducted by the famed Princeton historian Bernard Lewis in Semites and Anti-Semites, former Arab leaders like King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, President Sadat of Egypt, President Nasser of Egypt, and President Arif of Iraq – all read The Protocols as historical truth. Of course, it is difficult to gauge the popularity of these anti-Semitic books and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories among the general public. However, consider that in no state in the Arab world do even 30 per cent of the people believe Arabs were involved in 9/11. I harbor no doubts that the popularity of conspiracy theories about Jews is similarly popular.108

Right-wing Europeans, Holocaust deniers, anti-Muslims, antiSemites, pro-Israel It is a simple love and hate story: European Right hates Jews but loves Israel, because it [Israel], like the European Right, hates Muslims. The European Left hates Israel, but loves Jews.109 Many in France, who today criticise Islam, are the spiritual (if not the biological) children and grand-children of those who were anti-Semites in the 1930s. The Vichy government – that collaborated with the Nazis and was responsible for the expulsion of French Jews and their transport to extermination – relied then on these people.110

Political parties, but more so public opinion and the web, indicate increasing support for the far Right in Europe. Facebook is clearly indicative here, while elections and democracy are only part of the picture: ‘online, a new generation is following these organisations and swapping ideas, particularly through Facebook. For most parties the numbers online are significantly bigger than their formal membership.’111 People are worried about their personal and economic misfortunes and, in particular, they are ‘cynical’ about their incompetent governments and

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d­ isillusioned with mainstream politics and European political institutions. Above all, they fear what they perceive to be a bleak future that awaits their national and cultural identities in the face of the immigration that is inundating Europe. Anti-immigrant prejudice and feelings of suspicion towards Muslim migrants (‘the enemy from within’) is the mantra. When speaking of phobias, the 1930s and the early twenty-first century are frighteningly similar. ‘As anti-Semitism was a unifying factor for far-right parties in the 1910s, 20s and 30s, Islamophobia has become the unifying factor in the early decades of the 21st century.’112 Similarly, the Guardian’s Peter Walker and Matthew Taylor found that the political tactics applied in the 2000s to attract supporters are only slightly different from the 1930s’ crude racism. Today, politically correct argumentation has replaced overt racism. The result, though, is similar if not identical: What some parties are trying to do is frame opposition to immigration in a way that is acceptable to large numbers of people. Voters now are turned off by crude, blatant racism – we know that from a series of surveys and polls. [These right-wing parties are] saying to voters: it’s not racist to oppose these groups if you’re doing it from the point of view of defending your domestic traditions.113

Economic hardships, financial crises and waves of immigration promote the appeal of Europe’s far right-wing parties. However, the recipe for their popularity comprises several other elements: being anti-Semitic and anti-Roma; support for small entrepreneurs and farmers; defence of local industry, agriculture, businesses and markets; resentment of multinational companies and globalisation; the seeming threat to national cultures; a loathing and fear of Islam; hard-line views of law and order; concern for the elderly; demand for reduced taxes; calls for the preservation of indigenous cultures; and objection to the EU’s ‘megalomania’ undermining individual European states’ sovereignty. Notwithstanding the differences between the parties of the extreme Right, most share the components of the above agenda (certainly in the ‘ABC’ cities commonly mentioned: Amsterdam, Athens, Budapest and Copenhagen).114 As the Economist explained, after World War II the far Right was taboo in much of Europe. However, as memories of the war have faded, Europe’s rightist parties have adopted the welfare aspirations of the centre left and flavoured these policies with protectionism and nationalism.115 However, the prudent words of Matthew Goodwin, an expert on far-rightist politics at Nottingham University, show that the picture is more complex than the nonsense (‘claptrap’) that public opinion usually expresses. Concerns for identity, culture, ethnicity and nationalism are at the forefront of the issue:



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A common view is that the economic downturn and austerity in the Eurozone explain the rise of the anti-immigrant far Right in Greece, the Netherlands, Hungary, Finland and other EU countries. But Matthew Goodwin … finds the evidence unconvincing. ‘We are all voting for Nazis because Europe is in recession? That’s claptrap,’ he says. Concerns over national culture identity and a way of life matter more than material worries. The potential for a xenophobic party exists in every European state whether a country has a triple ‘A’ credit rating, as the Netherlands does, or a country is on the brink of bankruptcy, as Greece is. ‘All it needs is for a semi-competent party to pick up on these sentiments’, says Mr Goodwin.116

A discussion of the measure of Holocaust yardsticks for Europeans and Muslim migrants should also include a bizarre side of the ‘triangle’. Rightwing Europeans, among them declared Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites, frequently express themselves to be anti-Arab and anti-Muslim. A simplistic approach would stop here. However, these very circles also consider it ‘natural’ to show commonality with Israel, which they perceive as the staunch Jewish enemy of Arabs, Muslims and Islam. Accordingly, anti-immigrant parties across Europe strive to develop close relations with Israel because of common enemies.117 In 2015 European right-wingers (among them Holocaust deniers, and deeply anti-Jewish at home) are pursuing a bizarre campaign. They support Israel ‘because of the connection to the origins of the Judeo-Christian culture and because [Israel] is a small but brave country that does the right things – free market economy, the right to own property, and the participation of non-Jewish citizens in the economy and politics. And all this when in your neighbourhood the utter opposite prevails: malicious theocracies.’118 They also seek to gain legitimacy by courting Israel. They hope to brush aside their hatred of Jews and the anti-Semitic chapters of their countries’ histories in exchange for their support of the Israeli cause in the Arab–Israeli conflict. Apparently, they see that such a turnabout will relieve them of the need to account for their World War II anti-Jewish barbarity and to whitewash it.119 Marine Le Pen, France’s right-wing National Front leader and therefore a future presidential candidate, looks to a time when she will be hailed as pro-Jewish. She considers burying her party’s fascist image – certainly from the time (1972–2011) when her anti-Semitic father Jean-Marie Le Pen led the party – to be a good strategy. Marine Le Pen is positioning herself as something of a philo-Semite. She is not under the illusion that she will sway large numbers of Jews to her side; in any case, the Jewish vote in France is minuscule. But people who follow her rise say she understands that one pathway to mainstream acceptance runs through the Jews: if she could neutralise the perception that the National Front is a fascist party by winning some measure of Jewish acceptance, she could help smooth her way to the presidency.120

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The same right-wing parties have initiated many proposals for laws to limit Jews’ religious freedom. Members in these parties consider bans on circumcision, ritual slaughter and distinctive religious attire as aimed solely at Muslims (see below). Alas, Jews share these practices with Muslims. The result is that right-wing, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment often transforms into antiSemitism or, more accurately, anti-Judaism (the negation of Jewish practices).121 Expressions of support for Israel that are coupled with anti-Muslim and antiArab immigration pronouncements make European right-wingers more acceptable among various Jews and Israelis, as was the Netherlands’ PVV leader, Geert Wilders (see below).122 Various groups, like the Middle East Forum (a Philadelphia-based pro-Israel think-tank), whose agenda is to counter Islamic influence in the West, funded Wilders’ police protection in the Netherlands and paid for his legal defence against charges of inciting racial hatred, which were successfully dismissed in 2010. The Dutch courts ruled that he had stayed within the limits of free speech.123 The article below, from Israel’s liberal, left-wing Haaretz newspaper, presents the basics of this incongruous phenomenon of anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic right-wingers who nonetheless support the State of Israel.124 The article, by then Haaretz foreign news editor Adar Primor, is reprinted here with a few minor omissions. The reference at the beginning is to the December 2010 fire that destroyed much of northern Israel’s Mount Carmel forest. The (sarcastic) reference at the end – ‘To the glory of the State of Israel!’ – is inspired by the annual ceremonial declaration that opens Israel’s Independence Day festivities. The unholy alliance between Israel’s Right and Europe’s anti-Semites Extreme nationalists in Israel have invited extremists in Europe and believe they have tamed them to their cause. Oy Europe! Its official arm, brave and mighty, was extended to us in the form of the dozens of firefighters and firefighting aircraft dispatched to battle the Carmel blaze. Its other arm – the outcast, disobedient one – came to ignite fires whose damages cannot be predicted. These took the form of the very unholy alliance between figures on Israel’s Right and extreme nationalists and even anti-Semites in Europe that is gaining momentum in the Holy Land. The first of the pyromaniacs, the Dutch MP Geert Wilders – almost a permanent guest in Israel – was invited by [an] MK [Member of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament] to persuade us that [the Kingdom of] Jordan is Palestine. In 2008, Wilders made headlines with his film Fitna [Arabic for chaos, upheaval, civil war] that linked the Koran to Islamic terror. He often compares the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf and calls for a tax on Muslim garments, ‘which pollute the Dutch landscape.’ During his visit here, he voiced innumerable pearls of wisdom such as, ‘Without Judea and Samaria [the West Bank, occupied by Israel in June 1967] Israel cannot protect Jerusalem.’



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Another European expert in starting fires is the Belgian politician Filip Dewinter, who was invited to attend another conference held here, this one initiated by [a] former MK from Yisrael Beiteinu [Israel Is Our Home, a right-wing political party] … Annoyed that [another MK] had ‘stolen’ Wilders from under his nose [the former] MK brought to his own convention on Islamophobia a roster of racists who made the Dutch populist [Geert Wilders] look like an innocent lamb. Dewinter is a leader of Vlaams Belang Party, a successor to the Flemish National Movement, many of whose members collaborated with the Nazis. Among its current members are a number of Holocaust deniers. Dewinter himself moved about in antiSemitic circles and has ties to European extremist and neo-Nazi parties. In 1988, he paid his respects to the tens of thousands of Nazi soldiers buried in Belgium, and in 2001, he opened a speech with an oath used by the SS. The honour of lighting the torch goes to the brightest jewel in this racist crown, Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of Austria’s Freedom Party. If Jorg Haider was ‘Hitler’s spiritual grandson,’ then Strache is his extremely illegitimate great grandson. His grandfather was in the Waffen-SS, and his father served in the Wehrmacht. As a university student, Strache belonged to an extremist organisation from which Jews were banned, hung out with neo-Nazis and participated in paramilitary exercises with them. Commentators in Austria say that Strache is trying to copy Haider but that he is less sophisticated and ultimately more extreme than his role model. … The organisers of these visits believe they have tamed this bunch of extremists they brought over from Europe, who after trading in their Jewish demon-enemy for the Muslim criminal-immigrant model are now singing in unison that Samaria [in the West Bank, occupied by Israel in June 1967] is Jewish ground. … But they have not genuinely cast off their spiritual DNA, and in any event, they are not looking for anything except for Jewish absolution that will bring them closer to political power. Joining the list of those who have brought shame onto this country for hosting these characters are the Ashkelon Academic College [in southern Israel, near the Gaza Strip] which gave them a platform; [an] MK who received them in the Knesset; [a] Deputy Minister … who expressed his delight at meeting ‘lovers of Israel, whom we must strengthen’; and the Israel Air Force, which tainted its reputation by [giving] this gang an exclusive tour of an F-15 squadron. The Austrian press reported this week that the whitewashing undergone by Strache here in our Land of Milk and Honey could well pave his way to the chancellor’s office. And, as [Israelis] say, ‘To the glory of the State of Israel!’125

Of particular interest is Haaretz’s description of Louis Aliot’s notable visit to Israel; Aliot is the ‘domestic partner’ (French, conjoint) of the French rightist presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, head of the National Front. As his party’s vice president, he came to Israel in December 2011 to persuade Israelis eligible to vote in the French presidential election to give their vote to Le Pen’s National Front. ‘This is the first time a National Front leader has visited Israel. It’s true that relations were tense for a time, but it’s time to warm up

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the atmosphere,’ declared Aliot, referring to the National Front’s Gallic brand of fascism with its racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic images. The current common denominator à la Aliot is simple: ‘Just as the Jews are defending their right to [safeguard the State of] Israel, we in France are fighting to defend our identity and our land.’ Fear of Islam thus helps to bridge a wide and daunting chasm.126 Aliot challenged the ability of Muslim immigrants to integrate into the French nation because Islam and republicanism cannot cohabit. Muslim migrants should therefore repatriate to the Arab countries to live in their Arab ethnicity.127 Madam Le Pen’s infamous anti-Jewish past should not be allowed to haunt her, nor should she be judged according to past atrocities, memories, declarations or lessons. ‘She has a charming look … She does not look scary or intimidating; on the contrary, she looks nice, she always smiles, she is blond, and she looks like us.’128 (On the contrary, some French Jews like Richard Prasquier, the president of the French Jewish umbrella organisation CRIF (2007–13), perceived Marine to be ‘more dangerous than her father’.129) She is a different person. ‘She belongs to a generation that never knew war, any war; her perspective is different from that of people who went through wars.’ Cooperation with Le Pen and her ilk seems to some Israelis to be a prudent path to pursue; common enemies can end disagreements, and what is permissible in one country may not be so in another. Louis Aliot: We don’t always see eye-to-eye on Israel’s foreign policy but we have the same position on the dangers posed by radical Islam, which exists in Europe and also threatens Israel, which we call ‘the Western island’. Today there is a global problem of immigrants, and here there is a specific problem of the rise of religion, what we call Islamisation. … The Frenchmen we met in Israel all strongly believe that Marine [Le Pen] is not the monster they might have thought. They share our stance with regard to immigrants in France. … By contrast, we have a very balanced position on the [Arab–Israeli] peace process, while the French people we met in Jerusalem are far more nationalistic. Sometimes they say things that we cannot say in France.130

In an epitome of the ‘triangle’, Muslims and Jews play a major role in Marine Le Pen’s perceptions of the world. Anti-Semitism in the French Right is nonexistent, she insists. This notwithstanding, many efforts have been spent and struggles waged against this virtual entity, something that precluded the perception of the real anti-Semitism that presently rears up in France, the Muslim one. Jews are still propelled by the force of inertia – they are still preoccupied and possessed by the Holocaust and World War II, by political correctness and



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by phlegmatic sluggishness, and consequently they do not see the real enemy – Muslim anti-Semitism, insists Le Pen. ‘The reality is that there exists in France associations that are supposedly representative of French Jews, which have stuck with a software that came out of the Second World War,’ she [Marine Le Pen] said, meaning that members of the Jewish leadership are still preoccupied with the threat of Nazi-like fascism. ‘For decades they have continued to fight against an anti-Semitism that no longer exists in France, for reasons of – how should I say this? – intellectual laziness. And by a form of submission to the politically correct. And while they were doing this, while they were fighting against an enemy that no longer existed, anti-Semitism was gaining force in France stemming notably from the development of fundamentalist Islamist thought.’131

Another perception of Madame Le Pen’s pertaining to good and bad guys relates to the wearing of traditional/ethnic/religious dress in public places contrary to the ethic of present-day secular France. France has already acted against head and face veils and other sorts of Muslim women’s attire. Would Le Pen, if she were elected president of France as the head of the National Front also prohibit Jews from wearing a kippah (yarmulke) in public? Her reply was pleasing to Jewish ears: the kippah is not ‘soft evangelism’; it is not the missionary Muslim da’wa. Muslim women who cover their heads, faces and bodies are. ‘I think the meaning is not the same,’ she said. To not acknowledge that is not to see reality. The meaning of the proliferation of the veil in France is not to be placed on the same plane as the wearing of the kippah. We know very well that the proliferation of the wearing of the veil, and in certain neighbourhoods the burka, is a political act. A female Muslim philosopher said, quite rightly, a little while ago, ‘A veiled woman is a walking morality lesson.’132

It seems that some Israelis lack the necessary caution and discretion when they embrace and court the ‘philo-Zionism’ of the European far Right. The founder of France’s National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was repeatedly convicted in French courts for anti-Semitic statements and Holocaust denial. In 2014 the elder Le Pen and his daughter engaged in a public row over the father’s anti-Semitic remarks; in a video aired on the Front National [FN] website he pinned on the word four [oven] – in a reference to Nazi concentration camps – when disparaging a French singer of Jewish origin.133 In order for the younger Le Pen, now the FN leader, to gain Jewish and Israeli support, she must dissociate herself from her father’s anti-Jewish remarks and present a ‘philo-Semite’ agenda by overtly displaying her anti-Muslim views (‘parts of France are suffering a kind of Muslim occupation’). Being

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p­ hotographed together with the Israeli UN ambassador was also meant to achieve the same.134 ‘Almost all European far-right parties have come up with the same toxic cocktail’, writes the Guardian’s Anne Karpf. She quotes the pro-Jewish, pro-Zionist, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim and pro-Israel utterances – clearly an incomprehensible if not an impossible combination – of the major far-right leaders of Europe. The latter support Israel, hate Muslims, dehumanise Muslims, are ‘in love’ with Judaism, spot too many Muslims in European swimming pools, are against anti-Semitism, have no inhibitions about being seen with neo-Nazis, oppose multiculturalism, compare Judaism to Nazism and much more. Even without a very sensitive ear, one can clearly hear the 1930s echo in the early twenty-first century. It is particularly so when Karpf mentions each leader of the main farright European parties and the ‘literary gems’ that he has uttered. For example, the Dutch MP Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigrant Freedom Party, compared the Qur’an to Mein Kampf. When visiting Tel Aviv in 2010, Wilders declared that ‘Islam threatens not only Israel, Islam threatens the whole world. If Jerusalem falls today, Athens and Rome, Amsterdam and Paris will fall tomorrow.’135 Filip Dewinter, leader of Belgium’s Vlaams Belang Party (a scion of the Vlaams Blok Flemish Nationalist Party, members of which collaborated with the Nazis during World War II), proposed a quota on the number of young Belgianborn Muslims allowed in public swimming pools. On the other hand, Dewinter labelled Judaism ‘a pillar of European society’. Simultaneously, Dewinter associates with anti-Semites, while claiming that ‘multi-culture … like AIDS weakens the resistance of the European body’, and ‘Islamophobia is a duty’. But, laments Karpf, the most ‘rabidly Islamophobic European philo-­Zionist’ is Heinz-Christian Strache, head of the Austrian Freedom Party, who compared foreigners to harmful insects and consorts with neo-Nazis. ‘And yet where do we find Strache in December 2010? In Jerusalem [!] alongside Dewinter, supporting Israel’s right to defend itself.’136 A similar mood exists in Scandinavia, where the anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party and the Norwegian Progress Party are vocal supporters of Israel and whose leaders warn of the Islamisation of their countries. Karpf concludes: In Britain, English Defence League [EDL] leader Tommy Robinson in his first public speech sported a Star of David. At anti-immigrant rallies, EDL banners read, ‘There is no place for Fascist Islamic Jew Haters in England.’ So has the Jew, that fabled rootless cosmopolitan, now suddenly become the embodiment of European culture, the ‘us’ against which the Muslim can be cast as ‘them’? It’s not so simple. For a start, ‘traditional’ anti-Semitism hasn’t exactly evaporated. Look at Hungary, whose ultra-nationalist Jobbik Party is unapologetically



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Holocaust-denying; or Lithuania, where revisionist MPs claim that the Jews were as responsible as the Nazis for the Second World War. What’s more, the ‘philo-Semite’, who professes to love Jews and attributes superior intelligence and culture to them, is often (though not always) another incarnation of the anti-Semite, who projects negative qualities on to them: both see ‘the Jew’ as a unified racial category. Beneath the admiring surface, philo-Zionism isn’t really an appreciation of Jewish culture but rather the opportunistic endorsement of Israeli nationalism and power. The British National Party’s Nick Griffin once called the Holocaust the ‘Holohoax’, subsequently supported Israel in its war ‘against the terrorists’, but the day after the Oslo murders tweeted disparagingly that Breivik was a ‘Zionist’.137

When they hear these philo-Semitic compliments, the reaction of (rightwing) Israelis is usually different from that of European Jews. The latter see once again ‘the whole iconography of Nazism – vermin and foreign bodies, infectious diseases and alien values’, but this time it is aimed against Muslims. When circumstances change – when getting Jewish absolution is not a priority anymore – this ugly and cruel verbal villainy could easily be redirected against Jews. Also, [F]ar-right philo-Semites ‘must think we’re pretty stupid if they think we’ll get taken in by that. The moment their perceived political gain disappears they revert to type. We completely reject their idea that they hate Muslims so they like Jews. What targets one community at one time can very easily move on to target another community if the climate changes’.138

The summer of 2015 has been an acute test for Europe: hundreds of thousands of new Muslim immigrants inundated the continent. Millions intend to follow. Memories from the past, in particular the Holocaust, surround this exodus in reverse. Excerpts from the New York Times’s Rick Lyman and of his interviewees show that the European Jewish past haunts this European influx of Muslims. Nothing, it seems, of this cruel recent history was missing from Lyman’s report: ‘Reception’ (sic) camps; identification numbers written on hands (the Czech Republic police stopped marking migrants like this only when someone pointed out that this was more than a little like the tattoos the Nazis put on concentration camp inmates); ‘It reminded me of Auschwitz. And then putting people on a train with armed guards to take them to a camp where they are closed in? Of course there are echoes of the Holocaust’; lies used to manipulate migrants (‘They tell them that the train was going to Austria and then take them to a camp instead … it is very similar to what happened to Jews in the 1940s’); and so on and so forth. Lyman’s conclusion was particularly cruel: ‘But perhaps not since

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the Jews were rounded up by Nazi Germany have there been as many images coming out of Europe of people locked into trains, babies handed over barbed wire, men in military gear herding large crowds of bedraggled men, women and children.’139

Notes 1 Philip Toynbee’s letter to his father, the historian Arnold Toynbee, following the latter’s comparison of Israeli/Jewish entity to the Nazis, 30 October 1956. The Bodleian Library, Oxford University, Special Collections Section, Arnold Toynbee papers, Box 112. Philip Toynbee (1916–81), a prominent British intellectual, worked for the Observer. 2 Dheepthi Namasivavam, ‘French president marks anniversary of Holocaust detentions’, CNN (22 July 2012). To mark the 70th anniversary of the roundup, President François Hollande gave a speech at a monument to the Paris Vel’ d’Hiv roundup of 13,000 Jews that led to thousands of them being sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vel%27_​d%27Hiv_​Roundup#Apology (accessed 31 October 2016). 3 Abderahmane Dahmane, President Sarkozy’s former diversity advisor, quoted in ‘Muslim politician: Muslims to wear yellow star they first imposed on Jews’ (28 March 2011), http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2011/03/france-green-star-tooppose-islam.html (accessed 4 September 2015). 4 Kim Willsher, ‘France’s burqa ban upheld by human rights court’, Guardian (1 July 2014), www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/01/france-burqa-ban-upheldhuman-rights-court (accessed 4 September 2015). 5 ‘Belgian interior minister under fire for proposing refugees wear identity badges’, RT-TV-Network, Question More (27 October 2015), www.rt.com/news/319882belgium-minister-refugees-badges/ (accessed, 29 October 2015). 6 Agnes Poirier, ‘A shameful badge’, reprinted in Haaretz (27 April 2011) (Hebrew). 7 Quoted in Tariq Modood, ‘Remaking multiculturalism after 7/7’, openDemocracy 29 (September 2005), p. 2. 8 Yigal Bin-Nun, ‘The Arabs saved Europe’, Haaretz (15 November 2013) (Hebrew). 9 ‘Community cohesion: A report of the independent review team’, chair, Ted Cantle; foreword, John Denham, Home Office Minister of State (London: The Home Office, December 2001), p. 9. Also, http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/doc​ uments/2001/12/11/communitycohesionreport.pdf (accessed 4 September 2015). During the spring and early summer of 2001, a number of disturbances took place in towns and cities in England. They resulted in the destruction of property and attacks on police personnel and stations. In August 2001 the British Home Office set up the Community Cohesion Report Team (CCRT), headed by Ted Cantle, to identify the causes of the disturbances and to offer ‘good practice, key policy issues and new and



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innovative thinking in the field of community cohesion’ (Ibid., p. 5). Between 1990 and 2001 Cantle was the Chief Executive of Nottingham City Council, and previously Director of Housing in Leicester City Council. He has written extensively on housing and urban regeneration issues. Kenan Malik, ‘The dirty D-word’, Guardian (29 October 2003), www.guardian. co.uk/uk/2003/oct/29/race.world1 (accessed 4 September 2015). In the article Malik refers to the ‘diversity training’ that has been applied in Britain to deal with issues arising from differences between communities and ethnic groups. Matt (Matthew) Carr quoting Christopher Caldwell, ‘Christopher Caldwell dissected’, book review of Christopher Caldwell, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West (New York: Doubleday, 2009), Institute of Race Relations (2 July 2009). Carr is highly critical of Caldwell’s theses and does not agree with many of his insights and conclusions. See review, www.irr.org.uk/2009/july/ ha000011.html (accessed 4 September 2015). See also Matt Carr, ‘You are now entering Eurabia’, Race & Class, 48:1 (July 2006), 1–22; Matt Carr, Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain (New York: The New Press, 2009). Douglas Murray, Director, the British Centre for Social Cohesion, in live debate, ‘Europe is failing its Muslims’ (London: Cadogan Hall, 23 February 2010), www. youtube.com/watch?v=KfcnoBb0POU (accessed 14 December 2015). See also Goran Larsson and Riem Spielhaus, ‘Europe with or without Muslims – two contradicting histories’, paper submitted to the 13th Mediterranean Research Programme, Mediterranean Program of the Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Montecatini Terme (21–24 March 2012). Full transcript, UK PM David Cameron’s speech on radicalisation and Islamic extremism, in which he says that the ‘“doctrine of state multiculturalism” has failed’, New Statesman (Munich, 5 February 2011), www.newstatesman.com/blogs/thestaggers/2011/02/terrorism-islam-ideology (accessed 4 September 2015). Ibid. Milos Zeman, President of the Czech Republic, interview, in Dafna Maor, ‘No danger to democracy if the rich people are successful entrepreneurs, not thieves and robbers’, Haaretz, TheMarker (16 October 2013), p. 24 (Hebrew), www.newstatesman. com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/02/terrorism-islam-ideology (accessed 4 September 2015). Fouad Ajami, ‘Why is the Arab world so easily offended?’, Washington Post (14 September 2012), www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-the-arab-world-why-amovie-trailer-can-lead-to-violencewhy-cant-the-arab-world-accept-offenses-without-violence/2012/09/14/d2b65d2e-fdc8-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_​story.html (accessed 4 September 2015) . Ajami researches the modern history of the Middle East and is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. The sociologist Keith Kahn-Harris, quoted in Anshel Pfeffer, ‘Anti-Semitism in Europe: A crisis, but not yet a catastrophe’, Haaretz (12 August 2014). Ajami, ‘Why is the Arab world so easily offended?’ Howard Jacobson, The B’nai B’rith World Center’s 14th ‘Jerusalem Address’,

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Jerusalem (7 October 2013). Jacobson is the winner of the prestigious Man Booker Award in 2010 for his novel The Finkler Question (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010). Zvi Rex, Israeli psychiatrist, quoted in Henryk M. Broder, Der Ewige Antisemit (The Eternal Antisemite) (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1986). ‘Swedish radio apologizes after host asks if Jews are responsible for anti-Semitism’, Haaretz (18 February 2015). Jacob L. Fleisher (Talmon), ‘A bitter conversation: A report on the generation’, Niv Hastudent (February 1939), 40–6. Niv Hastudent (‘The Student Idiom’) was the student magazine of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem at the time (Hebrew). Norman A. Rose, The Cliveden Set: Portrait of an Exclusive Fraternity (London: Jonathan Cape, 2000), pp. 39, 186; Norman A. Rose, Harold Nicolson (London: Jonathan Cape, 2005). Sir Harold Nicolson (1886–1968) certainly fits Norman Rose’s description of the English upper class; Nicolson was an English diplomat, author and politician, the younger son of a diplomat – Arthur Nicolson, the first Baron Carnock – and a graduate of Wellington College and Balliol College, Oxford. Hassan Butt, quoted in Aatish Taseer, ‘A British jihadist’, Prospect Magazine 113 (August 2005): pt. 2, www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/a-british-jihadisthassan-butt (accessed 27 October 2016). Mona Charen, National Radio Online (NRO), ‘An unveiling: Separate but acceptable?’ NRO Symposium (25 October 2006). Alain Finkielkraut, ‘What sort of Frenchmen are they?’ by Dror Mishani and Aurelia Smotriez. Original interview appeared in Haaretz (21 November 2005) (Hebrew). English version, 17 November 2005. www.haaretz.com/what-sort-of-frenchmenare-they-1.174419 (accessed 13 March 2016). Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History (London: Oxford University Press, 1954), vol. 8, pp. 258, 259. Ibid., p. 309. Ibid., pp. 289–91. Ibid., pp. 290–1, n. 3. Sebastian Villar Rodriguez, ‘Europe died in Auschwitz’, Free Republic (23 September 2005). An extended version of Rodriguez’s article, ‘All European life died in Auschwitz’, appeared in an (unknown) Spanish newspaper (15 January 2008), www. criticalfumble.net/forum/showthread.php?t=34267 (accessed 4 September 2015). Guy Hedgecoe, ‘Spanish mayor compared to Hitler over immigrant claims: Javier Maroto accused of stirring up tensions by saying North Africans abuse system’, The Irish Times (26 August 2014). Hedgecoe is a journalist and broadcaster based in Madrid. The Mayor’s criticism focused mainly on a monthly handout by the Basque regional government of €616. In other regions of Spain the handout was €426. About 65,500 people received the Basque aid in July 2014, a new record. Ibid. Quoted in Adam LeBor, ‘Exodus: Why Europe’s Jews are fleeing once again’, Newsweek (29 July 2014), www.newsweek.com/2014/08/08/exodus-why-europesjews-are-fleeing-once-again-261854.html (accessed 16 August 2015).



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34 Rodriguez, ‘All European life died in Auschwitz’. 35 Aaron Ciechanover, ‘Nobel prize for negligence’, Haaretz (13 October 2009) (Hebrew). 36 The Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM), Migration in an Interconnected World: New Directions for Action (Geneva: GCIM, October 2005), p. 48. 37 Birsan Iskenderoglu, ‘Turkey vs. the West’, Turkish Daily News (20 February 1999). 38 ‘Visit of His Holiness Pope Francis to the European Parliament and to the Council of Europe. Address of Pope Francis to the European Parliament’ (Strasbourg, 25 November 2014), http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/ november/documents/papa-francesco_​20141125_​strasburgo-parlamento-europeo. html (accessed 4 September 2015). 39 Ibid. 40 Jacob Talmon, ‘Jewish history: Its universal significance and uniqueness’, in Talmon, Unity and Uniqueness: Essays in Historical Thought (Jerusalem: Schocken, 1965), p. 239. 41 Jacob Talmon, ‘The victory in the Six Day War in historical perspective’, Eimut (Confrontation): Views about Zionism (Jerusalem: The World Zionist Organization, 1970), p. 19 (Hebrew). 42 Yasir Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Centre of Islamic Studies, in association with the Universities of Exeter and Westminster, January 2012), p. 98. See also, www.cis.cam.ac.uk/reports/ post/10-contextualising-islam-in-britain-ii (accessed 4 September 2015). See also Norman Cigar, The Role of Serbian Orientalists in Justification of Genocide against Muslims of the Balkans (Sarajevo: Institute for Research of Crimes against Humanity and International Law and Bosnian Cultural Center, 2000) (in Bosnian and English). 43 Guven Ozlap, ‘Belgian-Turkish deputy expelled from party over “genocide denial”’, Hurriyet Daily News (30 May 2015), www.hurriyetdailynews.com/belgian-turkishdeputy-expelled-from-party-over-genocide-denial.aspx?pageID=238&nID=83200 &NewsCatID=351 (accessed 4 September 2015). 44 Lior Zilberstein, quoting Latifa Ibn-Ziaten in ‘I will go to the end of the world so that no parent will suffer like me’, Yedioth Aharonoth, weekend edition (17 May 2013), p. 21 (Hebrew). 45 Dan Bilefsky and Ian Fisher, ‘Across Europe: Worries on Islam spread to the center’, New York Times (11 October 2006), www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/world/ europe/11muslims.html?pagewanted=all&_​r=0 (accessed 4 September 2015). 46 Bernard Lewis, ‘The 2007 Irving Kristol Lecture’, American Enterprise Institute Annual Dinner, Washington, DC (7 March 2007), www.aei.org/publications/filter. all,pubID.25815/pub_​detail.asp (accessed 4 September 2015). 47 Ibid. 48 Mustapha Benchenane, interview, Haaretz (12 December 2005) (Hebrew). 49 Paul Vallely, ‘Tariq Ramadan: ‘We Muslims need to get out of our intellectual and social ghettos’, Independent (25 July 2005), www.independent.co.uk/news/people/ profiles/tariq-ramadan-we-muslims-need-to-get-out-of-our-intellectual-and-socialghettos-500153.html (accessed 4 September 2015).

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50 Ibid. 51 Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II. 52 Nassurdine Haidari, a former imam in Marseille, quoted in Steven Erlanger, ‘A presidential race leaves French Muslims feeling like outsiders’, New York Times (4 April 2012). About 30 per cent of Marseille’s 850,000 people are Muslim, www. nytimes.com/2012/04/05/world/europe/presidential-race-in-france-leaves-­mus​ lims-feeling-left-behind.html (accessed 4 September 2015). A heated discussion is presently consuming France about building a large mosque in Marseilles, France’s second-largest city, a profoundly Christian city where the right-wing National Front is very strong. ‘People here want an invisible Islam; they prefer small prayer rooms to a grand mosque like a cathedral.’ Ibid. 53 Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II. 54 Prof. Salman Abu-Sitta, founder of The Palestinian Return Centre (1996), quoted in Ehud Rosen, Mapping the Organizational Sources of the Global Delegitimization Campaign against Israel in the U.K. (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, 2010), p. 28. 55 Xavier Lemoine, mayor of the town of Montfermeil in Seine-Saint-Denis, to Daniel Ben Simon, Haaretz (7 June 2006) (Hebrew). 56 Nick Meo, ‘Jews leave Swedish city after sharp rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes’, Telegraph (21 February 2010), www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ sweden/7278532/Jews-leave-Swedish-city-after-sharp-rise-in-anti-Semitic-hatecrimes.html (accessed 4 September 2015). 57 Karen Polak, ‘The Dutch Case’, in Günther Jikeli, Robin Stoller and Hanne Thoma (eds), Anti-Semitism in Muslim and Arab Populations in Europe Today, and Links to the Majority Society, Proceedings of the conference on Strategies and Effective Practices for Fighting Antisemitism among People with a Muslim or Arab Background in Europe (Berlin: International Institute for Education and Research on Anti-Semitism, 2007), pp. 17–30, www.iibsa.org/cms/index.php?id=105 (accessed 4 September 2015). 58 Mikael Tossavainen, ‘Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism in Sweden’, Jewish Political Studies Review, 17:3–4, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (Fall 2005), 3. Also, www. bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=2370 (accessed 28 November 2015). 59 Amir Oren, ‘The purse is also exhausted’, Haaretz (8 September 2014), p. 2 (Hebrew). 60 Associated Press. ‘Palestinian-born candidate running for mayor of Berlin’, Haaretz (2  October 2014), http://haaretz.com/news/world/1.618779 (accessed 4 September 2015). The candidate, Raed Saleh, born in the West Bank, came to Berlin when he was five. He was quoted as saying, ‘You can criticize if you have a different political view, but nothing justifies the hatred of Jews.’ Ibid. 61 Jeffrey Goldberg, ‘Is it time for the Jews to leave Europe?’ Atlantic Online (15 March 2015), www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/is-it-time-for-the-jewsto-leave-europe/386279/ (accessed 4 September 2015). 62 Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to Gen. George Marshall, the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, see ‘Ohrdurf concentration camp’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohrdruf_​



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concentration_​camp (accessed 4 September 2015). See also Eugene G. Schultz, The Ghost in General Patton’s Third Army: The Memoirs of Eugene G. Schultz during His Service in the United States Army in World War II, ‘Ohrdurf: A Nazi death camp’ (chap. 20) (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Corporation, 2012), pp. 239–54. 63 Rodriguez, ‘All European life died in Auschwitz’. 64 Bat Ye’or, interview, Haaretz (19 June 2006); see also Bat Ye’or, Eurabia: The EuroArab Axis (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005). 65 Finkielkraut, ‘What sort of Frenchmen are they?’ 66 Polak, ‘The Dutch case’, pp. 17–30. 67 Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, head of the Muslim Council of Britain, quoted in Kerry Moore, Paul Mason and Justin Lewis, Images of Islam in the UK: The Representation of British Muslims in the National Print News Media, 2000–2008 (Cardiff: Cardiff University, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, July 2008), p. 30, www.cardiff. ac.uk/jomec/resources/08channel4-dispatches.pdf (accessed 4 September 2015). 68 Sun (13 November 2007); Daily Mail (14 November 2007), quoted in Moore, et al., Images of Islam in the UK. 69 David Boukai, Haifa University, Israel, quoted in Eretz Israel Shelanou (The Land of Israel is ours), 141:3 (February 2012) (Hebrew). Boukai is described in this publication as ‘one of the greatest specialists in the world in Arab and Middle Eastern affairs’. Boukai’s words quoted here are his reaction to the call (February 2012) made by the Jerusalem Palestinian Mufti to find Jews wherever they hide and kill them. 70 Erik Eiglad, The Anti-Jewish Riots in Oslo (Porsgrunn, Norway: Communalism Press, 2010), pp. 76, 77. 71 The Greek refugees were forced to leave the Turkish areas of Asia Minor following the 1923 Greco-Turkish ‘Transfer’ agreement for population exchange. Around 1.5 million Greek Orthodox Anatolian Greeks left Turkey and 360,000 Muslim Turks left Greece. See Convention concerning the exchange of Greek and Turkish populations: Lausanne Peace Treaty VI, signed at Lausanne by the governments of Turkey and Greece, 30 January 1923. 72 Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II. 73 Andreas Zick, Beate Kupper and Andreas Hovermann, Intolerance, Prejudice and Discrimination: A European Report (Berlin: Forum Berlin, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2011), p. 21. 74 Jan Guillou is a Swedish journalist and owner of Piratforlaget (Pirate Publishing), one of the biggest publishing houses in Sweden. Guillou strongly supports the Palestinian cause and consistently criticises Israel. 75 Baron Bodissey, ‘The Gates of Vienna: The New York Times and Sweden – the dark side of paradise’, http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/05/new-york-timesand-sweden-dark-side-of.html (accessed 4 September 2015). 76 Ehsan Masood, ‘A Muslim journey’, Prospect Magazine (August 2005), p. 10, www. prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/amuslimjourney. 77 Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II. 78 Beila Rabinowitz (trans.), ‘Enough is enough: Ban the Koran. Geert Wilders’ o­ pinion

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piece in the Volkskrant’ (Dutch Parliament) (8 August 2007), in Militant Islam Monitor Org, www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3094 (accessed 4 September 2015); Rudolph Peters, ‘“A dangerous book”, Dutch public intellectuals and the Koran’, European University Institute, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Mediterranean Programme Series, RSCAS No. 2006/39 (December 2006), pp. 5, 11, 12. 79 Paul Lewis, Matthew Taylor and Robert Booth, ‘Minister warns of 1930s-style fascists on Britain’s streets’, Guardian (11 September 2009), www.theguardian. com/politics/2009/sep/11/minister-warns-facists-streets (accessed 4 September 2015). 80 Ibid. Oswald Mosley (1896–1980) was a Member of Parliament and the founder of the British Union of Fascists. The English Defence League is a right-wing movement that opposes Muslim immigration and demonstrates against Muslim extremism. 81 Ibid. 82 Michael Whine, ‘The radical right in Europe’, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Institute for Contemporary Affairs, 12:17 (29 July 2012), 3. See http://jcpa.org/ article/the-radical-right-in-europe/ (accessed 4 September 2015). 83 The Times (5 October 1936); Guardian (5 October 1936). 84 Maria Tadeo, ‘Madrid ready to party as Spain’s recovery lifts mood: Economy’, BloombergBusiness (1 February 2015), www.bloomberg.com/news/arti​cles/2015-0211/madrid-ready-to-party-as-spain-s-recovery-bolsters-spending-mood (accessed 4 September 2015); Ami Ginsburg, ‘Spain recovers, but …’ Haaretz, TheMarker (18 May 2014), pp. 23–4; Economist, ‘Corruption in Spain. Inside jobs: Research suggests that government cronyism may cripple Spain’s economy’ (2 May 2015), www. economist.com/news/europe/21650176-research-suggests-government-cronyismmay-cripple-spains-economy-inside-jobs (accessed 4 September 2015). 85 Jan Strupczewski and Rex Merrifield, ‘Unemployment rose to new record highs in September [2012]’, Reuters (31 October 2012), www.reuters.com/arti​ cle/2012/10/31/us-eurozone-economy-idUSBRE89U0GV20121031 (accessed 4 September 2015); Andy Bruce, ‘Euro zone strugglers face tougher 2013 than thought – Reuters poll’ (24 October 2012), http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/10/24/ uk-eurozone-crisis-poll-idUKBRE89N19K20121024 (accessed 4 September 2015). 86 BBC News, London (23 July 2011). 87 Ye’or, Eurabia. 88 Tim Lister and Paul Cruickshank, ‘Why dozens of ethnic Somalis in Scandinavia are embracing jihad?’ CNN (23 October 2013), http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/23/ world/europe/scandinavia-somalia-jihad/index.html?hpt=hp_​c1 (accessed 4 Sep­ tem­ber 2015). 89 Dagbladet (Norway) (6 August 2013), reprinted in Panayote Dimitras, Antiracism News (8–10 August 2013). 90 Anders Breivik, ‘2083: A European declaration of independence’ (London: 2011), www.kevinislaughter.com/wp-content/uploads/2083+-+A+European+Declarati on+of+Independence.pdf (accessed 4 September 2015).



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91 Anne Karpf, ‘Don’t be fooled: Europe’s far-right racists are not discerning [Jews from Muslims]; opportunistic words of love for Jews and Israel cannot disguise the European far right’s toxic rhetoric of hatred’, Guardian (27 March 2012), www. theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/mar/27/far-right-philozionism-racism (accessed 4 September 2015). 92 Günther Jikeli, ‘Discrimination against Muslims and anti-Semitic views among young Muslims in Europe’, in Roni Stauber and Beryl Belsky (eds), Papers on Anti-Semitism and Racism, Tel Aviv University, The Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry (February 2013), p. 20, www.kantorcenter.tau.ac.il/sites/default/ files/jikeli.pdf (accessed 4 September 2015). 93 Arieh O’Sullivan, ‘Egypt: Sinai shark attacks could be Israeli plot’, Jerusalem Post (6 December 2010); ‘Palestinians accuse Israel of selling gum with aphrodisiac’ (17 July 2009), http://rt.com/news/palestinians-accuse-israel-of-selling-gum-withaphrodisiac/ (accessed 4 September 2015); see also A. Ungar, ‘Combating the new anti-Semitism’, The Jerusalem Report (31 January 2011), p. 46; Joseph Nasr, ‘Egyptian paper: Israel-India nuke test caused tsunami’, Jerusalem Post (6 January 2005). Nasr quotes an article from the magazine of the Egyptian weekly Al-Osboa; Robert Mackey and Sebnem Arsu, ‘Israel behind Egypt’s coup, Erdogan says’, New York Times (21 August 2013), http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/israel-behindegypts-coup-erdogan-says/?_​r=0 (accessed 4 September 2015). 94 Sheikh Khaled Al-Mughrabi, teacher of Islamic studies, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem, Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa YouTube channel (31 July 2015); Palestinian Media Watch (2 August 2015), www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=763&fld_​id=763&doc_​id=​153​ 99 (accessed 9 November 2015). 95 As’ad al-Azouni, ‘A Jordanian journalist: Israel sabotage the Jordanian agriculture by using pigs and mice’, The Algemeiner (2 May 2014), MEMRI, The Middle East Media Research Institute (25 March 2014 and 8 May 2014), www.algemeiner. com/2014/05/02/jordanian-journalist-israel-sends-boars-mice-to-jordan-in-orderto-ruin-the-agriculture/ (accessed 4 September 2015). 96 Rose Cohen, ‘Bali, Australia and the Mossad’, Rense.com (17 October 2002), http://rense.com/general30/balias.htm (accessed 4 September 2015). 97 The Local, Sweden’s News in English, ‘Swedish professor “insinuates” Israel tie to the Breivik attack’ (14 December 2011), www.thelocal.se/20111214/37926 (accessed 4 September 2015). 98 Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, Moshe Kantor Database for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism, Tel Aviv University, Antisemitism Worldwide 2011, General Analysis, p. 26. 99 Jikeli, ‘Discrimination against Muslims’. 100 The Local, ‘Swedish professor “insinuates”’. 101 Life in Israel, ‘Prof Ola Tunander and Anders Behring Breivik differ only by degrees’ (17 December 2011), http://olehgirl.com/?p=9803 (accessed 4 September 2015). 102 Gilad Atzmon, ‘Was the massacre in Norway a reaction to BDS [boycott, divestment

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and sanctions]?’ (24 July 2011), www.gilad.co.uk/writings/gilad-atzmon-was-themassacre-in-norway-a-reaction-to-bds.html. Ibid. Ibid. Eric T. Justin, ‘Protocols of the Elders of Crazy: On anti-Semitism in the Arab world’, The Harvard Crimson (3 October 2011), www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/10/3/ arab-world-antisemitism-jews/ (accessed 4 September 2015); Jikeli et al. AntiSemitism in Muslim and Arab Populations. Justin, ‘Protocols of the Elders of Crazy’. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion or The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion was first published in Russia in 1903. It has since been translated into dozens of languages. Henry Ford in the 1920s and Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s helped to disseminate it all over Europe and North America. Recent repeated editions of it were published in the Arab world, East Asia, Turkey and Iran. Justin, ‘Protocols of the Elders of Crazy’; see also Bernard Lewis, Semites and AntiSemites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice (New York: Norton, 1986). A Muslim protestor to the author, Malmö (February 2010). Shlomo Avineri, ‘Between Charlie and Beytar Yerushalaim’, Haaretz (30 January 2015). Beytar Yerushalaim is a Jerusalem soccer team, whose fans are known for their anti-Arab and racist bias. Peter Walker and Matthew Taylor, ‘Far right on rise in Europe, says report’, Guardian (6 November 2011), www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/06/far-right-riseeurope-report (accessed 4 September 2015). Thomas Klau, Head, Paris Office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, quoted in Walker and Taylor, ‘Far right on rise in Europe’. Ibid. Economist, ‘Europe’s far right, culture matters more’ (11 August 2012), www.economist.com/node/21560294 (accessed 4 September 2015). Ibid. Ibid. Samuel Goldman, ‘Jews, Muslims, and the European Right’, The American Conservative State of the Union (5 October 2012), www.theamericanconservative.com/jews-muslims-and-the-european-right/ (accessed 4 September 2015). Roger Helmer, British member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands region and head of a delegation of the right-wing UK Independence Party (UKIP). In Anshel Pfeffer, ‘The European far right’s charm offensive in Israel’, Haaretz (10 November 2015), www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-1.685317 (accessed 11 November 2015). Ayhan Kaya, Islamophobia as a Form of Governmentality: Unbearable Weightiness of the Politics of Fear, Willy Brandt Series of Working Papers in International Migration and Ethnic Relations, 1/11, Malmö University, Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare (MIM) (2011), p. 40. Goldberg, ‘Is it time for the Jews to leave Europe?’



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121 Goldman, ‘Jews, Muslims, and the European Right’. 122 Economist, ‘Europe’s far right, culture matters more’. 123 Anthony Deutsch and Mark Hosenball, ‘Exclusive: U.S. groups helped fund Dutch anti-Islam politician Wilders’, Reuters (10 September 2010), www.reuters.com/ article/2012/09/10/us-dutch-wilders-us-idUSBRE8890A720120910 (accessed 4 September 2015). Wilders has been under 24-hour security for years after receiving death threats from radical Muslim groups at home and abroad. Also, to justify his crimes the Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik cited Wilders’ anti-Islamic comments. Wilders denounced Breivik and his actions. 124 Haaretz (18 and 19 January 2012). Haaretz is usually in opposition to Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu listed Haaretz together with New York Times as Israel’s ‘two greatest enemies’ (later denied). 125 Adar Primor, ‘The unholy alliance between Israel’s Right and Europe’s anti-Semites’, Haaretz (12 December 2010). The right-wing Dutch MP Geert Wilders is the leader of the Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV, Party for Freedom). Wilders became a member of the Dutch parliament in 2006, campaigning against Islam and calling for a total halt to non-Western immigration and bans on Muslim headscarves and the construction of mosques. He regarded Muslim immigration as a threat to Dutch culture and Western values. He defined Islam as a violent political ideology and vowed never to enter a mosque, ‘not in 100,000 years’. His party gained 24 seats in the 150-seat lower house in June 2010. See Deutsch and Hosenball, ‘Exclusive: U.S. groups’. It is worth noting that six years after it was founded, Geert Wilders’ Party of Freedom is the third-largest force in the Dutch parliament. See Walker and Taylor, ‘Far right on rise in Europe’. The Belgian politician Filip Dewinter is one of the leaders of Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest), a right-wing Flemish party. The right-wing MP HeinzChristian Strache is the leader of the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Freedom Party of Austria). Jorg Haider (1950–2008) was an Austrian politician and leader of the Freedom Party of Austria. 126 Yair Ettinger, ‘French National Front heads to Israel to stump for support ahead of election’, Haaretz (13 December 2011) (Hebrew). 127 Ibid. 128 Carol Massliah, French lawyer representing of victims of Toulouse shootings, quoted in Aviva Lori, ‘I accuse’, Haaretz weekend magazine (10 August 2012), pp. 48, 49. 129 Karpf, ‘Don’t be fooled’. 130 Ettinger, ‘French National Front’. 131 Marine Le Pen quoted in Goldberg, ‘Is it time for the Jews to leave Europe?’ 132 Ibid. 133 Kim Willsher, ‘Jean-Marie and Marine Le Pen in public spat over anti-Semitic remarks’, Guardian (10 June 2014). 134 Karpf, ‘Don’t be fooled’. 135 Ibid. 136 Ibid. 137 Ibid.

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138 Dave Rich, spokesman of the Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors antiSemitic incidents in Britain, quoted in Karpf, ‘Don’t be fooled’. 139 Rick Lyman, ‘Treatment of migrants evokes memories of Europe’s darkest hour’, New York Times (4 September 2015), www.nytimes.com/2015/09/05/world/treat​ ment-of-migrants-evokes-memories-of-europes-darkest-hour.html?_​r=0 (accessed 31 October 2016).

4 In the same boat: European opposition, Muslim migrants, impact on Jews Pork soup (soupe au cochon), also known as ‘identity soup’, has been used as a protest in France and Belgium against multicultural life in Europe and against the Muslim migrants who allegedly enjoyed government benefits, so much so that very little was left for needy Europeans. Since the winter of 2003 homeless people have been served with hot pork soup made of the ears, tail and legs of the poor animals. Theoretically, the pork menu is a guarantee that Muslims (and Jews) will not frequent the soup kitchens. Dessert is served, but only to those partaking of the soup. The website of the right-wing Solidarité des Française (SDF) organisation that provided the soup to the needy in French cities states: ‘The only condition to eat with us: eat pork! Attention: cheese, dessert, coffee, snacks, clothes go with pork soup; but no pork soup, no dessert. The only rule of our action: our own before the others.’1 ‘Pork soup is a staple of the French pastoral heartland from which all true French spring,’ asserted right-wing French nationalists. They proudly emphasised the national heritage of the dish, the ‘Gallic atmosphere’, the bread and wine that go together with the pork soup.2 However, these kitchens were perceived as racist and discriminatory and therefore were banned for a time from the streets of French cities, an action that included the shutting down of the distribution centres by the French police. Yet, a Parisian judge overturned the ban, ruling that the pork soup is offered to everyone; the reluctance of Muslims and Jews to savour it does not constitute discrimination. Some see the ‘identity soup’ issue in a broader context in which Europeans challenge and defy Islam and the politically correct behaviour that has permitted the admittance of Muslim migrants into Europe. The far-right (i.e., fascist) Greek Golden Dawn Party is amongst the most recent examples. At the time it was Europe’s most successful extreme rightist party; it won 6.9 per cent of the vote and 18 seats in the June 2012 Greek parliamentary elections. The party has a strong hooligan element and connections with the underworld and expresses and uses violence, overt racism and anti-Semitism.3 ‘We are providing food

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produced in Greece for Greek citizens only’, the party’s mantra announces to queues of hundreds of ‘shabbily dressed’, mostly elderly people waiting for a handout in Syntagma Square outside the parliament in Athens. To prove their Greek citizenship, party vigilantes check ID cards before passing out plastic carrier bags filled with fruit, vegetables and pasta.4 Some years ago, the New York Times’ Richard Bernstein elaborated on the examinations and tests that immigrants had to take in order to become citizens of Germany and the Netherlands; failure in the examinations might disqualify a person from becoming a citizen. These examinations are considered another example of the so-called ‘non-politically correct’ behaviour vis-à-vis Muslim migrants, or at least an active attempt, until now hardly successful, to shape their identity. The tests are a further requirement in addition to fluency in the local language, proof of economic independence and renunciation of extremism and acceptance of democracy. Theoretically, these tests and conditions send a double message: Muslims should either fit in or leave; or, unless Muslim migrants are ready to change, they should not come to Europe. Similar messages emerge from a Dutch video (see below) and the implicit tests they hold: stay in the sending countries if your religion will cause you to feel uncomfortable with the Dutch way of life. ‘You have to start all over again. You have to realise what this means before you decide to come here.’ The examinations and tests have aroused criticism, as shown in the quotation below. Those who favoured them, like the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, considered them to be a means of ensuring the immigrants’ true readiness to integrate: ‘The state is allowed to ask whether citizenship is a conscious decision, citizenship can’t be granted with a wink and a nod.’5 A quiz for would-be citizens tests Germans’ attitudes What’s the capital of Germany? Well, pretty much everybody knows that one. It’s Berlin, of course. But how about these questions: ‘Which convention gathered at St Paul’s Church in Frankfurt in 1848?’ ‘Name three mountains in Germany.’ ‘Which German physicist revolutionized medical diagnosis in 1895?’ […] The 100-question test … has received a lot of comment, in part because of the widespread belief that many German university students would have trouble passing it, so how fair would it be to impose it on immigrants relatively unschooled in German culture? […] The world certainly took note a couple of weeks ago when a new Dutch law came into effect requiring all would-be immigrants to take a Dutch citizenship test, based largely on a two-hour videotape that immigrants are strongly encouraged to view. […] The video is certainly a general introduction to the Dutch way of life, including



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how to open a bank account and register for the National Health Service. But there are also much-discussed scenes of nude bathing at North Sea beaches and of gay men kissing in public, presumably to give immigrants a sense of the prevailing Dutch cultural and moral values. […] [The German citizenship law of 2000] allowing people born in Germany of foreign parents to become citizens … was expanded in 2005 to provide for the cultural and linguistic education of would-be immigrants, each of whom is required to take 600 class hours of German language instruction and an additional 30 hours on the country’s history, culture and way of life.6

Apparently, the demands on Muslim migrants to adapt to their new European environment, and criticism of them, are now more common; it was not like this before. The expectation is that Islam should be tamed and Muslims should either fit in or leave. Not long ago, it was rather difficult for Europeans not to behave in a tolerant, politically correct manner vis-à-vis Muslim immigration, let alone to make demands of the immigrants. ‘Any European reluctance to embrace Islamic immigration gets called Islamophobia. So does any suggestion that immigrants or their children adapt to European ways.’7 Today, however, ‘educating’ Muslim migrants and exposing defects in their lives is no longer the exception. [I]n a liberal democracy you enjoy the freedom of expression, you enjoy the freedom of religion which includes the right to leave your religion, you treat women and men equally. But at the same time Muslims within their own communities are not able to exercise that right. And it is controversial among Muslim communities to leave Islam. … So if a Muslim decides to leave his religion, he risks social exclusion, stigmatization, or maybe even worse.8

Some would argue that everything has changed in Europe, including the resolve not to hurt the feelings of Muslims. Inter alia, this has led to the ban, imposed in certain European countries, on women wearing the hijab (see section below). Also, the accession to the EU of the Baltic States (2004), Slovakia (2004), Romania and Bulgaria (2007) and Croatia (2013) is presented as a means to encourage more Christian, rather than Muslim, job seekers to immigrate into the richer EU member states.9 Statutes have been enacted against building mosques and minarets; a referendum against them was held in Switzerland in 2009. The insistence on serving wine at state dinners, despite the presence of Muslim dignitaries, is another example of disrespecting Muslim customs. European women who have tried to shake hands with Muslim clergy have been rebuffed and European women officials have cancelled meetings with Muslim leaders who have refused to shake

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their hands – for example, Dutch Minister for Integration and Immigration (2003–7), Rita (‘Iron Rita’) Verdonk. Other examples are the prohibition of the Muslim halal (and Jewish kosher) method of animal slaughter, or the introduction of tagging and labelling of such products so that consumers can avoid them (see section below). Likewise, some Christians have demanded the public display of overt religious symbols (Christmas trees, the Cross), while simultaneously imposing restrictions on the symbols of other religions. Another prohibition on Muslim rites and customs was a 2012 German court ruling in Cologne against the circumcision of boys (see section below). Still another bone of contention is the prohibition on speaking any language other than the local European tongue in public places, and the insistence that all teaching be done in the national language. The Union of German Teachers voted in January 2006 to require all children to speak German exclusively during school hours, even in the playground. ‘Pupils talk German with their teachers, then turn around and talk Turkish with their classmates.’10 Professor Maria Bohmer, German Minister of State and Federal Government Commissioner for Migration, Refugees and Integration at the time, concurred with the teachers’ demands and regarded them as a policy of ‘assertive integration’ that is to be used in the naturalisation process. ‘[T]aboos will not be tolerated … it would be a misconception of tolerance if there was no insistence on the knowledge of German. … [T]hose who want to live here can participate fully in our society. Language is the key to this.’11 Using the local European language, in this case German, has indeed become a controversial issue. ‘Defiantly, and unlike their parents and grandparents, the Muslim youth hardly speak German. They want to preserve their separate ethnic identity and refuse to integrate or to assimilate.’12 To some, this looks like open disobedience. Occasionally, it is accompanied by bullying and brutal behaviour by young Muslims who challenge the European culture and society that has absorbed them. A German official described the following: The conversation [with the unnamed German official] was about immigrants from Muslim countries in Germany in general, and in Berlin in particular, for instance in the capital’s Kreuzberg suburb. In parts of Kreuzberg the Turkish language is prevalent, and gives the impression that Istanbul was moved and replanted in Berlin. ‘Defiantly, and unlike their parents and grandparents, the Muslim youth hardly speak German. They want to preserve their separate ethnic identity and refuse to integrate or to assimilate’, said the official. He confessed that old people and senior citizens … find it difficult to understand how a minority that recently arrived, and still struggles to get its rights, has already become a local majority that challenges and teases those who absorbed and accommodated it. The senior official was astonished to realize that the Kreuzberg’s Muslims harass the Christians who live there. When going to church



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on Sunday, his old aunt carefully plans her way so that she will not bump into the thugs that block her way.13

The prohibition on circumcision developed around a case brought before a German court in June 2012. The circumcision of a four-year-old Muslim boy performed by a Muslim doctor required four sutures, but some days later the wound haemorrhaged and the child arrived at the Cologne University Hospital’s emergency ward. The police were informed and the doctor was brought to court. The court acquitted the doctor of medical malpractice or negligence, but ruled against circumcision. The child’s fundamental right to bodily integrity outweighs the parents’ right to determine their child’s religion, the magistrates ruled.14 In practice, many Europeans desist from dealing with various aspects of the Jewish presence in Europe. On the other hand, the prohibitions imposed on Muslim minorities apply also to the Jewish communities: that is, Muslim halal (Jewish kosher) slaughtering, Muslim (Jewish) boys’ circumcision, the Muslim takiyah skullcaps (Jewish yarmulke) worn as signs of religiosity, etc. Muslims thus become the direct target; indirectly, there is an impact on Jews. Hence, European–Muslim frictions are actually European–Muslim–Jewish conflicts – the embodiment of the ‘triangle’. Others conspicuously specify Jews as the target: ‘[M]any people use a widespread concern about a growing influence of Islam in Europe as a way to hurt Jews as well or to hit them first.’15 Hence, Jewish or Israeli inclinations to ‘rejoice’ and distance themselves as if Jews are not a party to the European– Muslim squabble is a gross misreading of reality. The German ‘crusade’ against circumcision in the summer of 2012 that started with a lawsuit against a Muslim doctor soon included Jewish rabbis. The latter were quick to call it another manifestation of anti-Semitism, and ‘it was absolutely clear that they [German legal authorities] do not care about the health of Jewish children, but it is another facet of anti-Semitism’.16 The memory of the Holocaust quickly surfaced, as in the reaction of the former Chief Rabbi of Israel (a child Holocaust survivor), who (sarcastically) referred to the pain of a baby boy who was experiencing circumcision. ‘This is so amazing, that German-speaking people reveal such sensitivity towards the crying of a baby and concerning few drops of his blood; surprisingly, I didn’t notice it when I was a child.’17 In this context, the 1930s and the early twenty-first century rapidly condensed into one: Iris Hefets, an Israeli psychologist living in Berlin, sees a Jewish ‘ostrich policy’ in both periods. She defines it as the Jewish inability to acknowledge that threats are directed against Jews and non-Jews alike. ‘There is a denial among Jews that hatred towards them and hatred towards Muslims is

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the same; [it is like in the 1930s] when German Jews denied [the existence of] hatred towards them and preferred to explain it [Nazi anti-Semitism] as directed solely against the Ostjuden [East European Jews].’18 European measures against Muslims impact on Jews in various ways. Acting for the sake of equality – restrictions on Muslim religious customs must apply to similar Jewish practices as well, to avoid accusations of discrimination – was the justification for France’s far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen’s sponsorship of a proscription on the wearing of all religious symbols in public places, including Muslim veils and Jewish skullcaps. At the time (September 2012), religious symbols were banned only in state schools, city halls and state institutions; a separate law banned the Muslim veil in public places. Now, seeking ‘a broader view of secularity than our current legislation’, Le Pen also includes the Jewish skullcap, the kippah or yarmulke. Earlier we quoted Le Pen making a distinction between the kippah and the veil (see chapter 3). Although it is not as ostentatious as the veil, and not da’wa, Le Pen nevertheless added the kippah for the sake of fair treatment. ‘Jewish skullcaps are obviously not a problem in our country’, but France has to ‘ban them in the name of equality … What would people say if I’d only asked to ban Muslim clothing? They’d burn me as a Muslim hater.’19 Appealing to the French Jews’ sense of patriotism and asking them to contribute to the cohesion of the French nation, Marine Le Pen continued, The situation in our country has changed. We used to have a fragile balance between religions, but massive immigration has changed that. Veils and jilbabs [coat-like woman’s dress] are putting us under pressure. France is a victim of sectarian political groups due to the ruling parties’ incapacity to deal with the problem, she [Marine le Pen] said … Regarding her call for a ban on Jewish skullcaps, the far-right leader said that she was ‘asking our Jewish compatriots to make this small effort, this little sacrifice probably’ for the sake of equality. ‘I’m sure a big part of them are ready to make that little sacrifice.’20

Apparently, Muslims and Jews found common ground to protest against what they perceived as European intolerance. Jewish leaders saw Le Pen as ‘a secular fanatic just as others are religious fanatics’.21 ‘Those who want to ban the veil and skullcap [yarmulke] want France to become a dictatorship.’22 Others said that Marine Le Pen has never stopped promoting hatred and Christian supremacy. ‘She doesn’t believe in equality, she believes that some communities, Catholic extremists, should dominate others. That’s not secularity … This statement [to ban skullcaps in the name of equality] is not a turn in her strategy, but perhaps her extremism is even more obvious now.’23 The Holocaust was also mentioned. ‘Her [Le Pen’s] suggestion of a ban on wearing a kippah in public takes



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us straight back to the times of state-sponsored anti-Semitism under the Vichy regime. … Any sane politician will disqualify these comments as total madness and profoundly insulting to the French ideals of freedom of expression.’24 This notwithstanding, perhaps the German Jews’ 1930s attempt to disassociate themselves from the Ostjuden repeats itself in the 2000s in the French Chief Rabbi’s protest in reaction to Le Pen’s attempt to link the Muslim veil and the Jewish yarmulke. France’s Chief Rabbi Gilles Bernheim criticized Le Pen for associating the skullcap and the Muslim veil, saying, ‘Jews have never tried to coerce anyone to wear the skullcap, I don’t see why [Marine Le Pen] has made such an injunction. Mixing up the tradition of the skullcap and the veil only generates more confusion in people’s minds. I deeply deplore her statement.’25

Circumcision Excerpts from interviews with experts and officials in Germany give what seems to be a good summation of the controversy surrounding the circumcision issue. Here too the Holocaust and its consequences play a major role in the ‘triangle’. The ban on circumcision includes Muslims and Jews. In October 2015 the Council of Europe rejected the proposed ban on male circumcision. However, one can understand Chancellor Angela Merkel’s concern lest Germany should become the sole country in Europe to prevent Jews from practising their religious rituals. ‘We will be mocked and ridiculed for this,’ warned the chancellor.26 The following quotations corroborate the chancellor’s concern. Germany has an interest in having Jewish communities. They [Jewish communities] get 30 million euro each year from the authorities. … Members of the community enjoy various services like a synagogue, Jewish school, yeshiva [Jewish religious seminar] [and] kindergarten.27 German Jews support the Muslim community. This is solidarity against racism. On the other hand, Jews and Muslims are competing with each other for German attention, resources and political support. Muslims could only dream about the monies that the Jewish community gets.28

Reinhard Merkel, who teaches criminal law and philosophy at Hamburg University, observes how the fate of Jews in Germany affects policy making in Berlin. This is in spite of the negligible number of Jews now living in Germany in comparison to Muslims. Jews number between 100,000 and 150,000, out of more than 80 million Germans; about 4.5 million Muslims now live in

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Germany. It seems that courage is a relative and selective attribute. In other words, it is easier not to be politically correct when the object is not Jews. I incline to believe that had circumcision not been a Jewish, but only Muslim ritual, it would have been banned. I would not have called it Islamophobia. Put it simply, none would have approved special rights to religious communities. But the Jewish issue in Germany is more than a religious issue. In order to say that circumcision is illegal, a court needs to be courageous. It is easier [to be courageous] when the circumciser is Muslim.29

Mehmet Daimagüler, a Berlin lawyer of Turkish-Muslim origin and the founding chair of the Liberal Turkish–German Association, alluded to the Muslim tactic of keeping a low profile when a topic relevant to both Jews and Muslims annoys the Germans. While the latter would act quite freely against Muslims, they hesitate to vex the Jews. ‘The work of the righteous is done by others’ is a Talmudic saying (Berachot 35) – advice that the Muslims prudently accept in such cases. Particularly when circumcision is the issue, the Muslim community leaders prefer to fly under the radar. Very prudently, they leave the battle to the German Jews and world Jewry. Is it possible that this is a calculated strategy, bearing in mind that people will be forced to listen to the Jewish view and hence, one way or another, joint Muslim–Jewish interests will benefit? ‘My Turkish friends say, thank God there are Jews,’ says Daimagüler sarcastically. ‘It is not that the Muslims left the stage to the Jews, but let’s face it: if Muslim representatives will argue that without circumcision there would be no Muslim life in Germany, people would say: “So what? Who cares?” “Who gives a damn?” When Jews say so, bear in mind the connotation of the Holocaust in the background, then you have an extremely forceful argument.’30 Iris Hefets, mentioned above regarding the Jewish ‘ostrich policy’, also points out a surprising service that Jews perform for Muslims. They facilitate the Muslim migrants’ way in Christian Europe, in the sense of being a ‘shock absorber’ that militates against European attempts to tame or assimilate Islam. Although Jews are a negligible minority, they act as an ever-present reminder of Europe’s past conduct vis-à-vis minorities that cushions further repression of Jews and, by extension, helps Muslims. If you look [at the issue of circumcision] beyond the personal foreskin of a certain child, then the story is one of Christians versus Muslims. There are almost no Jews in Germany, and the Muslims are the country’s new Jews. This is the new form of antiSemitism that gets a booster injection from history. The German court that ruled [in the case of the] Muslim doctor [who circumcised a four-year-old Muslim boy] was



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inspired by a Christian hospital and by its Christian personnel. Culturally speaking the court is of course Christian. Jews are only the overlapping excess [extra insurance coverage] that spoils the [Christian] attempts to dominate the Muslims.31

The restrictions directed against Muslim migrants (that include Jews as well) were explained as an extension of the attempt of European ‘secular theology’ to ‘educate’ the Christians. For centuries, criticism of the Church marginalised, tamed and forced European Christianity to change. An inevitable question then arises: why cannot the same happen to Islam? Why cannot Islam modify itself to conform to the European lifestyle? Criticism against Muslims is often presented and justified as criticism of religion, which, the critics claim, is part of modernity. The anti-Islamic hardliners argue that Christianity was subjected to criticism and that that contributed to the reform and modernization of Christianity. Why, they ask, should such criticism not have the same effect on Islam?32

Chapter 5 discusses the attempts to adapt and adjust Muslim theology to the European realities in which Muslims live as minorities, namely, Fiqh al-Aqalliyat or Muslim jurisprudence of minorities. Suffice it to mention now that the Dina de Malchuta Dina, meaning the law of the kingdom is the law, was the Jewish adaptation to its minority status; that is, while living as a minority, Jews accept certain chapters of the receiving country’s law as their law, clearly in itself an exceptional sign of coexistence, that is, to subsume one body of law under another. Also, the question posed at the end of the last quotation alludes to another question, namely: by immigrating into Europe, are Muslims intending to change, and to adopt European values and standards, as per the example of migrants in America and Canada, or does ghettoisation imply the intention of self-preservation by establishing enclaves of a mini-Turkey, mini-Morocco, mini-Algeria, etc. in Europe? As shown above, the European legislation and policies directed against Muslims directly affect the Jewish population. As such, common denominators like the struggle against European restrictions on male circumcision indicate shared reasons for cooperation between Jews and Muslims. The Muslims’ prudent tactics leave the Jews to fight that battle. And, as discussed below, further restrictions on Muslims and Jews could become a springboard for increased cooperation between the two communities.

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The ban on the hijab, niqab, burqah, jilbab and the kippah/ yarmulke The basis for Muslim women’s head-covering, veiling, hijab, niqab, burqah, and other sorts of restrained dress is found in the Koran (24:31): Enjoin believing women to turn their eyes away from temptation and to preserve their chastity; not to display their adornments (except such as are normally revealed); to draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their finery except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their stepsons, their brothers, their brothers’ sons, their sisters’ sons, their women-servants, and their slave-girls; male attendants lacking in natural vigour, and children who have no carnal knowledge of women. And let them not step their feet when walking so as to reveal their hidden trinkets. Believers, turn to God in penitence that you may prosper.

The niqab, meaning the ‘full veil’ in Arabic, and thus ‘a powerful statement’ according to the BBC,33 completely covers the woman’s body, including gloves and a black, face-covering veil with only a slit for the eyes. The niqab is usually accompanied by the abaya, a long, loose black robe. The justification for this allconcealing garb is that ‘you can see somebody’s whole history by looking into their eyes’.34 In addition to the niqab is the burqah, a long, enveloping garment that covers the woman from head to toe. The burqah hides the face completely; the eyes are hidden behind a see-through material, allowing the wearer to see. It is widely worn in Afghanistan. The jilbab is a long, floor-length, long-sleeved, flowing, shapeless garment that covers the entire body except for the hands, feet, face and head. A scarf or wrap covers the head. The jilbab is appropriate attire for a Muslim girl reaching puberty.35 The hijab is a scarf that typically covers the hair, neck and chest, but not the face, and is one of the most common items worn by Muslim women. It is relatively tolerable in public places. The chador is another kind of loose, full-length robe or cloak that covers the head but not the face.36 The elements of Muslim women’s attire that conceal the face, the burqah and niqab in particular, are perceived by outsiders as the epitome of feminine discrimination and persecution, depressive restrictions imposed on helpless women by the patriarchal Muslim system. Secular European authorities perceive such dress as a prohibited manifestation of religiosity in public, in defiance of the separation of church and state, especially in France under the French rubric of laïcité or secularity. Further, hardly any discussion about veiled Muslim women takes place without raising additional issues like forced marriages (particularly those of Turkish and South Asian girls practised in France, Britain, Scandinavia



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and Germany), juvenile and even infantile weddings of girls as young as nine, cruel sexual mutilation, gender violence, honour killings, rape, teenage pregnancy, girls’ and women’s suicide, harassment of homosexuals, etc.37 Muslim women’s attire and allegedly the two main prohibitions that it ­transgresses –women’s rights and infringement of secularism – have become major issues on the European agenda and in public discourse. One example was the July 2014 European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling which upheld the French burqah ban, accepting the French government’s argument that unveiled faces encourage citizens to ‘live together’. The French law, introduced in 2010, makes it illegal for anyone to cover their face in a public place. The Belgian government introduced a similar law in 2011, hence Belgium supported France’s case before the ECHR.38 The preservation of equality – all faces should be unveiled – was supposed to strengthen the idea of an open, uniform society. Altogether seven reasons given by French and Belgian authorities were upheld by the ECHR judges: the ban helps everyone (1) to integrate, (2) to live together, (3) to strengthen security, (4) to achieve equality, (5) to improve social communication, (6) to have the right to interact with others ‘by looking them in the face’ and (7) to exclude the option of ‘disappearing under a piece of clothing’.39 The claimant, an unnamed 24-year-old French citizen of Pakistani origin who wore both the burqah and the niqab, leaving only her eyes uncovered, was ready to abide by security rules that demanded the removal of scarves, veils and turbans for checks. However, she insisted on the right to wear the full-face veil and argued through her solicitors that by outlawing it, the law in France (and Belgium) violated human rights and six articles of the European Convention: the law (1) was ‘inhumane and degrading’; (2) harmed the right of respect in family and private life; (3) curtailed freedom of thought; (4) administered a blow to conscience and religion; (5) infringed on freedom of speech; and (6) was in essence discriminatory.40 In a second example, in November 2013, two Muslim women left a nursing school in Prague because wearing the hijab was not permitted; they were the first in the Czech Republic to end their studies for this reason.41 In this example, state law did not forbid the wearing of the hijab in school – no such law has ever been enacted by the Czech Republic, where schools make their own rules and regulations. The students, a Somali woman aged 23 and an Afghan woman of 25, found that studying or teaching while wearing the hijab was not allowed by the school. ‘The principal summoned me [the Somali woman] and told me, “If you want to be in the school, you must not wear the scarf.” [I said,] “This was against my religion as I am a Muslim.”’ She offered to wear the hijab in a way that would cover only her hair, but the principal refused; she left the school the same day. The Afghan woman tried to attend the school without a headscarf.

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After two months she, too, left the school. ‘I was in the classroom and I could not concentrate … I could not do anything as I constantly had to think of m[e] missing something. Why am I without the scarf here? I have my rights and religion.’42 To the chagrin of the two Muslim women students, their classmates did not support them: the latter, among them a large body of foreign students from four continents, saw the hijab as a symbol of the patriarchal suppression of women. They objected to what they perceived as the submissive attitude of their Muslim women classmates.43 Sharp criticism often follows the heated discussions about Muslim female attire and the European restrictions against it. Particularly criticised are Western liberals and intellectuals who, apparently tolerate the restrictions imposed on Muslim women and accept the ugliest discriminations against them in the name of ‘post-modernist’ values, and their reluctance to impose liberal, Western and European ‘white-man’s’ codes of behaviour on ‘primitive’ and ‘first cultures’. Under the guise of respecting ‘others’’ traditions and Islamic values, the legal system and authorities tend to overlook forced marriages. They say, ‘There are customs and religion, which are different from those practiced here. It is not for us to judge these traditions and religion, unless the young girls are in physical danger and there should be proof for that.’ … And of course, both Western and Eastern ‘intellectuals’, shamelessly, tell us that ‘to talk of forced marriages is a Euro-centric way of looking at things.’44

It is worth noting that Muslim female attire and veils are meant to minimise the presence of Muslim women in the environment around them, to make their appearance and attendance completely modest and humble, as inconspicuous as possible. Apparently, wearing such uniform attire is believed to be the only way that Muslim women may enter public places and not be ‘seen’. Alas, Muslim women’s unique attire achieves just the opposite in European society – d­ rawing maximum attention to the black-veiled Muslim woman. ‘Living graves’, ‘walking black tents’ and ‘black widows’ are but a few of the names given to the Muslim women’s garb in Europe. Muslim attire may be a fashion or social statement, but in addition it certainly accords with Muslim Sharia law. The Muslim jurists who favour non-integration of Muslim migrants for religious reasons favour specific attire that demonstrates such distinction. In this sense the distinct appearance of Muslim women among a non-Muslim majority is in accordance with a theology that calls for the segregation of Muslim minority communities.45 One way or another, the presence of Muslim women dressed in conspicuous attire reinforces the prevailing European images of the inability of repressive, patriarchal and misogynist Islam



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and Muslim men to adjust to gender equality. ‘Muslims make women [into] slaves … Muslim men are violent, oppressive and prone to hyper-­masculinity.’46 Perhaps more than any other issue, the veiled woman has developed into a very strong symbol, a litmus test of the incompatibility of Muslim ways with the liberal democratic European tradition. The visibility of Muslims, particularly of women (men may dress like ‘white’ Europeans and blend in), arouses negative reactions, whether it symbolises Muslim in-your-face differences or that Muslim immigration is here to stay. On the other hand, EU sources have found that Muslim traditional or religious clothing, distinctive from that worn by the majority population, only marginally affects the experience of discrimination. A probable explanation for moderate reactions is the fact that the majority of Muslim men migrants report that they usually do not wear traditional or religious clothing in public. As for Muslim women, they do not find it easy to dress like European women; the overwhelming majority of women migrants (84 per cent) stick to their traditional attire.47 In addition to Muslim male migrant workers and, more recently, refugees, the arrival of whole families emphasises visibility and its impact. The example of Sweden clearly shows this: Muslim women on Sweden’s streets are being harassed. Cases are reported of the repeated violent removal of Muslim women’s headwear. One incident was reported in which five Swedish men forced a pregnant Muslim woman to open her mouth and spat into it.48 An Instagram account ‘Muslimskkvinna’ (Muslim women) that boasts over 10,000 views shares details and images of the experiences of Muslim women and their treatment in Sweden. For example, posts show a smashed-in car window, pictures of women who have suffered attacks and even a note pinned to a wall with a swastika and the words ‘Die Muslim’ written in black marker pen. The year 2014 was a particularly bad one for Muslims in Sweden: 14 mosques were attacked, vandalised or set on fire.49 Muslim visibility produces scary reactions and menacing attitudes, like ‘Muslims control the whole EU’ as the ‘Jews control the whole world’. The pregnant Muslim woman is a particular threat, as Jonas Otterbeck mentions: The most interesting aspect of the discourse [in Sweden] is that its conspiracy theory actually assigns intelligence and competence to Muslims, an otherwise unusual stereotype. To be able, in detail, to run all the governments of the EU (which is what is claimed that Muslims do through the European-Arab Dialogue, or EAD) is an impressive feat, only second to the claim that Jews run the entire world. Otherwise, it is the visibility of Muslims that is generally considered to be the problem. It is their numbers, their pregnancies, combined with their undemocratic mentality, their refusal of a Swedish/Western order, and their will for power that is threatening the Swedish state, according to this discourse.50

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The knee-jerk reaction in Europe to Muslim women’s clothing has manifested itself in four German states’ barring of teachers from wearing headscarves. The Dutch government has prohibited the wearing of burqahs in schools and public places, on grounds of ‘disturbing public order, citizens and safety’. More accurately, the Dutch allow headscarves but not veils that cover the face. Also in the Netherlands, Utrecht city council imposed a 10 per cent reduction in social security payments to women who wear a headscarf or burqah at job interviews and reject requests to remove it. Amsterdam’s mayor warned that women who go veiled in public and consequently fail to be hired should not expect to receive welfare benefits. Similarly, in September 2004 local politicians in northern Italy resurrected old laws against the wearing of masks in order to outlaw the burqah. Maaseik in Belgium bans the niqab; women are fined €150 for wearing the niqab in public. The mayor pushed for this law because ‘old people were afraid and children cried’ when they saw women in long black robes with their faces covered. In France the restrictions on veiling have been imposed for ‘the benefit of public order’ or in the name of laïcité (secularism).51 In September 2004, France introduced a ban that forbade entrance into public places wearing religious symbols like Muslim head coverings. Jewish skullcaps, large Christian crosses and Sikh turbans were also specified as possible forbidden accessories.52 Then, in April 2011, France passed a law that forbade face covering in public. Belgium followed suit in July of the same year (see above in this chapter). The allpervading French ban on wearing the niqab and burqah in public has become a major factor in the tense relations between the state and the Muslim sector, in particular when Muslim women have become targets for abuse. They have been spat at, forcibly unveiled, forbidden to enter civic places (public parks where ‘dogs, drunks and symbols of religion’ are prohibited), jostled in the streets and even violently attacked. Statistics from the French National Observatory Against Islamophobia show that in 2014–15 some 80 per cent of anti-Muslim acts involving violence and assault were directed against women, most of them veiled.53 As mentioned (see chapter 3 above), France’s restrictions on veiling have prompted Muslims to outwardly display the ‘green star’, reminiscent of the yellow badge (revived from medieval times) that Jews had to wear during the Holocaust. All over Europe, such distinctions play into the hands of radical Muslims who are eager to point out the discrimination between Muslims and non-Muslims.54 Some see the veil, despite all its negative associations, as an expression of religious freedom and a means of liberating women. It enables women to move freely in places that otherwise, because of cultural and social expectations and prohibitions, would be out of bounds to them. The justification for veiling is



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explained to the non-Muslim public in a rather picturesque and ritualistic way. A person offers you two sweets, one in each hand. One sweet is neatly wrapped; the other has no wrapping. Surely, you would choose the wrapped one for its cleanliness, sealed, as it were, against the human and urban pollution around it; moreover, it even arouses curiosity. Choosing the wrapped sweet has a feelgood factor and gives a sense that one has certainly made the right choice.55 ‘The veil liberates women,’ said a placard waved by demonstrating British Muslims – as one would expect. However, unexpectedly, the Italian Interior Minister refused to ratify a law banning veiling in public places, mentioning the Christian heritage (see below). A third response specified the happiness of hijabed women. More specifically, British Muslims maintain that the veil ensures that women are treated as respected persons, and not as sex objects. The veil forces men to engage with us intellectually rather than judge us by our attractiveness … It is Western women, who are slaves to fashion and dress provocatively, who are un-liberated; who are in fact sex objects. Whereas those covered by the burqah are protected from ‘men’s glances’.56

Also, But when I asked a Muslim woman, ‘Why do you wear that [hijab]?’ her answer was obvious and appealing: … ‘To be recognized as a woman who is to be respected and not harassed. So that I can protect myself from the male gaze.’ She explained how dressing modestly is a symbol to the world that a woman’s body is not meant for mass consumption or critique.57

Similarly, Roberto Maroni, Italy’s Interior Minister (2008–11), refused to give his approval and to ratify a law against the hijab and veiling. Maroni had a most unique and original reason: ‘If the Virgin Mary appears wearing a veil on all her pictures, how can you ask me to sign on a hijab ban law?’58 Muslim theologians furnish us with another reason in favour of the modestly dressed and headscarfed Muslim woman: as a passive but effective Muslim missionary activity – soft, under-spoken da’wa, as against loud debates or vocal preaching. The veiled woman radiates quietness, restraint, dignity – the opposite of promiscuousness. These women are Muslim symbols; they and their attire spread the faith of Islam and the greatness of Allah. These thinkers report that Christian and Jewish women who encountered tranquil, happy and modest veiled Muslim women decided to veil themselves or cover their heads with headscarves.59 Many ethnic, cultural, social and practical reasons could prompt a person to abide by seemingly discriminatory rules, but a British report, Contextualising

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Islam in Britain II, acknowledges that women of minority groups make voluntary choices in their style of dress. Whether Muslim or Jewish (or Amish or nuns), these women happily remain within their communities’ regulated lifestyle norms, which outsiders brand as anti-feminist, repressive ethnic behaviour or discriminatory religious jurisprudence. Loyal Muslim women ignore the general perception of Islam as misogynist and patriarchal, and accusations that Muslim men are prone ‘to enslave women’ and to ‘pursue hyper-masculinity’:60 Many women choose to remain members of a cultural or religious group and they voluntarily adopt practices that are perceived to conflict with equality and non-­ discrimination norms. Such women may choose forms of dress that many people consider to be patriarchal; they may enter into intimate relationships – such as arranged marriages – which are considered to embody unequal relationships between men and women. They may also choose to regulate their personal affairs in forums – such as Muslim arbitration or Jewish Beth Din [religious court] – where the rules of inheritance or divorce may be seen as discriminatory.61

Muslim women’s veils are referred to and are compared to other elements in the ‘triangle’. In 2013 the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe62 reported that a British Airways employee had been told to remove a cross on a necklace. In 2008 a British court had upheld the prohibition on wearing Christian symbols, but not those of other religions. In 2013 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) quashed the British ruling, stating that the rights of the employee had been violated.63 In a similar case, the ECHR upheld the verdict of Britain’s Employment Tribunal against a Christian nurse who was not allowed to wear a cross for religious reasons, although a Muslim could wear a hijab in accordance with her religious rites. The ECHR upheld the ‘no discrimination’ ruling pertaining to the nurse, because a hospital could make such policies for health and safety reasons.64

The burqini A symbol, if not the epitome, of the issue of Muslim women’s attire in European public spheres emerged in the summer of 2016 on French beaches and at swimming pools. From the French Riviera the debate spread to other European countries and to water sports and recreation sites. Burqini (also burkini) is a portmanteau word from burqah and bikini. The burqini is a full-length woman’s swimsuit which covers the hair and the rest of the body except the face, hands and feet, and is meant to abide by the Muslim traditions of modesty in women’s dress. Designed first in Australia in 2004 to enable Muslim women to enjoy



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water sports at Sydney’s beaches and pools, this amalgam of East and West aroused controversies and conflicts between Europeans and Muslim immigrants. Soon the burqini was banned in more than 30 French towns and seaside resorts, including Cannes, Nice and the town of Villeneuve-Loubet, near Nice. Among the various justifications for banning the burqini were objections to Islamic extremism. The burqini was seen as a threat to public order; the burqini obstructs the integration of immigrants; it is not a religious symbol but an anti-social manifestation; it is not in accord with hygiene (!); it goes against the preservation of water safety, morality and other French values; it contradicts laws that forbid swimming in street clothes; it does not respect secularism; it is ‘tantamount to a new weapon of war against the French Republic’; it has been labelled as ‘clothing that conveys an allegiance to the terrorist movements that are waging war against us [France]’, hence it forces France to defend itself; wearing the burqini is considered a provocation, particularly in contemporary Muslim terror-stricken France; it displays religious affiliation, hence it disrupts public order; it is no more than another means to control women, i.e., it is just ‘the beach version of the burqah’; it is just another means to hide women’s bodies and enslave them; allowing the burqini is tantamount to ‘imprison[ing] women behind fabric’ (comment by former French President Nicolas Sarkozy); the burqini is not a new fashion in swimsuits but a political agenda against the society of the receiving country that rests on the suppression of women (comment by French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls); and so on and so forth. Women were fined €38 each for wearing the burqini and were forced to remove it if they wanted to continue bathing at public swimming sites. Even women without a burqini but with long sleeves and headscarves were stopped on the beach by the police. Impressed by this oddity, people in Corsica took ‘selfie’ pictures with women in burqinis, an action that caused the Muslim North African men to attack the photographers, resulting in a brawl that saw seven men wounded and five detained. Both verbal and physical attacks were reported in several places between ‘white’ European beachgoers who shouted ‘go home!’ and ‘this is our home’ at Muslim women dressed in burqinis. Special police units were brought in to impose order when Muslim men and women confronted ‘whites’ who challenged them on the beaches.65 Freedom of religion, freedom of movement, freedom from attempts to enforce secularism and the liberty to observe one’s dress traditions and culture were among the petitions brought by Muslim migrants as counter-justifications to allow them to adhere to their dress codes when at seaside resorts. Eventually, at the end of August 2016, France’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, upheld an appeal to quash the burqini ban in the town of VilleneuveLoubet, a popular resort with a population of 14,000. Its judgment stated that

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the town’s authorities had failed to show how the swimsuit posed a threat to public order. The verdict against Villeneuve-Loubet’s ban should also apply to those other French municipalities that had imposed the edict. And although the issue was a French internal one, even the Secretary General of the United Nations and the White House expressed ‘great relief’ on hearing the court’s ruling. This, because the burqini ban had seemed to discriminate against Muslim migrants by singling them out: ‘I was in Nice two days ago. There are women in the street with veils. It’s completely unreasonable to ban them from the beach, while they are free to walk around the city. It’s hysteria.’ 66 The renowned Israeli novelist Iris Leal, writing in the liberal Haaretz newspaper, commented on the French Council of State’s August 2016 verdict quashing the burqini ban. Astutely, Leal sees how the ‘triangle’ (Europeans, Muslim immigrants and Jews) plays a role in this issue and refers to episodes during the Holocaust (see below). She repeatedly refers to a report and pictures of French policemen who forced a Muslim woman to remove her burqini swimwear and undress until she had reached the ‘standard percentages’ of dress expected of a woman at the beach: a dress code that leaves considerable parts of the body naked. These pictures (Leal: ‘dreadful disgrace’) will remain in her mind’s eye and continue to be findable by internet search engines, insisted Leal. On the French Riviera there are strict dress codes, particularly for women, and deviation from them is not tolerated, she writes. Men are expected to wear tiny (‘symbolic’) elastic swimsuits or tights that cling to the body and testify to the man’s manhood, whether he is circumcised or not. ‘On the other hand women must wear the smallest of bikinis, are expected to “roast” their front and back equally, to the point of medium skin burns.’ These are the rules of the Europeans and they stubbornly enforce them on the immigrants at any cost, hence: It is forbidden to wear swimsuits that exhibit any religious affiliation, apart from that of the fanatic Western religion also known as ‘the religion of values of morale and secularism’ that demand that women be nice and pleasant for the [men’s] eyes and be the main entertainment item on the beaches. […] Everybody has got his own private library of images. The picture [of the policemen who gathered around the Muslim woman and ordered her to remove her burqini] reminds me [of] the cutting of the beards of Jews; this too happened on the same European continent.67

The question is: where do we stop? When do Muslim dress become ‘disturbing’ and the harmless and innocent kaftans begin to look like ‘scary’ attire? Demanding that a Muslim woman remove her veil for purposes of employment or education creates a sensitive situation; the implications of this prohibition do not stop at Muslims. There could be impacts on other sides of the ‘triangle’.



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There no longer remains a good justification to allow a Hassidic Jew his black coat and beard, or the next man in a beard and turban his religious freedom – no matter how distrustful that look may be to some? Or nuns in their habits? Is the war with Hassidim, Catholics, or Sikhs, or Muslim women? The difference between the veil and many others’ coverings is four inches.68

Frustrated Muslims point to double standards. Christmas trees, no less a religious symbol, are allowed in French public schools. Across Europe schools may begin with a ‘non-denominational’ service which is broadly Christian in its content. Similarly, Jewish yarmulkes and Sikh turbans are still tolerated (Sikh cyclists are exempted from the helmet law, provided that they wear the turban). Also, the festivals and holidays observed in Europe, based upon Christian scripture (Christmas, Easter, All Saints Day and so on), determine the rhythm of work and leisure activities. Jewish slaughter is more or less permitted, even though it demands that the animal not be sedated before being dispatched (a requirement for the meat to be kosher), a procedure that contravenes the rules against cruelty to animals that prevail in many European countries. However, Muslim halal slaughter, which uses a method similar to the Jewish practice to kill the animal, becomes a bone of contention between Muslims and European authorities. Therefore, which law should be obeyed? The religious law or that of the receiving country? (See next section.) Muslims in Europe make allegations of double standards in relation to Holocaust denial. Voicing doubt with regard to the gas chambers, the massacre of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust, etc., is a crime punishable by a sevenyear prison term in many European countries.69 Yet denigration of Islam, ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad, publication of caricatures that make fun of him, desecration of the Koran, etc., are considered to be democratic rights, freedom of research and expression. More than 500 Muslims died demonstrating against these cartoons and caricatures, and yet, with ‘typical Western hypocrisy’, the European media continues to laugh at and ridicule Muslims. Is it really ‘freedom of expression’? Once, or twice, we could accept the publications of such cartoons, but it is totally unacceptable when it becomes part of a long series of [anti-Muslim] provocations and humiliations … Is the Holocaust more worthy of protection than the religious sanctity and Holiness of the Messenger for more than 1.5 billion of Muslims? [The author’s conclusion is therefore unequivocal:] Muslims, unlike Jews, are too much ‘other’ for some in the West to accept, whether they try to integrate or not.70

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Halal and kosher slaughter The Belgian port of Zeebrugge is centrally located both for shipping and for overland transport to central, western and southern Europe. The majority of customers on the continent and in Great Britain and Ireland can be served from Zeebrugge within 24 to 48 hours. Large industrial areas such as Paris, Holland, the north of France and the Ruhr region can be served in less than five hours.71 In 2012 a further advantage accrued to Zeebrugge: the Halal Food Council of Europe (HFCE) certified the port as its official food production and distribution centre for northern and western Europe. The HFCE is the only halal certification organisation in Europe that is recognised by the 57 member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Consumer goods labelled ‘halal’ meet certain requirements with regard to provenance, transportation, handling and packing. As demand for halal products is growing tremendously throughout the world, recommendations from OIC members to Muslims to consume halal products originating in Zeebrugge can mean large profits.72 Notwithstanding the positive valuation of goods originating in Zeebrugge, in reality halal products, particularly halal meat, have become a major sticking point between Muslims and the European bloc. This controversy has direct relevance to the ‘triangle’. Apart from the issue of immigration itself, Muslim attire, mosque building and halal slaughter appear to be the three main controversial issues between the Europe and its Muslim communities. These issues also directly affect the Jewish community. The following Reuters report, with minor omissions, is an example of reactions in France to halal/kosher slaughtering. Muslims and Jews are treated alike, although the Muslims are clearly the cause of the European storm. Muslim numbers – far higher than the Jewish populace ever was – and the legacy of World War II that dictates more sensitivity towards Jews, cause Europeans to focus on Islamic rather than Jewish rituals and customs. Apparently, all possible aspects of French–Muslim–Jewish interactions are to be found in the way the poor animals are killed and cut up for use in French gourmet cuisine. The terminology used leaves no room for speculation as to the attitude of the Reuters author: the Muslim invasion has now added its inhumane halal methods of animal slaughter to the existing, no less cruel and repulsive Jewish kosher method. Both communities cause cruelty to animals. Islam and Judaism are depicted as anachronistic religions, unfit for modern times; both insist that stunning is religiously prohibited because the animals must be healthy and uninjured at the time of slaughter. Nevertheless, they stubbornly stick to their old-fashioned rituals, which are ‘sanguinary’, ‘barbaric’ and an ‘archaic tradition from the time of the ghettos’.73 Labelling ritually slaugh-



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tered meat is a double-edged sword. The target buyers for whom it is meant will clearly be able to pick it out. But labelling it ‘kosher’ or ‘halal’ will deter mainstream buyers from purchasing it, even though certain parts of the animal are forbidden to Jews and would therefore go to waste if they were not sold on the open market, with a consequent financial loss to butchers and suppliers. In this way the ‘invading’ foreigners are regarded as imposing their savage norms and anachronistic cultures on modern European societies, particularly the delicate souls of French school children. French PM knocks halal, kosher as [Presidential] campaign heats up PARIS, March 5 [2012] (Reuters) — […] ‘Religions should think about keeping traditions that don’t have much in common with today’s state of science, technology and health problems,’ [France’s prime minister François] Fillon told Europe 1 radio. The ‘ancestral traditions’ of ritual slaughter were justified for hygienic reasons in the past but were now outdated, he said. ‘We live in a modern society.’ Mohammad Moussaoui, head of France’s Muslim Council, said ritual slaughter was no more painful than modern methods and labelling meat as being prepared ‘without stunning’ would feed resentment against the two minority religions using it. ‘It will stigmatize Muslims and Jews as people who don’t respect the interests of animals,’ he said. ‘That will raise tensions in society.’ Divisive debate […] Interior Minister Claude Gueant warned last week that giving immigrants the right to vote in municipal elections … would lead to Muslims forming majorities on local councils and imposing halal meat in school canteens. […]. More about meat Halal and kosher slaughter demand that cattle are conscious before their throats are slit and blood drained. Non-religious butchers stun the animal first, saying this lessens pain. Abattoir operators say killing cattle by both methods in the same slaughterhouse is too costly, so some use only the halal method because they can sell the meat to both Muslim butchers and supermarket chains for the general public. Clearly labelling meat as ‘stunned’ or ‘not stunned’ would reveal how much religiously prepared food is being sold.74

There is also an economic aspect to the issue of stunned/non-stunned meat: butchers for the French Jewish minority – at 600,000 the largest in Europe75 – sell the back cuts of beef (forbidden to Jews who observe Kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws) to non-kosher distributors. If they are labelled, the latter and their customers might avoid the non-stunned meat.76 In present-day Europe, objections to ritual slaughter are gathering momentum, particularly those directed against Muslims. Even more, halal is described as part of a wider and premeditated expansion of Muslim customs into the public

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sphere. The particular objection in France to women-only sessions in public swimming pools is associated with the increasing availability of halal food.77 Occasionally these grievances are expressed in particularly ugly, derogatory and dehumanising language, like that of the late Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci (1930–2006). We even know where they [Muslims] plot, at this point. And their rendezvous places are not the mansions or palaces where, risking the gallows, our 1800s’ ancestors conspired to free Italy from the subduers. They are the butcher-shops, to begin with. The Islamist butcher-shops that nag every city because the ‘poor-little-things’ [i.e., Muslims] eat only meat of animals which have been slaughtered by throat-cutting then bled and de-boned.78

Ritual slaughter has also become a controversial issue in Poland. Fewer than 6,000 Jews live in Poland and the Muslims there can be numbered in the tens of thousands (out of a population of about 38 million people). The slaughtering of animals is carried out according to Jewish and Muslim religious law in 17 state-licensed abattoirs. Poland exports this meat to Arab countries, Turkey and Israel, earning €200 million annually.79 In November 2012 a Polish court ruled that kosher and halal slaughter contravenes the country’s laws against cruelty to animals and that it must cease after 31 December 2012. Thereafter, such slaughter was to be allowed only after stunning and the loss of consciousness, the court ruled. In July 2013 the Polish parliament, citing cruelty to animals, rejected a government-sponsored bill that would have allowed Polish abattoirs to produce meat according to Jewish and Muslim ritual law. Jewish and Israeli protests were quick to recall that the Polish Jewish community had been practically wiped out during the Holocaust and that such laws would hamper efforts to restore Jewish life in Poland. Lest this be forgotten, they added that ‘Auschwitz and Treblinka were located on Polish soil’. Some also raised Polish anti-Semitic prejudice as a reason for the decision. Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, held that the parliament’s decision was a setback for his efforts to ease unemployment (6,000 jobs would be lost at a time when 13 per cent of Poles were unemployed) and to strengthen ties with Israel. Israel called the parliamentary vote ‘totally unacceptable’. Tusk responded that Israel’s reaction was ‘inappropriate’ and continued: ‘Especially the historical context is, to put it mildly, off target and is not applicable to the situation.’80 All this notwithstanding, non-stunning slaughter in Poland continues uninterrupted: in early 2015 a court ruled that the parliamentary prohibition on non-stunning slaughter contradicts the country’s constitution. Very prudently, Polish Muslims stayed out of the slaughter controversy. In



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Poland, as elsewhere in Europe (e.g., Germany), whenever issues of common interest arise, Muslim communities leave the struggle to the Jewish and Israeli lobbies because European authorities find it harder to ignore or refuse Jewish objections and requests. Incidentally, this is not the situation in Britain: ‘I strongly recommend my Muslim friends not to leave the arena solely to us. Unlike the Continent, Britain does not suffer from the Holocaust syndrome,’ said a Jewish source in London.81 The European Convention for the Protection of Animals for Slaughter requires stunning before slaughter. Stunning has been obligatory in the EU since 1979. Large exceptions to this regulation caused animal-friendly organisations to demand new legal reforms and stricter imposition of stunning, which many abattoirs around Europe practise. However, side by side with stunned slaughtering, a limited amount of slaughtering without stunning is performed for the Jewish and Muslim communities. For instance, in the Netherlands around 487,000,000 animals were slaughtered in 2010, of which 250,000 were halal approved and 2,500 were acceptable as kosher.82 The following is a detailed, some would say even cruel and macabre, description of how stunned slaughtering is done in Europe. It is used here solely to confront this method with the Jewish and Muslim arguments that halal and kosher slaughter is less painful to the animal than stunned slaughter. Stunning is mainly performed on cattle by using a device the size of a hand-held drill that is held to the animal’s head. A trigger is pulled and a four-inch bolt is shot into the animal’s brain, causing it to collapse instantly. The unconscious animal is then hoisted upside down and slaughtered seconds later with a massive cut to its throat; torrents of blood flow from the animal’s arteries, quickly bringing about its death.83 Sheep are stunned by electrocution either by dipping the animals in an electrified bath of water or by applying current to the animals’ heads. Poultry are stunned either by suffocation with carbon dioxide gas or by electrocution, and pigs by bolt guns, electrocution or gassing. As of 1 January 2013, pre-stunning is mandatory all over the EU, but exceptions are made for religious groups. However, each country has the right to decide whether to allow religious exemptions. Sweden, Finland, Latvia and Iceland are those European countries that presently disallow the religious slaughter of animals. In Norway and Switzerland slaughter without pre-stunning is not allowed (an 1893 Swiss law forbids Jewish slaughter), although exceptions and attempts to quash the bans are constantly made. Public opinion around Europe demands pre-stunning, and supermarket chains refuse to sell meat that has been produced under the auspices of religious authorities or by ‘non-humane’ methods.84 Jewish and Muslim organisations and leaders regularly ask for annulment of the EU decision, insisting that the animal suffers less and the agony that follows

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the slaughter is practically non-existent. Equally, these groups are entitled by law to live according to their religious beliefs. They also argue that pre-stunning fails in up to 10 per cent of cases; it causes more pain than the swift cutting of the throat with a razor-sharp knife. In the Netherlands the issue of ritual slaughter united Muslims and Jews in cooperation to prevent the enactment of a law that would bring a complete end to non-stunning slaughter; if it was passed, warned Muslim and Jewish leaders, the ban could spread elsewhere in Europe, creating a domino effect.85 The issue is particularly ‘hot’ during the three-day Muslim festival of Eid el-Kebir or Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, when demand for halal meat rises enormously and many slaughterhouses are slaughtering solely in the Islamic way. Accordingly, the various societies and bodies that object to ritual slaughter also increase their activity at this time.86 Jewish leaders accuse those who object to non-stunning methods of leading emotional campaigns based on misleading information. Binyomin Jacobs, a Dutch rabbi and a Chabad-Lubavitch Hassidic emissary, compared the planned ban to the anti-Semitic laws enacted by a collaborationist government during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. ‘One of the first measures taken during the occupation was the closing of kosher abattoirs,’ he noted.87 Non-stunning slaughter ‘wrongly created the impression that Muslim and Jewish methods of slaughter are barbaric and outdated … They use the words “ritual slaughter” but there’s nothing ritual about it,’ added the rabbi. ‘It’s not dancing around a cow, it’s a method, but by using the word “ritual” a lot of people are getting very upset.’88 In halal and kosher butchering (Hebrew, shechita), it is argued that the animal’s throat is cut just once with a surgically sharp blade (Hebrew, chalef) which differs from an ordinary abattoir knife in shape, length and sharpness. Unannounced, surprise inspections of the knives are made to ensure the permanent, maximum sharpness of the blades. ‘“If the tiniest of nicks are found on a slaughterer’s blade,” he [Rabbi Jacobs] pointed out, “that butcher would be fired.”’89 It is argued that this method of slaughtering reduces the animal’s agony: the animal is led into a rotating crate, restrained, then revolved into an upside down position, thus ensuring a good presentation of the throat to the slaughterer. The animal’s major arteries are then severed, causing a sudden and massive drop in blood pressure followed by quick death from loss of blood. Unconsciousness comes instantaneously; apparently, the cut itself stuns the animal. Dutch decrees and regulations on ritual slaughtering are strictly kept and respected, claim both Muslim and Jewish community leaders, including the presence of a qualified veterinarian whose task is to observe the welfare of the animal. In addition, a strict limit on the number of animals to be processed during a specific time period is observed. A person other than those involved in restraining the animal performs



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the cut as quickly as possible with a razor-sharp knife. Prayers and other actions never delay the application of the cut, and the cattle bleed, without any further processing, during a minimum time of 45 seconds to allow death by bleeding only to take place. A time-lock installed in the crate ensures that the minimum bleeding time is observed and no further procedures can be carried out (the time-lock is active for 30 seconds for poultry, sheep and goats).90 According to a Jewish slaughterer, [i]n one second – maybe two if it’s a bull – the animal is gone. … In my opinion [conventional] stunning is torture. Just because it [the animal] can’t say ‘moo’ or move anymore, it’s very nice for the human eye, but the animal is alive and the scientists don’t actually know if it’s suffering or not. If I have to make my choice, my choice is clear.91

Jewish leaders claimed that it has been proven scientifically that kosher butchering does not allow the animal to feel pain … There have been many experiments, checking the animal’s nervous system activity during kosher butchering, that proven [sic] behind any shadow of doubt that the animal either doesn’t feel pain because there simply isn’t [any], or it goes into sudden shock that prevents its brain from feeling anything.92

The Muslim method of slaughter (Arabic, dhabiha) that produces halal meat is very similar. Like in Judaism, Muslim law insists on animals being uninjured at the time of slaughter, but some Muslim scholars allow a form of stunning that guarantees that the animal is shocked but not dead; for instance, dhabiha in the UK involves stunning.93 In a small number of cases, slaughtering for the consumption of the British Jewish community uses stunning immediately after the cut to reduce the animal’s suffering. The Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) still insists that stunning should take place before the cut, ‘but it is better afterwards than not at all’.94 The last time kosher and halal slaughtering was banned in Europe was when Poland fell under Nazi occupation during World War II. Before that, the 1893 Swiss plebiscite approved a ban on kosher slaughtering. The present zeal behind the forceful objection to aspects of minority cultures in Europe appears to corroborate a ‘crusade’ launched by democratic liberalism and its claim to the truth. ‘It does not hesitate to exercise force, is missionary, colonizing and regards itself as a monopolist of the “truth” and of “universal values.” Its antagonists are invariably portrayed as depraved, primitive and below par.’95 European–Muslim– Jewish conflicts that erupt intermittently bleed like open wounds, reflecting these uncompromising claims to the truth.

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The limited option for ‘non-stunned’ meat derived from kosher and halal slaughter is a European concession to Muslim and Jewish minorities. The European state tolerates what it perceives to be a limited amount of cruelty to animals, in contradiction to prevailing European norms. Similarly, male circumcision is another gesture: European law forbids chirurgical acts unless performed by medically trained and certified personnel, unless necessary for the health and survival of the patient and, except in an emergency, unless performed in a proper medical environment.96 These exceptions harbour in them the seeds that turn public opinion against those who perform religious-style slaughter and male circumcision. The need to respect or tolerate the ‘other’ and his otherness often results in the abandonment of one’s own heritage – for example, the European laws pertaining to the prevention of cruelty to animals. However, European public opinion, the media, etc., often criticise the authorities for bending their own rules and values. Their wrath is also vented against minorities and their non-European norms.

An attack on secularism or a nod to religious accommodation No wonder that what is perceived as the readiness of the European state to compromise its principles for the sake of Muslims causes the Muslim leadership to object to some of these gestures. For example, there was a proposal in Britain – as in Austria – to change the plus sign in mathematics so as not to offend Muslim students: because the mathematical plus sign (+) looks like the Christian cross, the authorities proposed replacing it by an upside-down letter ‘T’ (┴).97 It was also found that in British schools with a heavy concentration of Muslim pupils the head teachers (school principals) preferred not to celebrate Christmas for fear of offending Muslim parents; occasionally this was done to over-compensate the Muslim community for not accommodating Muslim festivals.98 Christmas in Brussels in 2012 was marked by the controversial decision of the socialist mayor to replace the traditional fir tree with an abstract structure of illuminated cubes. It was a 25-metre-high tree of light installed in the Grand Place, the main square of Brussels. According to the municipality, the aim was to exhibit ‘a blend [of] the modern and the traditional’.99 However, the replacement of the traditional tree aroused protests that criticised the ‘bowing’ of the city of Brussels to its Muslim minority – nearly a quarter of the population. The petition demanded respect for tradition and attracted over 25,000 signatures. ‘What next? … will Easter eggs be banned from the city because they make us think of Easter?’ Protesters pointed to a pattern that already prevailed: they said the scrapping of the traditional tree in the Grand Place followed a ban on



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Christmas trees in law courts, the suppression of religious symbols in schools and a ban on pork in school canteens.100 Brussels is not the only place where storms rage over local culinary traditions and attempts to adjust school kitchens to the dietary laws of minorities. Here too, the key elements are the ‘triangle’ and pork. In a nutshell, excerpts from a New York Times report by Celestine Bohlen tell the story of Europeans, Muslims and Jews. This time the danger to laïcité or secularism and to patriotism – ­offering alternatives to pork for Muslim and Jewish students in French public schools – was the focus of the discussion that flared up on the French political agenda. Separate cooking for orthodox Jewish pupils was excluded for logistical reasons, but it might be that the entire issue could have been averted if simple ‘will and organization’ (see quote below) had been used. Secularism with a slightly militant edge […] Last week, the debate [over French laïcité] flared up again, this time over a ban in one local school system against offering an alternative to pork for Muslims and Jews who do not eat the meat. In a message on March 16 to the parents of 3,800 schoolchildren, Gilles Platret, the centre-right mayor of Chalon-sur-Saône, a town in Burgundy, banned pork-free substitutes as anti-secular and anti-French. ‘To propose a substitute menu when pork is served is to create discrimination among pupils, which is unacceptable in the framework of a secular Republic,’ Mr. Platret wrote. ‘The cafeterias of Chalon must once again become places of neutrality.’ […] The former president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, said he opposed offering alternatives to pork in schools. ‘If you want your children to observe dietary habits based on religion, then you should choose private religious education’. François Bayrou, the leader of the Democratic Movement, a centrist party, scoffed at the whole debate. ‘I don’t put secularism on the children’s plates,’ he said, noting that if these dietary edicts were to be followed to the letter, then French schools would make all children, including Catholics, eat meat on Fridays, instead of offering them fish. Mr. Raoult, the president of the parents’ federation, said the issue was just another oblique attack on Islam in France. ‘We can recognize this as one more attempt to stigmatize the Muslim population,’ he said, adding that it wasn’t difficult to give different choices on school menus, particularly in self-serve cafeterias. ‘All that is required is will and organization,’ he said. 101

Surprisingly (or not, if one understands that minorities generally do not desire to provoke the animosity of the majority), the Muslims in Belgium were not impressed by the Brussels city council initiative to replace the traditional Christmas tree. ‘We know we are living in a country with a Christian culture, we take no offence over a traditional Christmas tree.’ More to the point, the

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major Muslim organisations in Belgium maintained that it was inconceivable to most Muslims that Belgium would ever become a Muslim country.102 But, with a quarter of the Brussels population being Muslims and 40 per cent of the capital’s (and Antwerp’s) school students being Muslims, and with thousands of ‘whites’ leaving Brussels and other major cities, Sharia4Belgium, a radical Islamic organisation, anticipates that Muslim Sharia will replace Belgium’s (‘Belgistan’) law within a decade or two. Amputation, so declares the organisation, would then be the punishment for theft, stoning for adultery and death for homosexuals. If the indigenous people of Brussels want to maintain their majority, every man should marry four wives and produce as many children as possible, recommended Fuad Belkacem, alias Abu Imran, the head of Sharia4Belgium.103 The Church of England described the absence of Christian symbols from Royal Mail Christmas stamps – an omission presented as a multicultural, proMuslim gesture – as more of ‘a plot to appease an increasingly secular society’, and insisted that the card-sending public should have a constant reminder of the Christian nature of the festival they are celebrating.104 Generally, the initiatives by secular European authorities to de-Christianise key European symbols are often the price that the European heritage pays to placate the non-Christians and spare itself conflicts with them. Another generalisation is that the migrants usually object to these gestures, lest they should raise their profile vis-à-vis the ‘white’ Europeans. Indeed, more than any other matter, stripping Christmas of its religious significance in the name of multiculturalism demonstrates a fear of Muslims. In fact, making conciliatory gestures towards them diminishes Europe’s heritage and essentially boomerangs. These moves are meant to placate Muslims because Britain, for example, considers itself ‘a multi-faith society … anxious to avoid offending minority groups’, but they only arouse Muslim antagonism and cause them to join with the Christian leadership in opposing such gestures. Muslim leaders in Britain voiced strong opposition to the suggestion in February 2008 by Dr Rowan Williams, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, to incorporate parts of Sharia law into British law.105 The archbishop made it clear that it ‘seems inevitable’ that elements of Islamic law, such as divorce proceedings, would be incorporated into British law. He also maintained the argument that ‘there’s one law for everybody [is] a bit of a danger’.106 What makes the archbishop’s suggestion even more dramatic and relevant to the ‘triangle’ is his reference to the Anglo-Jewish precedent, the model of the Jewish Beth Din Rabbinical Court, which British law has recognised for over a century.107 As Clare Dyer explains, ‘What he [the archbishop] seemed to be positing was that the secular legal system should accommodate the traditional Sharia councils which exist around the country, dealing with family and other



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disputes. One model could be the Beth Din, the rabbinical courts set up by a UK statute more than 100 years ago, which means they are recognised within the legal system.’108 Indeed, the Jewish Beth Din and its judges or dayanim deal with all sorts of legal questions because Halacha, Jewish law, like Sharia, relates to all aspects of life. The most relevant cases are matters of conversions and divorce. Concerning the latter, the Beth Din grants an Orthodox Jewish bill of divorce, known as a get, but a civil divorce is also necessary to change the legal marital status of a person in Britain. Similarly, the Muslim divorce, talaq, must have approval in British law.109 The Beth Din provides civil arbitration as an alternative to court action under the Arbitration Act of 1996, which grants all British citizens the right to resolve civil disputes through arbitration. The religious courts also provide rulings on personal issues of faith, which are voluntary, non-binding and limited to an individual’s private status.110 The Beth Din’s rulings are often seen as religiously and morally binding – for example, some Jewish community members seek a religious divorce because they feel it is necessary in order to maintain a sense of honour within their community. But perhaps more importantly, in order to remarry Jewishly (in a Jewish wedding with a ketubah, marriage contract), a divorced person has to prove that status with the Jewish get document. Similarly, the codes and rules of Islam in such matters – despite the recourse to secular or civil legal means – are also desirable among members of the Muslim community. Dyer mentions that Muslims in Britain have checked out the Beth Din model and its history and its relations with British authorities, the recognition granted to the rabbinical court and the inevitable clash between religious norms and those that prevail in Britain. These and other Anglo-Jewish aspects have been examined by various British Muslims to see whether they could be relevant to the incorporation of Sharia into Britain’s legal system. It is no surprise that Muslim sources have not confirmed the existence of this probe. Learning from or applying Jewish precedents is not something that Muslims take pride in. We have already referred to the example from Swedish education, where Muslim pupils vehemently rejected the notion that Islam is a religion many of whose prophets, traditions and teachings were largely inspired by Judaism, or that there is even any connection between the two religions (see chapter 3). The disappearance of reminders of Christianity in public, in the name of multiculturalism or secularism, and the introduction of Muslim components into British life and culture have unified the opposition of the leader of the Anglican Church and the British Muslim communities. Their motives were contradictory, yet they both resisted these changes. The following shows how one Muslim member of the British parliament reacted: ‘I haven’t experienced any clamour

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or fervent desire for Sharia law in this country. If there are people who prefer Sharia law there are always countries where they could go and live.’111 Anglicans saw a secular conspiracy and predicted the marginalisation of the Christian religion, with the introduction of Sharia into British law encroaching on the Church’s powers. Muslim circles envisioned a surge of the far Right resulting from concessions to non-Christians at the expense of Christianity, such as calling Christmas Winterval or Luminos (a Harry Potter-themed event) to avoid offending minorities. The Austrian regional government instructed all schools to remove references to Christmas from the school calendar and replace them instead with ‘Winter Holidays’.112 Again, many saw the renaming of Christmas as a jocular or shrewd means to refresh the tradition without any reference to offending Muslims – not to mention the already decades-old ‘unChristian Season’s Greetings’ cards that had already replaced the old-fashioned Christmas cards.113 See the following: Leave Christmas alone, say Muslims Muslim leaders joined their Christian counterparts yesterday to launch a powerful attack on politicians and town halls that play down Christmas. They warned that attempts to remove religion from the festival were fuelling Right-wing extremism. A number of town halls have tried to excise references to Christianity from Christmas, in one case by renaming their municipal celebrations ‘Winterval’. They have often justified their actions by saying that Britain is now a multi-faith society and they are anxious to avoid offending minority groups. But the Muslim leaders said they honoured Christmas and that local authorities were playing into the hands of extremists who were able to blame Muslim communities for undermining Britain’s Christian culture. [This] reflects growing anger among Christians and other faiths about the efforts of secularists to push religion to the margins of public life. In 1998 Birmingham renamed its celebrations ‘Winterval’, and in 2001 Luton described its Christmas lights as ‘Luminos’, taken from Harry Potter. Last week, the Church of England criticized Royal Mail for issuing Christmas stamps with no Christian theme. […] ‘Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus and we wish this significant part of the Christian heritage of this country to remain an acknowledged part of national life. The desire to secularize religious festivals is offensive to both of our communities […].’114

Muslim leaders vehemently objected to the removal of Christian symbols in the name of religious pluralism and the wish (or pretence) not to offend them. The de-Christianisation of British society plays into the hands of the extreme Right, they claimed. Antagonism towards Muslims is then provoked: the onus for the anti-Christian agenda is held against them. Renaming Christmas, for example,



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so as not to offend other faiths will ‘“backfire badly” on the Muslim community. … Sadly it is they who get the blame – and for something they are not saying.’115 Other public utterances and the reactions of members of parliament and of the media regarding the ‘de-Christianisation’ of Christmas by municipal authorities included: ‘The people of Birmingham … were the victims of ‘political correctness gone mad’; ‘The crazy gang who constitute the local council at Luton’; ‘The dead hand of political correctness is throttling the life out of the festive spirit’; ‘Britain is approaching boiling-point in the backlash against misguided attempts to avoid offending minorities’; ‘The difference now is that people are angry about it. People used to laugh about it but that’s changed … they’re angry with white, middle-class liberal do-gooders with some kind of guilt complex and too much time on their hands’; ‘There is something very complicated going on here. It has to do with the contest between Christianity and Islam. Christians are becoming very alarmed about the progress they see Islam making in this country, and they fear their own festivals will be overwhelmed. I was doing a phone in the other day, and everybody who rang in was saying, “They’re banning Christmas!” … It’s quite dangerous, I think, to incite this kind of resentment against a perceived enemy’; ‘This year, though, the defenders of Christmas aren’t only invoking the fear that nebulous Muslim forces might be about to obliterate Britain’s traditional religion. Simultaneously, they have also aligned themselves with Muslim groups, arguing that the real enemy is secularization’; ‘Any repetition of public bodies or local authorities renaming Christmas, so as not to offend other faith communities, will tend, as in the past, to backfire on the Muslim community in particular.’116

We have noticed throughout this chapter the near unanimity of opinion between Muslims and Jews vis-à-vis European attempts to place restrictions on their cultural and religious laws and practices derived from sacred scriptures. The above quotations allude to similar Muslim–Christian perceptions. Both object to the European state’s attempts to de-Christianise (i.e., to secularise) the public sphere by using the vague notion of multiculturalism and the presence of Muslims as a pretext to remove reminders of Christianity. Is it far fetched to imagine that cooperation between the three religions could serve as a common ground for understandings that might make life easier between the European majority and the Muslim and Jewish minorities?

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Surprising linkages: mosque minarets, kosher meat, women’s suffrage Restrictions imposed on Muslim and Jewish slaughter have foregrounded a surprising third element: Swiss women’s suffrage. Of all nations, Switzerland is the place where this tripartite connection is discernible. ‘What do mosque minarets and kosher slaughtering have in common?’ asks the renowned Israeli political scientist Shlomo Avineri. ‘Both are banned in Switzerland,’ he replies. Avineri sees these patterns as a function of ‘a dark and intolerant aspect of Switzerland’s democratic tradition that, paradoxically, relates to the status of referenda in the country’s constitution’. Women’s rights are part of the story, and so is the priority given to the ‘street’s’ masses over the more tolerant elites. The result is solidarity between the Muslim and Jewish minorities in Switzerland, who object to the power of the Swiss ‘street’. An 1893 referendum ratified the cessation of kosher slaughter, and by the same democratic means the Swiss people voted against minarets on mosques in November 2009. Swiss right-wing politicians had demanded a referendum on the minaret issue; 57.5 per cent of voters approved the ban, while four of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, mostly in the Frenchspeaking parts of the country, rejected it. In 2009 there were more than 100 mosques in Switzerland, only four of them with minarets: in Zurich, Geneva, Winterthur and Wangen bei Olten in the canton of Solothurn. In 2012 there were about 400,000 Muslims in Switzerland, out of a population of 8 million, or about 5 per cent. The confirmation of the Swiss prohibition on women’s suffrage was also the outcome of successive referenda, until it was quashed in 1971. The priority of the ‘street’ works against the underprivileged, be they Swiss Jews, Muslims or women, argues Avineri. The Swiss right-wing and conservative parties tend to gain support in these referenda. Vox populi, vox Dei – the voice of the people is the voice of God – is actually a warning not to give too much power and discretion to the people. The majority, in manifesting their (religious) zeal, may abuse their democratic rights and act against the ‘other’, the minority, feeling at the end of the day that only their truth should prevail. Avineri points to the thread that unites Swiss women’s suffrage, minarets and kosher meat: Switzerland was the last country in Europe to give women the right to vote. When the state’s modern constitution was drafted, in 1874, it was liberal and enlightened by the standards of the times, when women were not allowed to vote in national elections anywhere. In Switzerland, a referendum was needed to change this. But successive referenda failed to enfranchise women, despite the fact that in several cantons they were allowed to vote.



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The right of women to participate in federal elections was secured only in the 1971 referendum. Even then, 34 per cent of (male) voters were opposed, demonstrating that a significant proportion of the population did not conform to the country’s liberal norms. Swiss history is not so simple when it comes to the rights of Jews, either. As in other areas of Europe, from the end of Medieval times most Swiss cantons had barred Jews from settlement. Progress came after the French Revolution of 1789, and Switzerland’s 1874 federal constitution assured freedom of religion to all. In the years that followed, conservative circles in the country sought to prevent massive Jewish immigration from Czarist Russia. But since the constitutional principle of freedom of religion could not be attacked, the goal was achieved in a roundabout manner. In the name of the humane treatment of animals, harsh propaganda was circulated that presented kosher slaughter as cruel. This led to a grassroots initiative to prevent ‘cruel slaughter’. An 1893 referendum amended the constitution to prohibit kosher slaughter throughout the country. The obvious goal was to deter Jews from settling in Switzerland. The ban is still in effect, and observant Jews in Basel, Zurich and Geneva must import kosher meat from France or Germany. The restriction is not onerous, but behind it is a deep-rooted animosity on the part of large swathes of Swiss society toward those who are seen as foreign and different. It is clear that the same circles that sought to prevent Jewish immigration by banning kosher slaughter over a century ago now seek to end Muslim immigration by banning mosque minarets. The Swiss Jewish community understood this, and vehemently opposed the minaret ban. The impetus for the ban on minarets, like the ban on kosher slaughter, came from the street, from ‘the people’. [On the other hand] the Swiss establishment supported freedom of worship for Jews and opposed the minaret ban. It is precisely the popular aspect of the Swiss constitution – the public referendum – that proved in these and in many other issues that certain elements of the population are sometimes much less tolerant and liberal than the social elites, and that in such cases the ‘will of the people’ is identical to society’s darkest trends.117

Indeed, the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities and the Platform for Liberal Jews in Switzerland announced their objection to the referendum and disappointment that a ban on mosque minarets had been accepted. Threats to religious freedom trouble Jewish organisations. The success of the campaign against minarets suggests that further restrictions on religious liberties could be in the pipeline: ‘The recently adopted change [the ban on minarets] solves nothing and certainly fails to address the very problems that have given rise to people’s fears and uncertainties in the first place.’118 The Christian Science Monitor article by Ayaan Hirsi Ali that follows below is

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of a seminal character and worth repeating; its analyses and depicts accurately many present-day European perceptions of Muslim immigration to the continent. Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Muslim woman and former Dutch parliamentarian, rather surprisingly accepts the results of the referendum (see chapter 2). Like Avineri, she acknowledges the existence of a difference between the attitudes of the Swiss rank and file and those of the ruling or liberal classes. Hirsi Ali differentiates between Europe’s absorption of Muslims and its obligation to reject political Islam and its symbols (minarets) that strive to replace European civilisation. On the former she has only compliments: in this Europe excels itself. The funds that Europe invests in healthcare, housing, education and welfare for these migrants are without compare in previous immigration waves; had it been the other way around, hundreds of thousands of Muslims would not have come to Europe and desperately ask to be admitted, argues Hirsi Ali. On the latter, Hirsi Ali says that this was what the Swiss vote was all about,: it was the European rank and file and working class against Muslim immigrants who want to practise their religion, but who also feel entitled to replace the local political order with that of their own. It was not Islam and Muslims that the Swiss referendum rejected, but political Islam and its symbols, insists Hirsi Ali. She perceives political Islam as intolerant, a tough rival, perhaps an enemy with its minarets undeniable Muslim political symbols of conquest, supremacy, prevalence and separation. And we have been in this battle before: ‘A swastika, a hammer and sickle, a minaret, a crescent with a star in the middle (usually on top of a minaret) all represent a collectivist political theory of supremacy by one group over all others.’ Thus symbolism, past precedents and analogies are the name of the game for Hirsi Ali. For her, the minaret is a metaphor for segregation; the burqah – when used as a symbol and not just worn as any other dress – is comparable to the uniforms of the Third Reich. Islam is more than a religion; certainly more than an abstract faith; more than issues like birth, death, Heaven and Hell, men and women. Islam is detailed codes of behaviour for the individual; the society; the state; its organisation; the interactions between believers, seculars, atheists, infidels, members of other religions, etc. Islam is why the Muslim and Muslim authorities are superior to others who are not Muslims. In short, Islam comprises prescriptions for rules and for ways of life and for means and methods to enforce them, writes the Hirsi Ali. ‘These political ideas of Islam have their symbols: the minaret, the crescent; the head scarf, and the sword.’119 What started as modest prayer rooms and humble religious content turn into political agendas, the exclusion of women, homosexuals and other minority groups, and end with places that symbolise supremacy. The minaret, in particular,



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is a symbol of Islamist supremacy, a token of domination that came to symbolize Islamic conquest. It was introduced decades after the founding of Islam. In Europe, as in other places in the world where Muslims settle, the places of worship are simple at first. All that a Muslim needs to fulfil the obligation of prayer is a compass to indicate the direction of Mecca, water for ablution, a clean prayer mat, and a way of telling the time so as to pray five times a day in the allocated period. The construction of large mosques with extremely tall towers that cost millions of dollars to erect is considered only after the demography of Muslims becomes significant. The mosque evolves from a prayer house to a political centre. Imams can then preach a message of self-segregation and a bold rejection of the ways of the non-Muslims. Men and women are separated; gays, apostates and Jews are openly condemned; and believers organize around political goals that call for the introduction of forms of Sharia (Islamic) law, starting with family law.120

These are facts that prevail in Europe as well as in other places where Muslims have settled, but many tend to disregard them, laments Hirsi Ali. Some stress the importance of facts and comparisons and insist on accuracy and a fair game: just as European extremism was rejected in the past, in the present Europe objects to the manifestation of violence, intolerance, segregation and superiority apparently exhibited by political Islam. Is it accurate to equate political symbols like those used by Communists and Nazis with a religious symbol like the minaret and its accessories of the crescent and star; the uniforms of the Third Reich with the burqah and beards of current Islamists? If it is accurate, then Islam, as a political movement, should be rejected on the basis of its own bigotry. In this view, Muslims should not be rejected as residents or citizens. The objection is to practices that are justified in the name of Islam, like honour killings, jihad, the ‘we-versus-they’ perspective, the self-segregation. In short, Islamist supremacy.121

Another school of thought, writes Hirsi Ali, emphasises dialogue with Islam. Islamic scripture and theology are compared to their Christian and Jewish counterparts. Apparently the latter abandoned (or left as inactive, abstract and theoretical) the radical aspects of Christianity and Judaism. Eventually pragmatism prevailed and Jews and devout Christians integrated or even assimilated into Western cultures. The newcomers to Europe made the decision and absorbed European norms and abandoned their sending countries’ values. The same will happen with Islam and Muslims, this school believes: ‘[O]ne day their attachment to radical Scripture will wear off like that of Christian and Jewish peoples.’ The school of facts, comparisons and accuracy corresponds to the European rank and file and working class who vote for right-wing parties. On the other hand,

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the dialogue school includes the pragmatists, various intellectual elites, power holders, diplomats, journalists, those who hold cosmopolitan views and those who are concerned lest a Swiss anti-Islam vote should boomerang and undermine Switzerland’s business interests and alienate the world’s Muslims, who would condemn the Swiss vote as intolerant and xenophobic and damage Swiss business.122 Concerned by the minaret ban, Swiss Foreign Secretary Micheline CalmyRey, Head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, 2002–5, expressed concern lest Switzerland’s security would be put at risk by this prohibition and the country’s image would be tarnished. ‘Provocation risks triggering other provocation and risks inflaming extremism,’ she added, while promising to continue close relations with Muslim countries. Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, criticised the referendum as ‘clearly discriminatory’, particularly in the face of Swiss voters’ ‘long-standing support of fundamental human rights’. It is ‘the product of anti-foreigner scare-mongering … These are extraordinary claims when the symbol of one religion is targeted.’123 And the Swedish Foreign Secretary at the time, Carl Bildt, was extremely critical of the Swiss ban, demanding the harshest of responses, namely, that the Swiss people should be hit where it hurts most, i.e., in their pockets. Many thousands of foreigners come to Geneva each year to work and participate in conferences; one morning they might not show up. It was particularly annoying to Bildt that the ban emanated from the Swiss people; the whole continent might be discredited as a result. ‘If cedars have caught fire, what will the moss on the wall do?’124 Sweden, which holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, said the United Nations should reconsider its presence in Geneva, where it employs thousands of people and holds hundreds of conferences each year. ‘Questions could very well be raised within the UN about holding meetings and activities in Switzerland, even if the Geneva canton belonged to those which voted against the ban,’ Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said on his blog. […] ‘[I]t [the vote/the ban] sends a very unfortunate signal to large parts of the rest of the world about attitudes and prejudices in Europe,’ Bildt said. ‘We all have an interest in showing that this impression is false and in the long-term even dangerous.’125

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and the black campaign for civil rights in America Of course European–Muslim–Jewish differences and controversies exist, and occasionally they spill over, marred by violence. Inter-minority Jewish–Muslim conflicts, ugly and even violent bickering, should not be glossed over (see chapter



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6). However, one can also recall stories of cooperation between minorities, like the support given by the American Jewish community to the African-American struggle for equality in the 1950s and 1960s. Occasionally, such cooperation exists today between the Muslim and Jewish communities in the US and Europe. The activity of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and the struggle of American blacks for equal rights could be an example to pursue in Muslim–Jewish relations in Europe. In 1964, during the black civil rights struggle in Mississippi, two Jewish activists, the New Yorkers Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, aged 24 and 20, respectively, were murdered in cold blood.126 In 1997 the Jewish Anti-Defamation League received the Freedom and Justice Award for its contribution to the civil rights cause from the historically African-American Dillard University in New Orleans. US Jews also joined forces with American Muslims to fight racism and condemn bigotry against Muslim and Arab immigrants after 11 September 2001, when restrictions were imposed on them. In this context one should note the participation of the German-educated Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–72) in the civil rights movement. Heschel, among the twentieth century’s most influential Jewish philosophers and theologians, came to the US in 1940 after escaping from Nazi-controlled Germany. He reasoned that supporting the blacks’ struggle for freedom and equality was imperative, due to the deep flaws that he saw in Western culture. These same Western deficiencies had produced the Jewish Holocaust, he argued. His mother and three sisters were killed in the Holocaust. He lamented that Americans treated their black citizens in harsher ways than Nazi Germany had behaved towards its Jews. Alas, said Heschel, this is the same West and same Western culture that I, Heschel, belong to. Hence, I must act to mend the deficiencies and flaws I find. A change for the better, according to Heschel, would occur if the universal messages of the Bible and Jewish teachings were adopted as Western guidelines.127 Heschel says, ‘We, the people that belong to the West, we killed six million Jews. The culture in which I live produced Hitler. And who am I? I am part of it.’ When [Heschel] came to the U.S. [1940], he was shocked, because he saw the treatment the blacks received in the South; [it] was worse in comparison to the way the Germans treated the Jews. He [as a German Jew] was able to study in the university but the blacks were not allowed to do so. He then asked himself: ‘What happened to the West? How do you cure the West?’ Heschel then experienced a deep crisis of his Westernization. From there grew his understanding that you ought to translate Judaism into a universal language that would stop the next Holocaust.128

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It was easier for the Children of Israel to cross the Red Sea than for the blacks to enter an American university, observed Heschel.129 But Heschel considered himself to be part and parcel of the Western culture and civilisation that grossly defaulted in World War II. Also, European and North American Muslims, like the rest of the Arab and Muslim world, consider Jews, Judaism and Israel to be part of the modern invasive and colonial Judeo-Christian, Crusader-like, Western European and American civilisation. Judaism, Jews and Israel are therefore legitimate targets for Muslim anti-Americanism, anti-Western and anti-European wrath and animosity (see chapter 6). Heschel, as is known, joined forces with the Reverend Martin Luther King. His picture with King leading the pro-black march from Selma to Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, on 21 March 1965 was widely published in the US and world media. Heschel’s conspicuous participation served as a loud call for whites, and particularly for Jews, to join the black campaign for human rights and equality. A somewhat similar phenomenon occurred in May 2013 in Woolwich, southeast London, following the bestial assassination by two Muslims of the British army drummer Lee Rigby. The soldier was attacked near the Royal Artillery barracks in Woolwich by two British-born men of Nigerian origin, who were British-educated at the University of Greenwich, raised as Christians, but converted to Islam. The murderers first knocked Rigby down with their car and then used knives and a cleaver to hack and stab Rigby to death. He was nearly beheaded. The attackers said they were avenging the killing of Muslims by British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. They differentiated between the people and their governments. One of the murderers said that, unlike ‘the average guy’, the politicians, who are responsible for the deaths of their constituents, are not going to die as a result of Muslim reactions. The only reason we have killed this man today is because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers. And this British soldier is one. It is an eye for eye and a tooth for a tooth. … By Allah, we swear by the almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone. So what if we want to live by the Sharia in Muslim lands? Why does that mean you must follow us and chase us and call us extremists and kill us? Rather your lot are extreme. [W]hen you drop a bomb do you think it hits one person? Or rather your bomb wipes out a whole family? This is the reality. By Allah if I saw your mother today with a buggy I would help her up the stairs. This is my nature. Through many passages in the Koran we must fight them as they fight us … I apologize that women had to witness this today but in our lands women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your governments, they don’t care about you. You think David Cameron is going to get caught in the street when we start busting our guns? Do you think politicians are going to die? No, it’s going to be the average



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guy, like you and your children. So get rid of them. Tell them to bring our troops back so [we] can all live in peace. Leave our lands and you will live in peace. That’s all I have to say. Allah’s peace and blessings be upon you.130

The event yielded a surprising cooperation between Jews and Muslims in Britain. Orthodox Jewish patrol groups protected Muslim buildings, including a mosque. Thousands of anti-Muslim hate crimes were recorded in the nine days that followed Rigby’s murder, which was a huge spike over the 624 incidents of 2012. They included sabotage, arson attacks, attacks on mosques, on people who were praying, physical assaults, pulling off women’s headscarves, derogatory messages on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, graffiti on mosques and Muslim-owned businesses.131 In the wake of Rigby’s murder, the Muslim North London Community Centre (NLCC) asked the Jewish Shomrim (Hebrew: guards) patrol group, a Hackney police-trained unit established in 2008 in reaction to anti-Semitic incidents, to guard the NLCC mosque in Newington, situated in the heavily Jewish borough of Hackney in north London. Both Shomrim and NLCC representatives realised that their cooperation was ‘unprecedented’ and hoped that this was ‘just the beginning of a long-term partnership between the two communities’: When we met, everyone got on like a house on fire, we all got on so well. So now when Shomrim go out on patrol, they go past a number of different mosques to check they are OK. And we have given out our number so that Muslim people can call us if they need.132

Conclusions The above-mentioned actions against male circumcision and halal/kosher animal slaughter have been quoted as examples for actual or potential joint activity between Jews and Muslims, mainly in Germany, as well as in other European countries. The call for this inter-faith cooperation is based on a mutual feeling of exclusion shared by Jewish and Muslim communities. Still, the German case is perhaps not the best model for elsewhere on the continent, because the majority of Muslims in Germany come from non-Arab countries, viz., Turkey, the former Yugoslavia, etc. Unlike in France or Britain, only a handful of Arab organisations are functioning in Germany. Consequently, the Middle Eastern Arab–Israeli conflict is not an inevitable component that precludes cooperation between German Muslims and Jews. At least at the leadership level, various contacts take place between the Turkish and Jewish communities in Germany, as Mikael Tossavainen

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found. In the past, the two communities have joined forces in the struggle against racism, anti-Semitism and right-wing violence. Although the importance of such contacts should not be exaggerated, they may be one reason for the relative lack of tensions between Muslims of Turkish origin and German Jews.133 Another element unique to Germany is that country’s realities that produce contradictory and complex Arab and Muslim images with regard to the Germans, Israelis and world Jewry. These follow a theme that, historically, Germany has been perceived as an enemy of the Jews and hence, since the Arabs feel the same towards Jews today, a common German–Arab bond has been formed. However, this very history causes the Germans to behave differently than expected towards Israel. [Among Muslims and Arabs] Germany is often criticized as being uncritical of Israel, and submissive to Israeli demands and ‘blackmail’. At the same time Germany often enjoys great sympathy that is due to its assumed enmity towards a ‘common enemy’, the Jews. This ambivalent perception of Germany and of Germany’s relations to Jews is an important factor that shapes Arab discourses on German history – and through this the discourse about Jews and the Middle East. An analysis of anti-Semitic thought amongst the Arab community in Germany has to consider this peculiarity.134

Examples of solidarity between minorities also point to similar feelings that prevail among them, such as the sense of exclusion that is rampant among European Muslims and Jews alike. Europe is described as a Christian entity that could contain neither Jews nor Muslims. Europe and the Europeans are something different; from the migrants’ point of view, Europe is the ‘other’ who does not embrace the foreigner, i.e., the ‘other other’ (the first ‘other’ are the Jews; the second, the Muslims). ‘They are whites, they are Europeans; we are Muslims, we are not included’ is the mantra among Muslim migrants. French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut sees this Muslim alienation as a sad situation, something that perpetuates divisions between Europeans and Muslims. But Finkielkraut detected a similar attitude among French Jews. For the latter – who are French citizens, an old minority that should not feel and behave as the new immigrants do in their new continent – ‘the French’, ‘the whites’ are the ‘other’, a separate group from whom Jews feel excluded. If this is what Jews and Muslim migrants feel, then they should repatriate to their countries of origin; Israel, in the Jewish case. The problem is that they [the immigrants] need to regard themselves as French. If the immigrants say ‘the French’ when they’re referring to the whites, then we’re lost. If their identity is located somewhere else and they’re only in France for utilitarian reasons, then we’re lost.



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I have to admit that the Jews are also starting to use this phrase. I hear them saying ‘the French’ and I can’t stand it. I say to them, ‘If for you France is a utilitarian matter, but your identity is Judaism, then be honest with yourselves: You have Israel.’ This is really a bigger problem: We’re living in a post-national society in which for everyone the state is just utilitarian, a big insurance company. This is an extremely serious development.135

Elaboration on Finkielkraut’s ‘You have Israel’ argues that Israel is perceived by both Jews and non-Jews as a haven to where Jews could immigrate if they felt alienated, unsafe or not a party to European history. Some empathise with these ‘wandering Jews’ because, as explained below, unlike Europe, it seems that Israel does grant its Jews a feeling of belonging. Others consider this scenario no less than a catastrophe for the European state, lest it be stripped of its Jews and left without them. If that should happen, for instance in France, then it would be a real disaster for whoever still believes in liberty, equality and fraternity. The ugly issue that [is] repeatedly revealed … in France’s [urban centres] is not a Jewish problem, but a French one. The French social covenant that strove to create a homogenous society, with no reference whatsoever to origin and religion, has been for years in the process of disintegration. It is disturbing, because France is the sole place outside Israel and the US in which Jews achieved extremely impressive rights. However, in spite of everything Jews feel increasingly alienated vis-à-vis the French society. Pictures taken of hundreds of French Jews who opted for immigration to Israel, show exactly this. France, in spite of its wealth and opulence does not grant these Jewish immigrants what war stricken Israel does – a feeling of belonging.136

This chapter has elaborated on European opposition to Muslim migrants and its implications for European Jews. An interim conclusion to be drawn from the events that are described here – and without glossing over the controversies and conflicts between them – is that cooperation between Muslim migrants and European Jews is possible, at least in theory; on several occasions and in some places it already exists. Based on several successful precedents, it could continue and even develop. The following chapter sheds light on other parallel matters shared by both minorities, namely, several theological challenges that Jews and Muslims living in Europe have encountered or will encounter.

Notes 1 Craig S. Smith, ‘Paris journal: Poor and Muslim? Jewish? Soup kitchen not for you’, New York Times (28 February 2006), www.nytimes.com/2006/02/28/international/

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europe/28soup.html?_​r=0 (accessed 4 October 2015); see also Haaretz (5 March 2006). Kim Willsher, ‘Pork soup for homeless is not racist ploy, says French judge’, Guardian (3 January 2007), www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jan/03/france.mainsection (accessed 4 October 2015). Yiannis Boutaris, mayor of Thessaloniki, ‘Europe’s far Right, culture matters more’, Economist (11 August 2012), www.economist.com/node/21560294 (accessed 4 October 2015). The mayor was criticised by the Golden Dawn Party for supporting Thessaloniki’s first gay-pride parade. Ibid. Richard Bernstein, ‘A quiz for would-be citizens tests Germans’ attitudes’, New York Times (29 March 2006), www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/international/ europe/29letter1.html?pagewanted=all (accessed 4 October 2015). Ibid. The German National Assembly was the convention that gathered in 1848. The 1895 scientist was Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen. Matt Carr quoting Christopher Caldwell, in ‘Christopher Caldwell dissected’, a book review of Christopher Caldwell, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West (New York: Doubleday, 2009), Institute of Race Relations, 2 July 2009. For the review, see www.irr.org.uk/2009/july/ha000011.html (accessed 4 September 2015). Fleming Rose in live debate, ‘Europe is failing its Muslims’, London, Cadogan Hall (23 February 2010), www.intelligencesquared.com/events/europe-muslims. Rose was the culture editor of the Danish newspaper, Jyllands Posten, that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (30 September 2005). See also Goran Larsson and Riem Spielhaus, ‘Europe with or without Muslims – two contradicting histories’, a paper submitted to the 13th Mediterranean Research Programme, Mediterranean Program of the Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Montecatini Terme (21–24 March 2012). Amnon Kartin, Tel Aviv University, quoted in Israel Fisher, ‘215 million people cross any border’, Markerweek, the annual magazine of TheMarker, Haaretz (20 December 2012), p. 26. Nicola Laska, Reuters, reprinted in Haaretz (21 July 2005); Assaf Oni, Haaretz (17 February 2006) (Hebrew). Paul Belien, ‘Dispatch from the European language front: Brussels, Berlin Rotterdam’, The Brussels Journal (27 January 2006), reprinted Turkistan Newsletter (30 January 2006), Turkistan Bulteni, ISSN: 1386-6265. Amir Oren, ‘The purse is also exhausted’, Haaretz (8 September 2014), p. 2. Ibid. Daniel Pipes, in ‘Euro-Islam: The dynamics of effective integration’, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC (21 June 2006), www. islamicpluralism.org/493/euro-islam (accessed 12 October 2015); Kate Connolly, ‘Circumcision ruling condemned by Germany’s Muslim and Jewish leaders: German



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court rules that procedure is bodily harm and contravenes right to choose religion in later life’, Guardian (27 June 2012), www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/27/ circumcision-ruling-germany-muslim-jewish (accessed 12 October 2015); John M. Curtis, ‘German court bans circumcision: German court ruling roils Muslims and Jews’, Examiner.com (12 July 2012), www.examiner.com/article/german-courtruling-roils-muslims-and-jews (accessed 12 October 2015). Michel Gurfinkiel, ‘No future in France: dire times for French Jews’, PJ Media (12 August 2012), www.meforum.org/3304/french-jew (accessed 12 October 2015). Rabbi David Goldberg, rabbi of the Jewish community in Hof, Northern Bavaria, quoted in Menahem Cohen, ‘Mila Zou Mila’, CHABAD, Sichat Hashavua newsletter, no. 1366, Sabbath eve (8 March 2013) (Hebrew). Israel Meir Lau, Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv and former Chief Rabbi of Israel, ‘Circumcision: Germany is here’, Matzav Haruach (Hebrew meaning, atmosphere or mood), the weekly newsletter for national religious people (14 September 2012), no. 200, p. 36 (Hebrew). Iris Hefets, ‘A card-tower of ignorance’, Haaretz (31 August 2012). Shirley Sitbon, ‘France’s Le Pen: Call for ban on Jewish skullcaps made in “name of equality”’, Haaretz (23 September 2012), www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewishworld-news/france-s-le-pen-call-for-ban-on-jewish-skullcaps-made-in-name-ofequality-1.466230 (accessed 12 October 2015). Ibid. Richard Prasquier, head of the Jewish umbrella group CRIF (2007–13), quoted in ibid. Mohammad Moussaoui, head of the Muslim umbrella group CFCM, quoted in ibid. Benjamin Abtan, President of the Grassroots anti-racist movement, quoted in ibid. Pinchas Goldschmidt, Rabbi and President of the Conference of European Rabbis, quoted in ibid.; see also Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), Jewish Press (22 September 2012), www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/marine-le-pen-wearing-­ yarmulkes-should-be-banned/20 (accessed 12 October 2015). Gilles Bernheim, Chief Rabbi of France since January 2009, quoted in Sitbon, ‘France’s Le Pen’. Angela Merkel, German Chancellor quoted in Doron Halutz, ‘The last circumcision’, Musaf Haaretz (Haaretz weekend edition) (7 September 2012), p. 45 (Hebrew). Rabbi Yitzhak Ehrenberg, rabbi of the Joachimstaler Street Synagogue, Berlin, quoted in ibid., p. 40. Michal Bodemann, professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, quoted in ibid., p. 45. Bodemann wrote about Jewish–Turkish relations in Germany after 11 September 2001. Reinhard Merkel, Professor, Hamburg University, quoted in ibid., p. 44. Mehmet Daimagüler, quoted in ibid., p. 45. Iris Hefets, quoted in ibid., p. 45. Rudolph Peters, ‘“A dangerous book”, Dutch public intellectuals and the Koran’, European University Institute, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies,

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Mediterranean Programme Series, RSCAS No. 2006/39 (December 2006), pp. 5, 11, 12. BBC News, Middle East, ‘Why Muslim women wear the veil’ (5 October 2006). Quoted in Jumana Farouky, ‘The many faces of Europe’, TIME (26 February 2007); Theresa Corbin, ‘I’m a feminist, and I converted to Islam’, CNN (14 October 2014). Corbin is a writer living in New Orleans, the founder of the Islamwich (‘One slice Muslim. One slice ’merican. And all that comes between’) and also a contributor to On Islam and Aquila Style. She converted to Islam in November 2001, two months after 9/11. Malu Halasa, ‘The right to be different’, Times Literary Supplement (TLS) (20 April 2007), 26. For further reading on the issue of headscarves and veiling, see Valerie Amiraux, ‘The headscarf question: What is really the issue’, in Samir Amghar, Amel Boubeker and Michael Emerson (eds), European Islam (Brussels: Center for European Studies, 2007); J. Scott, ‘Symptomatic politics. The banning of Islamic headscarves in French public schools’, French Politics, Culture and Society, 23:3 (2006), 106–27. Corbin, ‘I’m a feminist, and I converted to Islam’. Azam Kamguian, ‘Girls’ nightmare in Muslim families: Forced marriages in Europe’, Institute for the Secularization of Islamic Society (ISIS),Centre for Inquiry 2013 (no day and month), www.centerforinquiry.net/isis/islamic_​viewpoints/girls_​ nightmare_​in_​muslim_​families_​forced_​marriages_​in_​europe (accessed 12 October 2015). Kim Willsher, ‘France’s burqa ban upheld by human rights court’, Guardian (1 July 2014), www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/01/france-burqa-ban-upheldhuman-rights-court (accessed 6 October 2015). Ibid. The ECHR, and before that French courts, upheld France’s ban on headscarves in the educational system, and the firing of educational staff who arrived for work wearing veils. Ibid. The court was informed that fewer than 1,000 women were to be affected by its ruling. The number was 1,900 women in 2009, but an information campaign caused the number to drop by half. Czech TV, quoted in Prague Daily Monitor (11 November 2013), www.praguemonitor.com. Ibid. Ibid. Kamguian, ‘Girls’ nightmare in Muslim families’. Susanne Olsson, ‘Contested Islamic authority – Europe as an “Abode of Islam”?’ Paper submitted to the 13th Mediterranean Research Programme, Mediterranean Program of the Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Montecatini Terme, 21–24 March 2012. Yasir Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Centre of Islamic Studies, in association with the Universities of Exeter and Westminster, January 2012), p. 47, www.cis.cam.ac.uk/reports/post/10-con​ textualising-islam-in-britain-ii (accessed 12 October 2015).



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47 EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), Minorities and Discrimination Survey (EU-MIDIS 02 (2009), Data in Focus Report/Muslims, pp. 7–8, 17, http://fra. europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_​uploads/448-EU-MIDIS_​MUSLIMS_​EN.pdf (accessed 12 October 2015). 48 David Stavro, ‘The situation becomes Islamic’, Musaf Haaretz (Haaretz weekend magazine) (20 February 2015) (Hebrew), 34, 38; Melissa Eddy, ‘In Sweden, the land of the open door, anti-Muslim sentiment finds a foothold’, New York Times (3 January 2015), www.nytimes.com/2015/01/03/world/in-sweden-the-land-of-the-opendoor-anti-muslim-sentiment-finds-a-foothold.html?_​r=0 (accessed 6 October 2015). 49 Omar Mustafa, President of Sweden’s Islamic Association, quoted in The Local, Sweden’s News in English, ‘Sweden’s Islamophobia getting stronger’ (2 January 2015), www.thelocal.se/20150102/swedens-islamophobia-is-getting-stronger (accessed 29 March 2016). Reprinted in Panayote Dimitras, Antiracism News (1–5 January 2015). 50 Jonas Otterbeck, ‘Sweden: Cooperation and conflict’, in Anna Triandafyllidou (ed.), Muslims in 21st Century Europe: Structural and Cultural Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2010), p. 114. The European–Arab dialogue was mainly a French initiative that started in the 1970s, particularly following the October 1973 Yom Kippur War and the oil boycott launched by the Arab oil-producing countries. It developed into established negotiations between the Arab League and the European Community, later the EU. 51 Suzanne Daley and Alissa J. Rubin, ‘French Muslims say veil bans give cover to bias’, New York Times (27 May 2015), www.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/world/europe/ muslim-frenchwomen-struggle-with-discrimination-as-bans-on-veils-expand.html (accessed 6 October 2015). 52 BBC News, ‘French Senate backs headscarf ban’ (3 March 2004),http://news.bbc. co.uk/2/hi/europe/3531151.stm (accessed 12 October 2015). 53 Daley and Rubin, ‘French Muslims say veil bans give cover to bias’. 54 BBC News, Europe, ‘The Islamic veil across Europe’ (17 November 2006); BBC News, Europe, ‘Dutch Muslims condemn burqa ban’ (18 November 2006); Mark Mardell, ‘Dutch MPs to decide on burqa ban’, BBC News, Europe (16 January 2006); Muslims in the European Union: Discrimination and Islamophobia, European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) (2006), p. 47; Anthony Deutsch and Mark Hosenball, ‘Exclusive: US groups helped fund Dutch anti-Islam politician Wilders’, Reuters (10 September 2012), www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/10/ us-dutch-wilders-us-idUSBRE8890A720120910 (accessed 12 October 2015); Daley and Rubin, ‘French Muslims say veil bans give cover to bias’. 55 See also in Zvi Yehezkeli, ‘Allah Islam’, Israeli TV, Channel 10 (12 September 2012). Yehezkeli is the Arab affairs correspondent of Channel 10. 56 Pamela Bone, ‘No liberation in hiding your face in public’, The Australian (25 October 2006). 57 Corbin, ‘I’m a feminist, and I converted to Islam’. 58 ‘Italy’s ex-interior minister opposes hijab ban’, PRESSTV (4 September 2012),

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www.presstv.com/detail/2012/09/04/259784/italy-minister-refuses-to-ok-hijabban/ (accessed 12 October 2015). 59 Dina Lisnyanski, ‘Islamic da’wa (propaganda) in Europe: France and Italy as case studies’ (PhD dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2013), chap. 7 (Hebrew). 60 Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II, p. 47. 61 Ibid., p. 49. 62 Dr Gudrun Kugler (ed.),The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe, Report 2013 (Vienna, 2014). The report describes 240 cases of intolerance and discrimination against Christians in three main categories: haterelated intolerance, intolerance against Christians in law and politics, and intolerance against Christians in the arts and media. 63 Ibid, p. 37. 64 Ibid. 65 The Editorial Board, New York Times (18 August 2016), www.nytimes. com/2016/08/19/opinion/frances-burkini-bigotry.html?_​r=0 (accessed 30 August 2016); Shaimaa Khalil, ‘Why do some people find the burkini offensive?’ BBC News (20 August 2016), www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37130963 (accessed 30 August 2016); Ben Quinn, ‘French police make woman remove clothing on Nice beach following burkini ban’, Guardian (24 August 2016), www.theguardian.com/ world/2016/aug/24/french-police-make-woman-remove-burkini-on-nice-beach (accessed 30 August 2016); Angelique Chrisafis, ‘France’s burkini ban row divides government as court mulls legality’, Guardian (25 and 26 August 2016), www. theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/25/frances-burkini-ban-row-divides-govern​ ment-court-mulls-legality (accessed 30 August 2016); Adam Taylor, ‘The surprising Australian story of the “burkini”’, Washington Post (17 August 2016), www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/08/17/the-surprising-australian-originstory-of-the-burkini/ (accessed 30 August 2016). 66 Aurelien Breeden and Lilia Blaise, ‘Court overturns “burkini” ban in French town’, New York Times (26 August 2016), www.nytimes.com/2016/08/27/world/europe/ france-burkini-ban.html?_​r=0 (accessed 30 August 2016). 67 Iris Leal, ‘On French beaches, a new form of the same old imperialism’, Haaretz (30 August 2016), www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.739273 (accessed 30 August 2016). 68 William Bennett, ‘An unveiling: Separate but acceptable?’ National Radio Online, NRO Symposium (25 October 2006). 69 Abdel Bari Atwan, ‘Paris attacks: Racial hatred, social disintegration a greater threat than terrorism’, Rai al-Youm (10 January 2015). Atwan is a Palestinian journalist who lives in London, and is the editor-in-chief of Rai al-Youm. In 2000 a British high court judge ruled that the British historian David Irving is an anti-Semite, Holocaust denier and racist. In 2006 an Austrian court sentenced Irving to three years in prison for denying the Holocaust. 70 Ibid. See also Al-Quds al-Arabi (8 January 2015). 71 State of the Global Islamic Economy 2014–15 Report, p. 42, n. 43, ‘Port of Zeebrugge



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looks towards HFCE halal certification’. www.flandersinvestmentandtrade.com/ export/sites/trade/files/news/342150121095027/342150121095027_​1.pdf (acc­ es­sed 27 October 2016). Halal Focus, ‘EU: Port of Zeebrugge receives Halal certificate’ (17 July 2012), http://halalfocus.net/eu-port-of-zeebrugge-receives-halal-certificate/ (accessed 12 October 2015). Wikipedia, ‘Legal aspects of religious slaughter’, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Legal_​aspects_​of_​ritual_​slaughter#cite_​note-Modiya-15 (accessed 12 October 2015). The specific condemnations were made in Switzerland, 2002, following attempts to lift the 1893 ban on Jewish ritual slaughter. Tom Henegham, religions affairs editor, ‘French PM knocks halal, kosher as campaign heats up’, Reuters (5 March 2012) www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/05/ france-election-idUSL5E8E56Y620120305 (accessed 12 October 2015). The Jewish population of France is estimated at c. 700,000, just over 1 per cent of the total population. They live mainly in and around Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Strasbourg. See Shirley Sitbon, ‘French Jews face unprecedented wave of antiSemitic attacks’, Haaretz (10 October 2012), www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/ jewish-world-news/french-jews-face-unprecedented-wave-of-anti-semitic-attacks. premium-1.468968 (accessed 6 October 2015). Henegham, ‘French PM knocks halal, kosher’. Kashrut bans Jews from eating meat that touches the sciatic nerve along the back, buttocks and thighs of mammals. Consequently, kosher butchers sell sirloin and filet mignon cuts to non-kosher shops. Ibid. Maia de la Baume, ‘More in France are turning to Islam, challenging a nation’s idea of itself’, New York Times, 3 February 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/world/ europe/rise-of-islamic-converts-challenges-france.html?pagewanted=28&-r=0&_​ r=0 (accessed 12 October 2015). Maia de la Baume is a French journalist who works as a reporter for the New York Times Paris bureau. Oriana Fallaci, The Rage and the Pride (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 2003), p. 35. BBC News, Europe, ‘Polish ritual slaughter illegal, court rules’ (28 November 2012), www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20523809 (accessed 12 October 2015). Haaretz, ‘Israel slams Poland ban on kosher slaughter as “totally unacceptable”’ (15 July 2013), www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.535888 (accessed 12 October 2015); YAHOO! News, ‘Polish parliament shuns religious animal slaughter’ (12 July 2013),http://news.yahoo.com/polish-parliament-shunsreligious-animal-125338721.html (accessed 12 October 2015). Interview, anonymous, London (July 2013). Rafi Berg, ‘Should animals be stunned before slaughter?’ BBC News Magazine, Amsterdam (20 November 2011), www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14779271 (accessed 12 October 2015). Ibid. BBC News, ‘Polish ritual slaughter illegal, court rules’.

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85 See also Jonathan Sacks, Britain’s Chief Rabbi, quoted in Bruno Waterfield, ‘Dutch government to vote banning ritual slaughter of animals’, Telegraph (28 June 2011), www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/netherlands/8601191/ Dutch-government-to-vote-on-banning-ritual-slaughter-of-animals.html (accessed 8 October 2015). 86 European Commission, Health & Consumer Protection Directorate-General, Directorate F – Food and Veterinary Office, DG (SANCO)/8041/2006 – mr final, 31/01/07 – 40399; final report of a mission carried out in the Netherlands from 6 to 9 June 2006 in order to assess animal welfare at slaughter, http://ec.europa.eu/comm/ food/fvo/ap/ap_​the_​netherlands_​8041_​2006.pdf (accessed 12 October 2015). 87 Waterfield, ‘Dutch government to vote banning ritual slaughter of animals’. 88 Berg, ‘Should animals be stunned before slaughter?’ 89 Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs, Chabad emissary in the Netherlands, quoted in Tamar Runyan, ‘Dutch parliament holds ritual animal slaughter in the balance’ (28 June 2011), www.chabad.org/news/article_​cdo/aid/1557300/jewish/Dutch-WeighSlaughter-Vote.htm (accessed 12 October 2015). 90 European Commission, Health & Consumer Protection Directorate-General, Directorate F – Food and Veterinary Office. 91 Berg, ‘Should animals be stunned before slaughter?’ Berg is quoting a Jewish slaughterer, Mr Rosenzweig, who trained for years in Israel, and slaughters under the observation of a Dutch state veterinary official at the Amsterdam abattoir. 92 Alex Johnston, ‘Poland court bans kosher, halal slaughtering’, The Epoch Times (28 November 2012), http://printarchive.epochtimes.com/a1/en/au/mlb/2012/12Dec/06/18_​EET20121206_​MEL-AU.pdf (accessed 12 October 2015). 93 Berg, ‘Should animals be stunned before slaughter?’ 94 Ibid. 95 Sam Vaknin, ‘Op-Ed: Muslims are Europe’s new Jews?’ Digital Journal (26 July 2011), http://digitaljournal.com/article/309558 (accessed 12 October 2015). 96 Eyal Meged, Haaretz (28 August 2012). 97 Gad Shimron, ‘Mahmood, the German president’, Maariv, Musaf Shabbat (weekend magazine) (2 February 2007). 98 Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II. 99 Harvey Morris, ‘Christmas tree controversy fires multicultural Belgium’, International Herald Tribune (1 December 2012), http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes. com/2012/12/01/christmas-tree-controversy-fires-multicultural-belgium/ (accessed 12 October 2015). 100 Bianca Debaets, Brussels city councillor for the Christian Democrat and Flemish Party, quoted in ibid. 101 Celestine Bohlen, ‘Secularism with a slightly militant edge’, International New York Times (23 March 2015), www.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/world/europe/secular​ ism-with-a-slightly-militant-edge.html?_​r=0 (accessed 8 October 2015). 102 Semsettin Ugurlu, chairman of the Belgian Muslim Executive, quoted in Morris, ‘Christmas tree controversy fires multicultural Belgium’.



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103 Dale Hurd, ‘Belgistan? Sharia showdown looms in Brussels: Welcome to Belgistan – the new Muslim capital of Europe’, CBN News Brussels (14 April 2012), www.cbn. com/tv/embedplayer.aspx?bcid=1509282970001 (accessed 12 October 2015). 104 ‘Attack on Royal Mail over Christmas stamps’, Ekklesia News Brief (13 July 2004), www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_​syndication/article_​040713cmas.shtml (acc­es­ sed 12 October 2015). 105 BBC News, ‘Sharia law in UK is “unavoidable”’ (7 February 2008), http://news.bbc. co.uk/2/hi/7232661.stm (accessed 12 October 2015). On the opposition in Britain to the Archbishop’s suggestion, see Jonathan Petre, ‘Archbishop Williams sparks Sharia law row’, Daily Telegraph (7 February 2008), www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ uknews/1577928/Archbishop-Williams-sparks-Sharia-law-row.html (accessed 8 October 2015). 106 See in Petre, ‘Archbishop Williams sparks Sharia law row’. 107 The Beth Din, the London Rabbinical Court of the Chief Rabbi and the oldest Jewish court in the UK, with branches in Glasgow, Manchester and Leeds, was established in the early eighteenth century and is the religious and legal authority for the United Synagogue, the primary Orthodox synagogue grouping in the UK, representing 30–40 per cent of Britain’s 250,000 Jews. The Centre for Social Cohesion, The Beth Din, Jewish Courts in the UK, London, 2009. 108 Clare Dyer, ‘Jewish Beth Din could be archbishop’s model’, Guardian (9 February 2008), www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/feb/09/uk.religion2 (accessed 8 Oct­ o­ber 2015). There are several Muslim courts in Britain, such as the Sharia Council in Leyton, East London. 109 Ibid. 110 The Centre for Social Cohesion, The Beth Din. 111 Shahid Malik, Labour MP for Dewsbury, in ‘Sharia law row: Archbishop is in shock as he faces demands to quit and criticism from Lord Carey’, London Evening Standard (7 February 2008), www.standard.co.uk/news/sharia-law-row-archbishop-isin-shock-as-he-faces-demands-to-quit-and-criticism-from-lord-carey-6649342. html (accessed 12 October 2015). Shahid Malik was the Labour MP for Dewsbury (2005–10). In the years 2007–10 Malik was Britain’s first Muslim minister and served as International Development minister, Justice minister, Home Office minister, and minister for Race, Faith, and Community Cohesion at the Department for Communities and Local Government. Lord George Carey was Dr Williams’ predecessor as the Archbishop of Canterbury (1991–2002). He criticised Williams’ comments on Sharia law and said that accepting the Islamic code would be a disaster for Britain. Ibid. 112 Kugler, Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe, p. 44. 113 Oliver Burkeman, ‘The phoney war on Christmas’, Guardian (8 December 2006),  www.theguardian.com/world/2006/dec/08/religion.communities (acces­ sed 8 Oct­o­ber 2015). 114 Jonathan Petre, ‘Leave Christmas alone, say Muslims’, Telegraph (15 November 2006). ‘Luminos’ is the magical incantation that Harry Potter uses whenever he faces

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darkness; he calls out ‘luminos’ and darkness is expelled and replaced by light. See, for example, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ uknews/1534003/Leave-Christmas-alone-say-Muslims.html (accessed 12 October 2015). Petre, ‘Leave Christmas alone, say Muslims’. Burkeman, ‘The phoney war on Christmas’. Shlomo Avineri, ‘What do mosque minarets and kosher slaughter have in common?’ Haaretz (6 December 2009), www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/whatdo-mosque-minarets-and-kosher-slaughter-have-in-common-1.2720 (accessed 8 October 2015). Swiss Jews, ‘The Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG) and the Platform for Liberal Jews in Switzerland (PLJS) regret the outcome of the vote on the anti-­minaret initiative’ (1 December 2009), www.swissjews.ch/pdf/en/StellungnahmeAntiMinarett-InitiativeE.pdf (accessed 12 October 2015). Ayaan Hirsi Ali, ‘Swiss ban on minarets was a vote for tolerance and inclusion’, Christian Science Monitor (5 December 2009), www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/ Opinion/2009/1205/p09s01-coop.html (accessed 12 October 2015). Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Bradley S. Klapper, Associated Press, ‘UN rights chief calls Swiss minaret ban discriminatory; Sweden says it hurts Europe’s image’, StarTribune.com/Minneapolis-St Paul, Minnesota (1 December 2009), www.startribune.com/templates/Print_​This_​ Story?sid=78215487 (accessed 12 October 2015). ‘If the mighty have succumbed how shall the weak emerge unscathed’ or ‘If cedars have caught fire, what will the moss on the wall do’, Babylonian Talmud, Moed Katan 3, 25. Klapper, ‘UN rights chief calls Swiss minaret ban discriminatory’. Tim Padgett, ‘Long wait for justice’, TIME (17 January 2005), http://content.time. com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1015864,00.html (accessed 12 October 2015). Their story is depicted in the 1988 film Mississippi Burning with Gene Hackman. See also Abraham Joshua Heschel, Between God and Man: An Interpretation of Judaism, from the Writings of Abraham J. Heschel, Fritz A. Rothschild (ed.) (New York: The Free Press, 1975). Dror Bondi on Rabbi Heschel’s philosophy and theology, quoted in Esti Aharonowitz, Haaretz Weekend Magazine (27 January 2012) (Hebrew). Jonathan Rieder, The Word of the Lord Is Upon Me: The Righteous Performance of Martin Luther King Jr. (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), p. 282. ‘Woolwich attack: The terrorist’s rant’, Daily Telegraph (23 May 2013), www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10075488/Woolwich-attack-theterrorists-rant.html (accessed 8 October 2015). In February 2014 both killers were sentenced to life imprisonment (a whole life order excluding the possibility of parole to the older man; a minimum term of 45 years in prison for the younger).



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131 John F. Burns, ‘Call for calm after 3 new arrests in British soldier’s death’, International New York Times (23 March 2013), www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/world/europe/ anti-muslim-threats-rise-in-britain-after-soldiers-killing.html (accessed 8 October 2015); BBC News, ‘Woolwich murder sparks anti-Muslim backlash’ (25 May 2013). 132 ‘Jewish community patrol group pledges to protect Stoke Newington mosque’, The Hackney Gazette (24 June 2013), www.hackneygazette.co.uk/news/jewish_​com​ munity_​patrol_​group_​pledges_​to_​protect_​stoke_​newington_​mosque_​1_​2248650 (accessed 12 October 2015); Jessica Elgot, ‘Jewish patrol group Shomrim offers protection to mosques amid rise in hate attacks’, The Huffington Post (24 June 2013), www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/06/24/jewish-patrol-group-offer_​n_​3490383. html (accessed 12 October 2015). The Stamford Hill Shomrim group has 22 people and was set up in 2008 in part as a reaction to anti-Semitic incidents. Members of the 24-hour patrol group were trained by Hackney police and have neighbourhood patrol badges and uniforms. See also Times of Israel, ‘Orthodox Jews to guard UK mosque’ (28 June 2013), www.timesofisrael.com/orthodox-jews-to-guard-london-mosque/ (accessed 12 October 2015). 133 Mikael Tossavainen, ‘The Swedish case’, in ‘Anti-Semitism in Muslim and Arab populations in Europe today, and links to the majority society’, Proceedings of the Conference on Strategies and Effective Practices for Fighting Antisemitism among People with a Muslim or Arab Background in Europe, (eds) Günther Jikeli, Robin Stoller and Hanne Thoma (Berlin: International Institute for Education and Research on Anti-Semitism, 2007), pp. 23–24, www.iibsa.org/cms/index.php?id=105 (accessed 12 October 2015). 134 Goetz Nordbruch, ‘The German case’, 25–6, in ibid. 135 Finkielkraut, ‘What sort of Frenchmen are they?’ 136 Sefy Hendler, ‘A France without Jews would be nothing less than a disaster’, Haaretz (4 August 2014), www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.608644 (accessed 8 October 2015); ibid., ‘France without Jews’, Haaretz (3 August 2014) (Hebrew), p. 2.

5 East meets the West: Fiqh al-Aqalliyat (Muslim jurisprudence on minorities); Dina de-Malchuta Dina (the law of the kingdom is the law); Dar al-Islam (abode of Islam); Dar al-Harb (abode of war) You will please neither the Jews nor the Christians unless you follow their faith. Say: ‘God’s guidance is the only guidance.’ And if after all the knowledge you have been given you yield to their desires, there shall be none to help or protect you from the wrath of God. Those to whom We have given the Book, and who read it as it ought to be read, truly believe in it; those that deny it will surely be the losers. Al-Baqarah (The Cow) (Koran 2:120)

Classical Islamic sources and theology do not raise the possibility of Muslims living as minorities. A single case is mentioned in the Koran in which Muslims lived among infidels; this exception proves the rule, viz., Muslims should not live among a non-Muslim majority. A Muslim community was formed in Medina; those who remained as a minority in Mecca should not expect their Medinan coreligionists to rush to their help: Those that have embraced the Faith and fled their homes, and fought for the cause of God with their wealth and with their persons; and those that have sheltered them, and helped them, shall be as friends to each other. Those that have embraced the Faith, but have not left their homes, shall in no way become your friends until they have done so. (Koran 8:72)

Interaction or cooperation with non-Muslims (and, by extension, living among non-Muslims and non-believers) is not favoured by the Koran. On the contrary, Muslims should always prefer Muslims to non-Muslims. Socialising with or living among non-Muslims causes the Muslim to resemble the non-believers, or worse, causes them to turn into infidels:



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He has instructed you in the Book that when you hear God’s revelations being denied or ridiculed, you must not sit and listen to them until they engage in other talk, or else you shall yourselves become like them. God will surely gather in Hell the hypocrites and the unbelievers all. (Koran 4:140) True, in special situations and as a cautious conduct, exceptions are allowed. ‘Let not believers make friends with infidels in preference to the faithful – he that does this has nothing to hope for from God – except in self-defense.’ (Koran 3:28).

Islam contributed much to the rise of European medieval culture, but its contribution was much less during the post-medieval era. The emergence of modern European and Western philosophies, liberal democracy, modern social achievements and scientific discoveries occurred largely without Muslim contributions. Jews, by comparison, have been a built-in element, part and parcel, and in certain areas the fulcrum, of modern European cultures and civilisation. Notwithstanding historical, and in particular twentieth-century, attempts to exclude, alienate and exterminate the Jews, they are citizens of their European countries, eligible to vote and be elected to office. In comparison, many Muslim migrants, including second and third generations, are not citizens and are not allowed to vote. Only about 3 million of the Muslims who live in France – half of the total – are eligible to vote. About a million and a half Muslims – again, 50 per cent of the total – can vote in Britain.1 In the context of rights stemming from citizenship, the issue of having a passport from the European receiving country is a touchy one for the immigrants and their offspring. For instance, the ‘option model’ has been applicable in Germany since the year 2000. There, children born of immigrant parents receive two nationalities: that of their parents and German. However, by their 23rd birthday they must choose one or the other. Estimates show that 40,000 young people annually will be forced to choose between nationalities (an enormous administrative burden on the German authorities. Anyone who fails to do so and misses the deadline is given ‘notice of expatriation’.2 There are exceptions to the law, and there have been attempts to change the threshold age to 30. (An added twist is that certain Middle Eastern and Latin American countries do not accept expatriation or dual nationality.) More importantly, the law seems to single out people of Turkish origin, and those who are affected feel that they are unfairly treated and marginalised. Germany’s roughly 3 million Turks, of whom approximately 1 million were born in Germany, constitute the largest immigrant minority in that country. Their representatives consider the law cruel and inconsiderate and demand an end to the ‘option model’. They want an easier path to German citizenship and would like the possibility of dual citizenship – one of the receiving country and one that recognises the immigrant’s culture

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and ethnicity. ‘This ideological debate – that you can’t serve two masters – has to end,’ says Kenan Kolat, the federal chairman of the Turkish Community in Germany.3 Muslim migrants mainly came to Europe only two generations ago, and from sending countries which are mostly Muslim and politically independent – in theory, countries to which they can repatriate. Unlike theirs, the Jews’ existence in Europe was for millennia one of a permanent minority in exile, without a sovereign Jewish country of origin. The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 – although modern Israel is not the country of origin of European Jews – apparently changed this status. Israel is perceived as a haven to which Jews can repatriate, migrate or even be expelled, regardless of whether or not they were actually born there. (Alain Finkielkraut’s call to French Jews, ‘You have Israel’, mentioned in chapter 4, is an example of this.) In the context of Europe and its Jewish minority, the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg has mentioned another difference (in addition to the establishment of Israel), between present-day Europe and the period 1933–45. In 1933 Hitler announced himself to be the foremost enemy of Jewish existence; today, Germany’s leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel, is one the world’s chief defenders of Jews. ‘Germany’s support for Israel’s security is part of our national ethos, our raison d’être,’ she declared in 2013.4 Over many years of the community’s minority existence, Jewish law came to recognise that certain chapters in the law of the receiving country (Dina de-­ Malchuta, lit., the law of the kingdom) are also the law of the Jewish minority. This perception is valid as long as the kingdom does not impose extreme restrictions that specifically contradict Halacha, Jewish law, like ordering Jews to worship idols. Clearly, to introduce the law of a foreign land into a community that is governed by its own laws is an exceptional procedure. The Jewish Diaspora’s recognition of the law of the land as its own law demonstrated subservience to European sovereigns. In reality (although the yearning for Zion remained valid), it meant the postponement, abstraction or even abandonment of the idea of Jewish statehood. No such concession is expected or required of Muslims residing in Europe. Their wishes for statehood and life within a Muslim majority are met in their countries of origin. In theory, Muslim immigrants can return to their or their forefathers’ countries of origin, where Dar al-Islam (abode of Islam) rules, although as mentioned above, some countries do not accept returning expatriates. There are other differences between Judaism and Islam in relation to Europe. The Jewish rejection of mass conversion and spreading the Jewish ‘gospel’ is diametrically opposed to the Muslim ideal of spreading Islam, da’wa. The idea of regaining for Islam any part of Christendom that was once under Islamic rule is another issue that separates Muslim aspirations from Jewish teachings.5 The



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p­ resent-day Iberian Peninsula, i.e., Christian Spain and Portugal, was once a Muslim abode (Al-Andalus); there, current Muslim demands occasionally flare into open disputes, like the events in Cordoba cathedral mentioned in chapter 1. Jewish/Israeli claims in Muslim Palestine, regarded as the ancient Jewish Land of Israel, are reminiscent of the Muslim–Christian dispute over Islamic Iberia. Similarly, conflicting Jewish and Vatican demands and claims to rights over the Last Supper room in Jerusalem (the Cenaculum or Cenacle, from the Latin word cena, meaning dinner) – home the site of King David’s Tomb, according to Jewish tradition – also reflect attempts to reassert historically based religious rights. Dina de-Malchuta Dina is a rule attributed to the Jewish sage Rabbi Shmuel (Samuel), recorded in the Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 10b. Another highly rel­ evant Jewish Talmudic rule is attributed to Rabbi Hanina, Segan Hakohanim (Rabbi Hanina, the deputy of the high priesthood): ‘Pray for the peace of the kingdom, since but for the fear of it, men would have swallowed each other alive’ (Mishna, Avoth 3, 2;6 see also Jeremiah 29:7, ‘And seek the peace of the city into which I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray to the Lord for it: for in its peace shall you have peace.’). The Talmud stresses how essential this tenet is and what will happen if it is not followed. A fable about the fish in the sea is expounded: ‘Like fish in the sea, where the big one swallows its friend [the small fry], the same is about human beings, that unless for the fear of the kingdom, a bigger man would have swallowed his [little] friend’ (Babylonian Talmud, Avoda Zara 4, 1). The two rules – abiding by the country’s laws and praying for its peace, well-being and powers of law and order – speak for themselves. Without accepting the jurisprudence of the adopted land, minorities might experience extinction. Without adapting themselves to their host ­countries – in the Jews’ case to the European/Western world – ­minorities might disintegrate. Minorities will certainly arouse resistance to their presence in the midst of a receiving country and its society; being different attracts resentment. For generations these two rules have constituted the fulcrum of Jewish jurisprudence for life as a minority within a non-Jewish majority. Still, the dilemma has been very serious because the opposite has also been proved: namely, that those who withdraw into their own communities are able to preserve their cultures and heritage. Hence, adaptation to the host countries, combined with all manner of self-imposed restrictions (food, wine, attire, etc.), has been the Jewish means to preserve Jewish ethnicity, which was probably preserved even as Jewish existence was repeatedly questioned. The presence of millions of Muslims amid non-Muslim majorities has forced Muslim theologians to compose the Fiqh al-Aqalliyat, the jurisprudence ­pertaining to the solution of religious questions and difficulties encountered by

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minorities. It has developed since the mid-1990s, mainly for Muslims living in North America and Europe, that is, for those who do not dwell in Muslim countries as Muslims are meant to. Fiqh al-Aqalliyat was first developed by Taha Jaber al-Alwani mainly for North American Muslims, and by Yusuf al-Qaradawi for Muslims in Europe. Both are graduates of Al-Azhar University in Cairo.7 Specifically, these transplanted Muslims are no longer living in Dar al-Islam, the abode of Islam, where Muslim law prevails and protects their life, faith, and property, but as minorities in non-Muslim countries. These places are known as Dar al-Harb, the abode of war, territories controlled by non-Muslims, occasionally by unbelievers, by kufr, infidels. Some argue that Dar al-Harb is a temporary stage until such places become Dar al-Islam. Others, like Taha al-Alwani, even say that there is no Dar al-Harb: the whole world is Dar al-Islam, either in practice or potentially – a definition that enables Muslims to live in non-Muslim countries.8 Theoretically, a non-Muslim place is in a stage of transition and revision until it becomes Muslim – most probably by force and the waging of war, hence Dar al-Harb, the abode of war. Territories under systems of non-Muslim jurisprudence are sources of temptations that are likely to compromise Muslim religious duties. Mainstream Muslim jurisprudence applies to Muslim-majority contexts and frameworks in which Muslims hold the upper hand, politically and economically. For a very significant percentage of the world’s Muslims who are living as minorities outside Muslim majority countries, this jurisprudence does not apply.9 The need to preserve the statutes of the Muslim religion (what is halal, allowed, and what is haram, forbidden) and to protect the unity of the Muslim nation or umma (estimated at 1.6 billion, and of which one quarter to one third are presently living as minorities in non-Muslim countries), calls for reforms in the Fiqh al-Aqalliyat.10 Despite the aforementioned differences between the European Jewish and Muslim communities, the evolving Muslim theology for minorities could benefit from the Jewish experience of the law of the kingdom. As stated above, functioning simultaneously under the Jewish religious law (Halacha) and secular law (Dina de-Malchuta) has been the cornerstone of Jewish minority jurisprudence. On the other hand, excessively strict adherence to Jewish law, tradition and culture, effectively living in a separate enclave without any contact with the surrounding majority – as has happened in various Jewish communities throughout the ages – has guaranteed the animosity and wrath of the majority. Certain majorities were not content with anything less than total assimilation, or indeed annihilation, of the Jewish minority, even if the latter publicly adopted various features of the majority culture. By not accepting the law of the land as their law, by deliberate non-integration, by isolation and by conspicuously practising imported religious and cultural customs and Sharia law – in short, by not



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adapting the Fiqh al-Aqalliyat to European standards – Muslim immigrants who prefer ghettoisation clearly demonstrate their intention not to fit into their new societies and countries. Little wonder that their attitudes expose Muslims to the criticism and hostility of the nations and societies of Europe. Immigration usually emanates from a wish to improve living standards and avoid injustice, to reduce religious, tribal and sectarian discrimination, to escape from war and internal strife, to achieve equal rights and opportunities and to find freedom from fear and bodily harm. If the jurisprudence of European host countries offers an environment that accords with the immigrants’ desires, but they do not accept that the law of the land applies to them, a crucial part of the traumatic, painful, dire and expensive immigration process has been pursued in vain and the potential benefits of immigration are missed or lost. The sending countries have a vested interest in the perpetuation of ghettoisation and ‘the parallel society’ presently practised by many immigrants in Europe; like it or not, immigrants tend to preserve the culture, ethnicity and heritage of the sending country. They huddle in poor districts, often in state-supplied housing … They tend to withdraw into their own world, [forming a] self-sufficient, self-contained community. This self-imposed segregation has multiple dimensions. Clannish behavior persists for decades. Marriages are still arranged: reluctant brides and grooms are imported from the motherland to wed immigrants from the same region or village.11

Doubtless, sending countries thrive on these circumstances. Remittances from abroad play a crucial part in their economies, from Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Middle East to South America and Africa. Turkish immigrants in Germany demand, consume and pay for Turkish culture, commodities, food, satellite TV, etc., all produced in Turkey. Immigrants from the Arab Middle East and North Africa consume clothing, newspapers and other products from their home countries. For all of these reasons sending countries and their societies discourage the assimilation or social integration of the immigrants in Europe.12 Immigration from Muslim countries to the Dar al-Harb and to a life of minority status is presently the fate of many millions of Muslims. As Susanne Olsson found, there seems to be no authoritative theological ruling today that living as a Muslim minority is illegitimate. The extension of Dar al-Islam conditions to include areas once regarded as Dar al-Harb is acceptable among many interpreters of Islam. True, Islamic jurisprudence does not encourage Muslims to settle permanently outside the ‘abode of Islam’; on the contrary, it calls for their repatriation to Muslim jurisdictions as early as possible. Indeed, a sinful Islamic territory is always preferred to a just non-Islamic territory.13 Full integration

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into the receiving society is obviously not the desired model; living somewhat separately and maintaining a distinct appearance (particularly Muslim women’s attire) from the native population is preferred. Some interpreters hold that the children of immigrants should not be raised abroad, for they might adopt nonIslamic mannerisms.14

The new Muslims: European converts The concern that Muslim children might drift away from their faith is understandable, although findings show that Islam is in no danger of losing its believers in Europe. The French journalist Maïa de la Baume writes that Islam is now enjoying a reverse trend: growing numbers of willing European converts to Islam. In France, although the number of converts is not high, over the 25 years since 1988 the annual number of conversions to Islam has doubled. Former Roman Catholics are seen at Friday Muslim prayers dressed in Muslim prayer caps and long robes and introducing themselves by Muslim names. Of an estimated 6 million Muslims in France, some 100,000 to 200,000 (depending on who is counting) are thought to be converts, compared to c. 50,000 in 1986.15 Indigenous French conversions to Islam often occur for purposes of marriage or to better socially conform in neighbourhoods where Muslims have become dominant. Even non-Muslims living in these quarters readily observe some of the customs of the Ramadan fast and take part in its festivities. While conversion is sometimes described as ‘a social phenomenon’ and as emanating ‘out of curiosity’, more profound reasons have also been advanced. In the densely Muslim populated French inner-city suburbs (banlieues), Islam is perceived as a refuge, an alternative to the surrounding miseries. Islam provides structure and discipline, an alternative to modernism and defiance to the French secularism that is breeding ‘spiritual emptiness’. Its religious principles strengthen family values, make clearer distinctions between men and women and, in general, ‘Islam has a peaceful effect on the converts … The world looks clearer after they’ve converted.’16 Conversion is also becoming popular because of celebrity converts, particularly football stars who have adopted Muslim names. One such, Nicholas Anelka, who has played for France’s national team and top European clubs (Paris Saint Germain, Manchester City, Real Madrid, Fenerbahce, Chelsea, Juventus, West Bromwich Albion), converted to Islam in 2004 and added Abdul Salam Bilal to his name. In 2013, while playing for West Bromwich, Anelka made an anti-Semitic hand gesture, the quenelle, described as ‘a Nazi salute in reverse’, or a ‘gesture of liberation from slavery [sic]’.17 Making the quenelle in front of synagogues, Holocaust memorials, the Toulouse Jewish school where a Muslim



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extremist murdered three children and a teacher in May 2012 and even at the gates of Auschwitz has become fashionable among Muslim anti-Semites. A convicted anti-Semitic French comedian introduced the quenelle. Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, known by his stage name Dieudonné (literally, God’s gift), was born in France to a Cameroonian father and a French mother who was educated in French Catholic schools. His comedic routines, which included incitement amounting to ethnic hatred, the questioning of crimes against humanity like the Holocaust and the sending of his Jewish rivals to the gas chambers got him into trouble with the law and have already cost him $86,000 in fines.18 When he criticises or humiliates his audience of media people, for instance, he jokes in all seriousness that if ‘unfortunately there was a journalist among the victims – a Jew on top of that – they would reopen the Nuremberg trials!’ No wonder that many view Dieudonné’s performances as racist and as proof that France has been infected by a virulent anti-Semitism.19 The TIME correspondent Vivienne Walt found that ‘[t]oday, almost no conversation within France about anti-Semitism fails to mention Dieudonné’.20 Some accuse him of fomenting an atmosphere that has already caused Muslim jihadists to kill Jews (in Toulouse or in the Brussels Jewish Museum – see chapter 6). In such an inciteful atmosphere, people ‘go from anti-Semitic speech to an anti-Semitic act.’21 In his defence, Dieudonné argues that ‘he pokes fun at all ethnic groups’ (in reality his routine heavily targets Jews); that he is making people laugh about ‘the competition of victimisation’; and that the US and Europe are obsessed with the Nazi genocide. ‘[T]he Holocaust has drowned out the memory of other atrocities like the slave trade.’22 In a sketch about a Jewish slave trader he commented that ‘the taming of Negroes is a Jewish Specialty’.23 Dieudonné is the creator of the Shoananas song, or Holocaust Pineapples (Shoah is Hebrew for Holocaust), which he sings accompanied by a young man wearing a large yellow star over a pair of pyjamas.24 Franck Ribéry, the ‘jewel of French football’, is an international footballer who has played for Germany’s Bayern Munich club since 2007 and for France’s national team. He converted to Islam in 2006 in order to marry a Muslim Algerian woman, and is now called Bilal Yusuf Mohammed; he reportedly prays before every game.25 Another celebrity, Diam’s, also known as Diamant (diamond), was born Melanie Georgiades and is a French-language rap artist of French and Cypriot origin. She converted in 2009, and since then she has worn the hijab. She is definitely a rare female phenomenon in the predominantly male French rap metier. She explained that her conversion was a personal choice that helped her to cope with depression. ‘Medicine was not able to heal my soul, so I turned toward religion.’26 Diam’s earlier experience with drugs, including hallucinating narcotics, and hospitalisation in a mental asylum lasted until she discovered the ‘serenity of Islam’. Diam’s has been a fierce opponent of the

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Le Pen far-right politicians, Jean Marie and his daughter Marine. Asked why she wears the hijab while many Muslim women do not, even though it is a religious obligation, she answered, ‘I see it as a divine order or a divine advice, this brings joy to my heart and for me this is enough.’ Her answers may explain the potential guidance and encouragement that secular, unsatisfied, restless, even agitated French people find in the feelings and actions of celebrities who convert to Islam. Bowing and kneeling (rakahs) during prayer, the touching of the forehead to the floor, has had a special and profound effect on her. She also views the atrocities performed by Muslims and attributed to Islamic commandments as a pure distortion and gross misperception of that religion. Diam’s said that by converting to Islam she gained comfort … adding ‘this has warmed my heart, as I know now the purpose of my existence, and why am I here on Earth.’ Discussing how her life was like before her conversion to Islam, Diam’s said: ‘I was very famous and I had what every famous person looks for, but I was always crying bitterly alone at home, and this is what none of my fans had felt.’ She added: ‘I was heavily addicted to drugs, including hallucinating narcotics and was admitted in[to a] mental asylum to recover, but this was in vain until I heard one of my Muslim friends saying, “I am going to pray for a while and will come back,” so I told her that I want to pray as well.’ Recalling that moment, Diam’s said: ‘It was the first time that I touched the floor with [my] head, and I had a strong feeling that I have never experienced before, and I believe now that kneeling in prayer, shouldn’t be done to anyone but Allah.’ ‘I think we should differentiate between the ignorant and the knowledgeable, and the ignorant should not speak about what he doesn’t know, Islam does not allow murdering innocent victims the way we see it nowadays.’27

Naturally, some view this conversion phenomenon with concern. French anti-terrorism officials see converts as representing ‘a critical element of the terrorist threat in Europe’, because they have Western passports and do not stand out. Further, converts are described as needing ‘to overdo if they want to be accepted as Muslims and so veer into extremism more frequently than others’. It should be mentioned, however, that converts, including the French, usually adopt the less extreme modes of Islam.28

Interpretation of the Koran Koran descended in seven versions; seventy faces of Torah ‘Awf ibn Malik reported that the Prophet said: \ ‘The Jews split into seventy-one sects: one will enter Paradise and seventy will enter Hell. The Christians split into seventy-two sects: seventy-one will enter Hell and one will enter Paradise. By Him



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in Whose hand is my soul, my Ummah [nation] will split into seventy-three sects: one will enter Paradise and seventy-two will enter Hell.’ \ Someone asked, \ ‘O Messenger of Allah, who will they be?’ \ He replied, \ ‘The main body of the Muslims (al-Jama’ah).’ \ (Awf ibn Malik (580 ce–c. 653 ce), one of the companions of Prophet Muhammad).29

Life’s needs and the continuing and growing immigration from sending countries are stronger than negative fatwas (Muslim religious rulings) that ban the immigration of Muslims to the Dar al-Harb countries, quite aside from the fact that, unlike large elements of Christianity, Islam has no central authority. Alongside exegetes who forbid immigration there are other commentators who allow it. In parallel with the Jewish rule of ‘seventy faces of Torah’ that approves in practice the endless hermeneutics of the Pentateuch (including exegeses that contradict one another) is the Muslim equivalent that perceives multiple levels of meaning in the Koran (‘Koran descended in seven versions’, see below). Hence, the work of interpretation serves a constant and vital need.30 God’s messages are innumerable; likewise are their interpretations, according to some scholars. But according to others only a specific handful of interpretations are accepted. The Koran contains all science, and particularly all legal knowledge. ‘[F]or to you we have revealed the Book which manifests the truth about all things, a guide, a blessing, and good news for those who submit’ (Koran 16:89), and ‘We have left out nothing in the Book’ (Koran 6:38). In practice, different and even contradictory hermeneutics are tolerated and coexist in Islam (as in Judaism). The wealth of material found in the Koran calls for innumerable exegeses and hermeneutics. ‘If all the trees on the earth were pens and [their ink] the ocean and the seven seas to replenish it, the words of God would not end. Mighty is God and wise’ (Koran 31:27). The image of the Koran as an ocean is particularly popular, explains Kristin Sands, as in the works of Abu Hamed Mohammad ibn Mohammad al-Ghazali (or simply, al-Ghazali, 1058–1111), a Muslim theologian and philosopher, whom historians rate as no less than ‘the single most influential Muslim after the Islamic prophet Muhammad’.31 Haven’t you heard that the Qur’an is an ocean from which the knowledge of all ages branches out just as rivers and streams branch out from the shores of the ocean? Don’t you envy the happiness of people who have plunged into its overflowing waves and seized red sulfur [elixir used to change silver into gold],32 who have dived into its depths and taken out red rubies, shining pearls and green chrysolite, who have roamed its shores and gathered gray ambergris and fresh blooming aloes wood, who have clung to its islands and found an abundance in their animals of the greatest antidote and pungent musk?33

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The Koran being an all-inclusive, endless ocean no doubt parallels the Judaic rule uttered by Rabbi Ben Bag-Bag, who said with reference to the Torah: ‘Turn it, and turn it again, for everything is in it; and contemplate it, and grow old and grey over it, and stir not from it, for you have no better principle than it.’34 The Koran presents itself as a clear book, and the Prophet Muhammad is the ultimate interpreter of this Scripture: ‘The apostles We sent before you were but men whom We inspired with revelations and with scriptures. Ask the People of the Book, if you know not. To you We have revealed the Admonition, so that you may proclaim to men what was sent down for them, and that they may take thought’ (Koran 16:44). However, there are references (probably retroactive) that point to the Prophet’s favourable attitude towards not one but several interpretations of the Koran. For instance, Muslim tradition mentions that Muhammad called on God to give the first exegete of the Koran, Abd Allah Ibn Abbas (618 or 619–87 ce), the wisdom (al-hikma) to interpret the Book. Hence, theoretically at least, more than one interpretation is valid.35 See also the following quotation, which is attributed to the successor of the Prophet, Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab (c. 580–644 ce), a most influential Muslim ruler, a renowned jurist known also as ‘al-Farooq the Great’ (the one who distinguishes between right and wrong) and a companion of the Prophet. More than one version of the Koran is permissible – hence also different interpretations of the Book – in particular when the circumstances require one to follow a certain version. Once, when God’s messenger was still alive, I heard Hisham Ibn Hakim [Hisham was the son of Hakim; Hakim was the nephew of Khadija, Muhammad’s wife], reciting Surat al-Furqan [Koran 25, The Criterion]. While I was listening to his recitation, it turned out that he used a different version in several places of the text, a language that God’s messenger did not use. I was on the verge of attacking him, but I restrained myself until he finished praying. Then I grabbed the upper part of his gown and said: who recited this Sura [chapter] for you, the Sura that I have just heard you reciting? He replied: God’s messenger said it to me. I replied: you are lying, because God’s messenger used a different language than you. I grabbed him and took him to God’s messenger and said: I heard this man reciting Surat al-Furqan using a different language than you did. Replied God’s messenger: this is the version that descended from Heaven. And then He said: say it, oh Umar! I said it, using the language that Hisham had used. Said God’s messenger: this is how it descended from Heaven. This Koran descended in seven versions [Ahruf], hence use whatever language that is possible for you to use.36

The Jewish ‘seventy faces of Torah’ thus have a sort of equivalent in the seven meanings attributed to the Koran. However, each of the Koran’s seven



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meanings might include several other acceptations. See, for instance, the seventy camels, aspects, modes, etc., that Kristin Sands counts when mentioning Muslim theologians and their hermeneutics to the word of God: ‘Every verse of the Qur’an has four kinds of meaning’; ‘If I had wished, I could have loaded seventy camels with commentary on the al-Fatihah of the Book [the opening Sura, The Exordium of the Koran]; ‘The Qur’an is recited with nine aspects’; ‘The Book of God has four things’; ‘The Qur’an was sent down in seven modes.’37 Incidentally, the very tradition of seven meanings or faces of the Koran has been interpreted in different ways – 16 or 35 interpretations in the Sunni tradition that were eventually reduced to seven kinds.38 Claude Gilliot, a renowned authority on Islamic studies, quotes the Andalusian jurist, Sufi mystic and philosopher Ibn al-Arabi (1165–1240), that the sciences of the Koran are 77,450, i.e., the number of words that the Great Master Ibn al-Arabi said the Book contains.39 The reader is aware that the possible combination of these interpretations is endless. The present reality of hundreds of millions of Muslim immigrants (migrants and refugees) creates a situation in which numerous questions arise because followers of Islam are living as minorities among non-Muslim majorities. The European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR) was established in 1997, under the auspices of the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe.40 The cases that the ECFR examines and rules on, as well as other questions brought before other Muslim bodies and scholars, all relate to issues of daily life that Muslim minorities experience in Europe. For instance, can my children have a non-Muslim nanny? While hospitalised, can I be comforted by the hospital’s Christian chaplain or must I ask for an imam and a mosque?41 Can I eat my lunch in the factory cafeteria in the proximity of pork-eaters and alcohol-drinkers? Can I consume meat slaughtered by non-Muslims? Can my daughter take part in a school outing and stay overnight with her classmates, boys inclusive? Can I take out a mortgage and pay interest, or earn interest on my bank deposits? Can I vote in European elections? Can I join the army of a European country? What should I do as a serviceman if my receiving country and its army wage war against a Muslim country? Should I continue to serve? Can I accept the identity and citizenship of a non-Muslim country? And in case of conflict, what should take precedence: my citizenship and loyalty to the European state or allegiance and fidelity to the Nation of Islam? (According to several Muslim religious jurists, a Muslim has dual citizenship – that of the receiving country and that of the Nation of Islam.42 Many Muslims can in fact declare three citizenships: of their country of origin, of the European receiving country and of the Nation of Islam, the umma). Can I or my children participate in Christian parties and celebrations like Christmas? What about a wife who decides to convert to Islam but

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her husband does not? Can she stay married to him or does she have to leave her spouse (an act that might discourage other women from converting)?43 Should a husband attend his wife’s delivery of their baby? (The fatwa, i.e., the ruling, encouraged the husband to do so because facing the pain his wife suffers may increase his appreciation for her.44) What about the Western prohibition on marriage of minors and polygamous marriages? (The ruling was given to ignore Western norms and to accept the Muslim principle of being able to marry up to four women.45) Is it permissible to deliver the Friday Muslim sermon in a language other than Arabic because the majority of the worshippers do not know Arabic? (Spreading the word of Islam allows this concession; otherwise, not knowing Arabic might be used as an excuse not to convert to the Muslim religion.46) What burial procedures should a Muslim observe in a non-Muslim country? Can Muslims be buried by non-Muslims in non-Muslim cemeteries? Can they be buried in coffins as required by secular authorities or must they be enshrouded as Sharia law demands? Should the deceased be transported to Muslim countries? (Of note, when no option for a separate Muslim burial is available, the Muslim jurist al-Qaradawi permitted burial in a non-Muslim cemetery, as a means of guaranteeing the continuity of a Muslim presence in Western countries. Absence of a Muslim cemetery might be added to the list of reasons why Muslim customs cannot be pursued in Europe, hence another reason to leave that continent.)47 The above is a small sample of the issues that the average Muslim ‘abroad’ faces. Some excellent pragmatic examples of the situations that can arise, the solutions that are found and the explanations behind them are given by Susanne Olsson. The rationalisation that minor wrongdoings are ignored so that greater sins will not be committed serves as a model. The examples of McDonald Restaurants, the handling of pork and women’s veils explain this rule. One example is that of a Muslim who works in a McDonald’s restaurant, asking about the lawfulness of handling pork. The answer states that selling pork is forbidden, but if the man has no other means of making a living that does not involve what is haram, he can stay in his job, but must constantly search for a new job. Another fatwa answers the question of a woman convert and her problems with wearing the hijab, which may risk turning her away from Islam. The answer is that it is obligatory and that ‘she is easily distinguished from the non-Muslim and the non-obedient’. However, the response is also to treat this woman leniently and gently, and to remember that wearing the hijab is a secondary branch of religion; the fatwa states that it is ‘extremely unwise’ to enforce it if it means that the woman will turn away from other Islamic principles or from Islam in its entirety. ‘The Fiqh of balances forces us, at times, to overlook this wrong-doing so that a greater sin is averted.’ This is a well-known and approved principle.48



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Thus, a Muslim who faces a problem and asks for guidance according to religious jurisprudence may choose not to comply with a ruling if he or she finds it too onerous to carry out. Alternative jobs are preferred if making a living entails violation of Muslim law (selling alcohol or pork, working in a bank that takes interest on loans and mortgages, etc.). However, if an alternative adequate source of income is not available, then the Muslim may continue in his job. If wearing a headscarf in a non-Muslim country causes undue distress, then the wearer should desist from doing so. If a Muslim woman is working in education or studying in a non-Muslim country that bans the hijab and risks punishment for wearing it, then her job or studies are more important than wearing the hijab. Thus, when French law prohibited veiled and hijabed women from studying in French universities, the Muslim thinker and theologian Tariq Ramadan permitted them to obey the law of the land (Dina de-malchuta Dina!) and remove the hijab.49 As Karen-Lise Johansen Karman explains, Muslims are required to practise Islam only according to their ability, and they are not forced to comply with commandments that circumstances do not permit. Hence, being a Muslim in Europe and earning a living there, even in sinful places, is preferable to repatriation to the miserable life left behind in the country of origin.50 Today’s Muslim theologians, unlike their Orthodox Jewish counterparts, should be complimented for their flexibility and their adaptations of Sharia law to the circumstances imposed by Western modernity. Jewish law, Halacha, in comparison, has proved to be less flexible in the hands of contemporary Orthodox rabbinical authorities. In his outstanding work on the Fiqh al-Aqalliyat, Shammai Fishman brings to the fore the rather controversial fatwa of the Sheikh al-Azhar – also known as the Grand Imam of al-Azhar University in Cairo – Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi (1928–2010). Under the restrictions that the French state imposed on veiled women, the sheikh instructed Muslim women to abide by French laws. A person has to obey Sharia if she lives or works in a Muslim country; however, if abroad and faced with obligatory non-Muslim demands, she is not to be rebuked for these sins of omission. On the contrary, intention is the crucial element, maintained the sheikh, and the Koran is very clear on the matter: He has forbidden you carrion, blood and the flesh of swine; also any flesh that is consecrated other than in the name of God. But whoever is driven by necessity, intending neither to sin nor to transgress, shall incur no guilt. God is forgiving and merciful (Koran 2:173).51

Thus, when living as a minority in a non-Muslim country, occasional compromises with Muslim principles are halal, i.e., acceptable. Remaining and living among non-Muslims and thus continually acquainting them with Islam will

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eventually turn the infidel nation into one that appreciates and admires Islam, perhaps converting into a Muslim nation, a much more significant target and achievement. Then the life of the Muslim in a Muslim environment will become much easier and natural. Some, in particular the well-known Muslim jurist Yusuf al-Qaradawi, even argue that spreading the gospel of Islam among non-Muslims is the fulfilment of a holy commandment. Such deeds not only legitimise and justify Muslims living as minorities among non-Muslims, but even encourage leaving a Muslim country for the sake of contributing to Muslim missionary activity. Qaradawi thus adopts a lenient attitude towards Muslim minority communities; certainly, they should not be held to the same standards as their co-religionists living in Muslim countries. The rationale here is tantamount to the case of a handicapped person who is entitled to receive special facilities and concessions.52 Interestingly, the title of the book edited by Bettina Graf and Jakob SkovgaardPetersen, Global Mufti: The Phenomenon of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, conveys the wide fame and influence of this Muslim jurist. In his younger days al-Qaradawi was an active member of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. Some still consider him the unofficial theological authority of the organisation, and when its detractors are at loggerheads with the Brotherhood they direct their wrath against Qaradawi. In December 2014, at the request of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Interpol issued a warrant for Qaradawi’s arrest for inciting deadly violence. Many follow Qaradawi’s edicts and many more view him as the greatest living Muslim theologian of today.53 Young Sunni Muslims from various countries who volunteered to fight in the Syrian civil war against President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite regime claimed that they were inspired by Qaradawi. Muslims who commit violent acts against Jews and Jewish targets in Europe also cite Qaradawi, who is known for his passionate hatred of Israel. In the 1990s Qaradawi permitted the use of suicide bombings against Israel. In May 2004 he declared, ‘There is no dialogue between us [Muslims and Jews] except by the sword and the rifle.’ In 2005 he issued a fatwa permitting the killing of Jewish foetuses, based on the logic that when Jews grow up they may join the Israeli military. In July 2015 Qaradawi ruled that Hamas in Gaza was free to launch missiles and strike deep inside Israel, because Islamic law prohibits Palestinians from committing suicide bombings.54

Jewish Responsa A similar exchange of insights and views has characterised the Jewish world for almost 2,000 years, since the Dispersion (Diaspora). Jews ask their religious



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legal authorities, that is, their rabbis (as in secular life one asks one’s lawyer) for advice and guidance concerning the correct way to conduct oneself in accordance with Jewish law, Halacha, when unusual issues or quandaries with others are encountered. Before we elaborate on the Responsa, an ancient form of case law, an example will show how the system works. The following is reported by a rabbi who was approached by Israeli Air Force Colonel Ilan Ramon (1954– 2003), an astronaut killed in the Columbia space shuttle disaster on 1 February 2003. As a Jewish astronaut in a space shuttle, Ramon was concerned about how and when to observe the 25-hour Sabbath ‘day of rest’; a seven-day week on earth lasts a mere ten and a half hours in orbit. Zvi Konikov: ‘Shabbat in Space, the Legacy of Ilan Ramon’ I first met Ilan Ramon … in my hometown of Satellite Beach, Florida. Ilan … greeted me with a warm hug and presented me with his request: ‘Rabbi, I need to talk with you. I want to keep Shabbat [the Sabbath] while in space but no one can tell me how to do it!’ […] Shabbat … presented quite a challenge. A day/night cycle in orbit is 90 minutes long, which means that a week lasts a mere ten and a half hours from start to finish! Would Ilan need to keep Shabbat every half day?! At his behest I brought his case before some of the world’s leading rabbinic authorities, who ruled that he would keep the Shabbat times of his place of departure – Cape Canaveral. […] Ilan told me, ‘Jerusalem we have a problem!’55 I said, ‘He wanted to know how to keep Shabbat [in space while circling the earth].’ I told them [his family and NASA] about his supreme efforts to fulfill the mitzvot [commandments] of his Creator while in orbit.56

The Jewish Responsa literature forming the codex of questions and answers – known as she’elot ve-teshuvot in Hebrew, ‫שאלות ותשובות‬, abbreviated as sh’ut ‫ – שו”ת‬developed mainly in the Diaspora after the Roman expulsion of the Jews from the Land of Israel and the disappearance of the central Halachic body, the Sanhedrin (high court). Between 20 and 23 Jewish judges sat in these courts in each city in Judea, and a central body of 71 members, the Great Sanhedrin, sat in Jerusalem and served as councils and the supreme court for all Jewish communities during the Second Temple period. The Romans dissolved Sanhedrin in the mid-fourth century ce. Jews approached the Sanhedrin in the Land of Israel when they encountered problematic issues that needed Halachic verdicts. With the demise of the Sanhedrin, Diasporic Jews approached their local religious leaders, their learned rabbis, for guidance on legal questions. Written replies, Responsa, developed into a literature which covers a period of almost 1,700 years. It underpins Jewish law, the rabbis and the Jewish religious authorities

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(dayanim) with precedents and examples on which to base present-day judgments. Questions arising out of modern times and technology (beginning with electricity and medicine, and now computing, cell phones, etc.) have produced a significant explosion in Responsa literature. Questions that were previously sent by letters and took months to receive a response are now answered online. Since the 1970s in Israel, the Bar-Ilan University’s Sh’ut Project has produced a computerised version of Responsa literature. This global database consists of over 100,000 questions and answers with more than 520,000 hypertext links, in all amounting to some 280 million words.57 ‘A [Jewish] baby that was taken captive by the Gentiles’ (Talmud, Shabbat 68) has come to justify the principle of not being overly strict with people who are ignorant of Jewish law (Halacha) through no fault of their own and who consequently transgress religious tenets. These ‘kidnapped Jewish babies’ (or today, children whose parents cannot afford a Jewish education), like the Muslim handicapped person who cannot genuflect, should not be punished for transgressions of religious laws. They either do not know or cannot fulfil their religion’s commandments. They should certainly not be compared with those who know the rules, are able to abide by them, live within their communities and do not endanger themselves in practising their religion. Even more to the point, the unenlightened should not be compared with those who deliberately violate their religious duties although they know and are able to observe them. A mumar lehachis (wilful sinner) is a Jew who converts to another religion or transgresses Halacha just in order to spite and infuriate other Jews. The individual and communal emancipation and integration of Jews in Europe, the organisation and leadership of the Jewish community, the Jewish impact on European internal and external politics and successful Jewish lobbying that improves the lot of Jewish communities are all examples that could serve as a model for Muslims in Europe (see next section). Post-World War II European Jews are a minority – in some countries a negligible one. However, sociologically, in most European countries they do not suffer from cultural or economic exclusion or discrimination. On the contrary, they are represented among the elite and leading echelons in much higher numbers proportionate to the populations in which they live. A 2013 survey of American Jews (with implications for European Jews) elaborated on their sociological success despite their being a numerical minority (6.6 million, 2.2 per cent of the US population, unchanged over the past two decades).58 More to the point, the Pew Research Center’s Religion and Public Life Project survey points to the success of American Jews, unhindered by an American majority population that does not exclude its Jewish minority from enjoying the success that is embodied in the American way of life. These condi-



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tions cause American Jews to feel at ease in the US and to fully adopt its culture and lifestyle as their own. The result is that many American Jews absorb the American way of life to the detriment of their Jewish heritage, culture, tradition and religion. The conclusion that Muslim migrants may draw from the American Jewish experience (European Jews can certainly do so) is that integration and assimilation take their toll and lead to secularism. It is not clear at all whether Muslim migrants are ready to pay this price, i.e., being ‘as everyone else’. The mechanism behind Jewish assimilation is obvious and salutary. American Jews no longer suffer systemic discrimination; indeed, we’ve achieved remarkable success. That means Jews tend to meet their spouses the way their gentile peers do, in college or the workplace. Some seek out Jewish partners, but that means making a special effort. By default, Jews find themselves in the same marriage pool as everyone else.59

There is a significant rise in the number of American Jews who are not religious, who marry outside the faith and are not raising their children in a Jewish way. The result is ‘rapid assimilation that is sweeping through every branch of Judaism except the Orthodox’. The intermarriage rate has reached a high of 58 per cent for all Jews, and 71 per cent for non-Orthodox Jews – a huge change from before 1970, when only 17 per cent of Jews married outside the faith. The survey findings showed that in the year 2013 two-thirds of Jews do not belong to a synagogue, one fourth do not believe in God and one third had a Christmas tree in their home.60 The survey also found that, in spite of the decline in their religious identity (and what follows from it: less participation in religious and community activities, plus increasing proportions who claim no religious affiliation), American Jews have a ‘strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people’. Pew’s conclusion was therefore, ‘Older Jews are Jews by religion. Younger Jews are Jews of no religion.’61 Also, growing numbers of the children of Jewish parents get no Jewish religious education at all. On the other hand, children’s religious education among Orthodox Jews is on the rise, probably as a reaction to its sharp decline among non-practising Jews. These ‘devastating’ findings cause genuine concern for the Jewish continuity.62

Jewish example: a model? Some argue that if Muslims in Europe were to emulate the Jewish example, they would achieve sociological success. Others are highly doubtful that this is possible. They claim that Islam is inherently defective and neither its cultural outlook nor its juridical strictures are likely to produce such a development. Others hold

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the views – discriminatory and perhaps even racist as they might sound – that democracy and its elements of freedom and equality are not suited to the Muslim mind-set. ‘Islam is simply antithetical to a liberal democracy.’63 Social and political systems are not the only fields out of bounds to Muslims: ‘Muslims, being 23 per cent of the world’s population, have produced only five Nobel laureates in science and literature, whereas Jews, being only 0.2 per cent of the world’s population, have received more than 120 Nobel Prizes in science, economics, medicine and literature. Jews before World War II filled up Europe’s universities. Muslims now fill up Europe’s prisons.’64 We have already mentioned (chapter 1) the former Pope Benedict’s unflattering view of Islam, namely that it undervalues rationality and is consequently more inclined to violence.65 Muslims, as shown by their reactions to Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses, are described as quick to turn to violence and vicious riots, and unable to engage in reasonable debate. Muslim verbal aggression and violence are described as the rule rather than the exception.66 As mentioned before, Muslims are depicted as suffering from nothing less than a cultural or psychological inherent defect: they are easily manipulated because they are emotional and unsophisticated, and tell the whole world whenever they commit a act of terror.67 Also, Muslims are described as prone to paedophilia: Aysha was betrothed to Muhammad at the age of six and married him when she was nine. When carried out by Muslims, sexual attacks on Western women are claimed to be a Muslim phenomenon, characteristic of a culture that has no place in the West.68 Such descriptions are certainly born of Islamophobia and racism. In this context, the linkage between Muslims and crime is frequent among the public across Europe. The implicit conclusion is that European–Muslim coexistence is an impossible scenario. It is impossible to live alongside Muslims, and Europeans are prone to voice their reservations and apprehensions: ‘[T]he ‘relative violence of Muslim neighbourhoods is a main obstacle to social mixing and integration,’ since ‘[i]mmigrants and their children commit much of the crime in all European countries, and most of the crime in some of them.’ ‘Violence has kept native Europeans out of certain immigrant neighbourhoods as effectively as an electric fence.’69 The far-right anti-immigrant Swedish Democrats Party entered parliament for the first time with 20 seats after the September 2010 general election. In their campaign they showed a burqa-clad woman pushing aside white Swedish pensioners who were waiting in line to receive government welfare allowances. Party leader Jimmie Akesson declared during the campaign that Islam is Sweden’s greatest security threat since World War II. He claimed that the number of immigrants convicted of rape is five times more than the number of Swedes.70 Others counter, however, that the Muslims’ global imperviousness to



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democracy should not be interpreted as an inevitable or inherent defect in their religion or as an inability to cope with freedom. Feudal societies, corrupt rulers, colonialism, a long history of external interference, the failure to find an adequate place for religion in public life and so on – these could also be sensible explanations for Muslims’ disregard for democratic values. Bhikhu Parekh, a leading British thinker on multiculturalism and ethnic relations who chaired the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, known as the Parekh Commission,71 stressed that precedents show that people do change, and chief among them were the Europeans themselves – after all, present-day liberal democratic Europe had a long history of autocracy. ‘And the Christians who now claim to be friends of democracy believed, until quite recently, that it [democracy] was incompatible with their central religious beliefs.’72 Similarly, Hindus were for a long time told that their religion and hierarchical society ruled out the possibility of democracy; yet, India has been the world’s most populous democracy for over half a century. Hopes, therefore, do exist for a change in Muslim political attitudes towards European democracy, as is shown by successful minority entrepreneurship that has demonstrated an adaptation to a freemarket economic system not found in Muslims’ home countries. The fact that Muslim societies have not themselves developed stable democracies does not mean that Muslims cannot live under them; indeed, they have good reasons to adjust to them. Political survival is one; opportunities offered by a democracy to pursue their legitimate interests and even to protest is another. Many developing countries have failed to create the modern capitalist economy, but that has not prevented their diasporic members from flourishing in the capitalist West.73

Social and economic cooperation by diasporic Muslims with European and American non-Muslims, conducted according to Western codes, shows positive results and supports those who believe that Muslims are capable of adopting ‘foreign’ norms. Such cooperation contributes to the well-being of the greater society in various Western receiving countries. Furthermore, since Muslim theology considers the Koranic teachings to be universal, Islam and Muslim culture and law should fit into Western social and economic systems, with adjustments to their norms.74 By its own definition Islam is the ultimate truth and the genuine and authentic religion; Islam is the natural religion – ‘the default [or original] religion’ (din al-fitrah). Therefore it follows that Islam inherently suits and is in harmony with any human being. In fact, Islam holds that every human being is born Muslim, which by nature makes humanity Muslim. ‘It [Islam] is the natural constitution with which the child is created in his mother’s womb, whereby he is capable of

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accepting the religion of truth.’75 These unique, even amazing words are those of Ismail al-Faruqi (1921–86, murdered), an international Palestinian-American authority on Islamic theology and comparative religion and a professor of religion at Temple University, Pennsylvania.76 Al-Faruqi says, in effect, that any person will find it easy to absorb the principles of Islam and comprehend them. And, by extension, non-Muslim people will tolerate the presence of Muslims among them, including Muslims who come from abroad. The picture is therefore balanced: Muslims can live in the West and adopt Western norms. In their turn, by being witnesses, shuhada, to the truth and bearers of the shahada, the testimony about Tawhid, the oneness of God, that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is his Messenger, his Prophet, Muslims grant the truth to the world. Hence, both sides – Islam and the West – could mutually adjust and contribute to each other. The gaps, it is concluded, are not as wide as people may think and monotheism is the common denominator for Christians, Muslims and Jews. The renowned Muslim thinker and theologian Tariq Ramadan writes these very insights in highly articulate terms in his acclaimed seminal work, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam. Apparently, his vision is the Islam from which the West could adopt its universal insights. Ramadan, an Oxford University research fellow, was included in TIME magazine’s 2004 list of the world’s hundred most influential people. However, Britain’s Sun newspaper claimed that Ramadan is more dangerous than extremist clerics; his moderate tone makes him the ‘acceptable face of terror to impressionable young Muslims’. The US State Department revoked Ramadan’s work permit visa in 2004, ostensibly because he contributed to Muslim charities linked to terrorism, like Hamas. Ramadan then rejected the offer of a professorial position at Notre Dame University. When Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State his visa was restored. The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy labelled Ramadan as ‘one of the spokesmen for the most hard-line European Islamists’. The American commentators Daniel Pipes and Lee Smith accused him of being ‘a cold-blooded Islamist’, and the ‘Trojan horse of Jihad in Europe’.77 On the other hand, the British Independent newspaper declared Ramadan to be ‘one of the brightest hopes for achieving the reconciliation between Muslims and the rest of society which is perhaps the most pressing agenda for the post-bomb world.’ Thus, the Western perception of Muslim intellectuals like Ramadan is of ‘extremists’ and ‘terrorists’, while the Muslim masses brand the same intellectuals ‘too apologetic’, ‘too moderate’, and ‘Westernised’.78 In answering his critics, Ramadan showed that ‘it takes two to tango’, namely, that in the present European–Muslim encounter both sides bear the onus. He pointed to the Western difficulty of accepting a ‘church-goer’ Muslim; simulta-



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neously, he criticised the Muslims’ somewhat haughty stand vis-à-vis Western culture. Ramadan speaks for himself: I’m condemned from the Western point of view because I stand up for Muslim values. The West feels that the good Muslim is the less observant Muslim; that the practicing Muslim is a potential terrorist … Focusing exclusively on security is not the way to build mutual trust … [W]e must not tackle security in a way that undermines human rights and makes every Muslim feel discriminated against.

Similarly, he maintains that the Muslim ‘either/or’ view is also wrong: ‘This binary vision of reality, the Us versus Them, the idea that everything Western is decadent and un-Islamic.’ 79 According to Ramadan, after feeling safe, localising and orientating themselves in the West and using Western democratic and liberal norms to stabilise themselves, Muslims should change and reform the atheistic, economically motivated West by showing the latter the Muslim social and religious truth. The gist of this emerges directly from the Koran and is easily discernible in Muslim theology. Islam holds the truth for all humanity. ‘Say: “The East and the West are God’s. He guides whom He will to the right path.” We have made you a just community, so that you may testify against mankind’ (Koran 2:142–3). The whole world are Muslims, the entire world is a mosque. Therefore, a Muslim who lives in the West lives at home and in Muslim territory and should not feel like a member of an alienated minority. It is anachronistic to think and behave differently; the alienation that the first waves of Muslim immigrants felt in the West should now be replaced by viewing the West as their home. It is high time for Muslims to recognise their responsibility, to behave accordingly and tell their truth to the world, in particular to its secular, materialistic and economically motivated atheistic regions. The latter, as a result, would benefit greatly by becoming familiar and acquainted with Muslim truths and facts. Positive and constructive reform would then take place in the West. The West would then become a home for Muslims; Muslims might not be a minority there anymore; a Western Islam will flourish; surely Muslims will not have to go back to Muslim majority countries. As Tariq Ramadan writes, wherever a Muslim can fulfil his fundamental religious obligations and recite the shahada, his testimony or creed of being a witness to monotheism, to the oneness of God and to the Prophet’s being the apostle of God (‘I bear witness that there is no god but God and Muhammad is His messenger’ – ‘la ilaha illa’llah’ and ‘Muhammadun rasul Allah’) – then this person is at home. It is home because the Prophet preached that the whole world is a mosque. This means, writes Ramadan, that Muslims living in the

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West, individuals as well as communities, not only may live in and consider the West as their abode, but also carry a heavy responsibility: that of a person who dwells in a certain place and should care for this place and the people who live there. Therefore these Muslims should share their values, promote and develop the societies, the people and the places where they live in accordance with the Muslim faith and its religious principles. This vision reverses the perception based on the old concepts, which inevitably encouraged Muslims to adopt a reactionary stance as a minority and consequently led them to decide on, and work only to protect, their minimal rights. Even if this attitude was understandable during the first decades of the Muslim presence in the West and among the first generations of migrants, it should now have been superseded. It is high time to define the responsibilities of Muslims in the West, and first, with the insight provided by these considerations, we should be able to call the place where we live the Western abode. […] In the present new world order, which seems to have forgotten the Creator and to depend on logic that is almost exclusively economic, Muslims face the same responsibilities, particularly in industrialised societies. [Muslims, being] positive and sure of themselves, they must remind the people around them of God and spirituality, and when it comes to social issues, they must be actively involved in supporting values and morality, justice and solidarity. They should not submit to their environment, but, on the contrary, once their position is secure, they should be a positive influence within it. […]80

Expressing faith in the oneness of God (Tawhid) and in God’s revelation to the Prophet Muhammad, i.e., being witness to God’s greatness, lays on the Muslim the responsibility to remind others of the existence and presence of God. This he should do by behaving in accordance with Muslim principles and rules and by teaching and disseminating Islam – the missionary idea of da’wa, the spreading of Islam. This means to care for, to intervene and be involved in the society and community where a Muslim lives. Each area and aspect of the society that needs to be corrected and rectified is a place where Muslims are expected to be seen and felt: ‘unemployment, marginalization, delinquency, and so on’. The various institutions and the society are places for Muslims to be active, ‘[the] legal, economic, social, or political systems, with the aim of introducing more justice and real popular participation’.81 On another occasion Ramadan firmly clarified the difference between terrorists and people of his kind. The implicit message of the terrorists to Muslims is ‘this [the Western society] is not an Islamic society; it is not your society; we have to say it is your society’, insists Ramadan.82 Islam being a universal religion and Ramadan’s call to spread and share ‘the testimony’, ‘the shuhada’, could



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easily be interpreted as a campaign to Islamise Europe, despite its sweet coating of an innocent blueprint inviting Muslims to become involved rather than feeling alienated. ‘Christians in the one case, the Muslims in the other are the fortunate recipients of God’s final message to humanity, which it is their duty not to keep selfishly to themselves – like the Jews or the Hindus – but to bring to the rest of humanity, removing whatever obstacles there may be on the way.’83 Jews and Judaism do not consider theirs to be a universal mission; their geographic or social seclusion and separation are described as selfish and egoistic. Islamophobia perceives Islamisation as posing an existential threat to the future of Western culture and civilisation; alternatively, European Jewry (or what remains of it after 1945) is not described as a danger. True, historically, Jews were portrayed as a detrimental force that corrupts the world and changes it for the worse. We have already mentioned that Nazism, extreme nationalism and intolerance of the other (which eventually boomeranged, and the Jews were its chief victims) were described as pure Jewish products and their direct results. The copying by the Western world of the so-called haughty, biblically ordained Jewish trait, ‘It is a people that shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations’ (Num. 23:9; see chapter 3) has immersed the world in bloody and vicious wars of intolerance, ethnic cleansing and extermination. Suffice it to recall the British historian Arnold Toynbee, who declared that ‘the greatest calamity that happened to the Western world was because of its pollution by Judaism’. By becoming contaminated by Judaism, the West has absorbed Judaism’s most repulsive and loathsome aspects. For instance, the inequality of status in society was replaced by the ‘Jewish’ bad trait of the inequality of property. Hence, and not surprisingly, who if not Karl Marx (Jewish by origin) sustains Toynbee’s discoveries? It was Marx who complained that liberal-capitalist society was mendacious; with the abolition of elements of class, pedigree and the superiority of one religion over another, and the inequality and privilege that these entail, the inequality of property became overriding. Society was now motivated by ownership differences and these ‘Jewish traits’ would help people to maximise their property. This corroborated Toynbee’s concerns about the detrimental process of Judaisation, ascribing all the defects of Western civilisation to Judaism. Jewish greediness is thus behind Western society’s urge to maximise profits in every possible field: the economy, imperialism, trade, business, property, salaries, etc. In short, a process of Judaisation had come to plague Western society.84 Returning to the call to Muslims to actively involve themselves in Western culture, it is not clear if Sharia law permits Muslim political involvement in and cooperation with the democratic political system of the Western receiving countries. Tariq Ramadan raises several reservations concerning the i­ndividual

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Muslim’s ability to cooperate and be involved in a Western democratic political system. Elections and voting are not Koranic procedures; and, for its part, the democratic system does not recognise the authority of unelected, selfdeclared or self-chosen bodies, save perhaps that of constitutional monarchies. Democracy does not favour the allegiance paid by an individual to an unelected Muslim political leader. Ramadan also mentions that Muslim theology expects a Muslim to be loyal and dutiful only to another Muslim; i.e., if, in a conflict, a believer has to pay allegiance to a non-Muslim, then he should avoid becoming involved politically. A Muslim should accept the political authority of another Muslim, even if the latter does not prove to be an ideal ruler. ‘Believers, obey God and obey the Apostle and those in authority among you,’ is the Koranic proof (4:59) to rely on, suggesting that a Muslim should rather follow a (failed) Muslim leader than a non-Muslim leader. The prominent Lebanese theologian Faisal al-Mawlawi adds that the obligation to support a (failed) Muslim leader is valid only insofar as the latter does not transgress the principles of Islam.85 Also, Muslims who live in a non-Muslim country must not support a political system that negates Muslim values, e.g., granting certain rights to women and homosexuals.86 Ramadan suggests a way out of the maze. Muslims may be a minority within the receiving country, but if one considers their cultural, ethical and spiritual integrity, they excel and surpass the others.87 Muslims who reside in Europe should therefore use their talents and become like a Yusuf in European countries, and serve as Joseph, the biblical Hebrew, who served Pharaoh and saved ancient Egypt from famine. According to Islam, Yusuf (Joseph) was a Muslim. He was a monotheist, who was appointed by a pagan Pharaoh as his vizier, charged with responsibility for Egypt’s grain storehouses. His unique talents and integrity shone above all others, even though he belonged to a negligible minority group. Ramadan has called on the Muslims to put an end to their wailing and whining and their constant self-flagellation for being the long-suffering victims. Additionally, he calls on Muslims to be a party to public activity, ‘to step outside the ghettos’, to fully participate in the life of the city, to participate in the host countries’ democratic elections and to pay taxes, to object to the separation between Islam and the West, to become citizens rather than pursuing the life of an excluded minority that cares solely for its own interests, to vote, and hence to object to being treated like aliens. Muslims should care, be involved and be concerned for the Western societies where they live; these are their societies as well. ‘If Western societies are our societies – and they are – and if glaring injustices are visible and sometimes institutionalised, then we must say so and reject them and fight, with all the others who are fighting, to demand our rights, and



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not simply hope for kindness or say compassion.’88 At the same time, Ramadan insists on the preservation of Muslim identity and religious practice. Wailing, whining, grumbling and criticising the political authorities and the police; complaining and playing the eternal victim who, passively, does not attempt to change the situation for the better, is certainly not a solution. On the contrary, it only increases the maltreatment that Muslims experience. Ramadan’s criticism here is sharp and piercing: Posing always as victims is a kind of cowardice. To be up in arms at every police blunder when we have become passive observers of the breakdown of the social fabric and watch silently (without showing any inclination toward concrete involvement) when young people display unspeakable violence and steal and assault and insult adults in their communities (particularly the police) does not make much sense and is, above all, unworthy. Obviously, there are police failures, but they increase in number as public resignation increases.89

It is worthy of note that the ‘Yusuf/Joseph model’ has also aroused the opposite reactions. Mikael Tossavainen, who writes about Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism in Sweden, noted that ‘distorted accounts’ that speak of ‘Joseph becoming the viceroy of Egypt [are] cited as an example of Jews’ striving for political and economic control’ in their receiving countries, ‘with Joseph being compared to Mussolini’. Muslim Yusufs might arouse similar antagonism from certain Islamic sources.90 Jews, living as minorities for almost 2,000 years, developed juridical codices and laws that enable acceptance of and adaptation to the law of the state. Their success is mixed. In spite of this partial adaptation (or perhaps because of it?) Jews remained the ultimate other till their bitter end. But, living in accordance to the receiving country’s law indicates a certain degree of integration. If it also means the loss of cultural, ethnic and religious heritage, i.e., assimilation to the point where people no longer consider themselves Jewish (or their communities do not count them as such), then it might be that the Jewish Dina de-Malchuta Dina (used here as an allegory for integration) is not a recommended model for emulation. Muslim immigrants who lack the tradition of adaptation to the culture, law and norms of the receiving country and who in principle are supposed to object to living among non-Muslims have recently started to rethink and re-interpret Islamic law for those who choose or are forced to live as minorities. The religious and biblical precedents (Joseph/Yusuf) mentioned in this chapter point to similarities but also differences between Jews and Muslims who live among a Christian majority. The next chapter will elaborate on the collision course on

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which Muslims and Jews occasionally find themselves when living in Europe. Despite the similarities and common issues that might encourage cooperation and synergic acts, one finds that overall harmony is not the prevailing pattern in Muslim–Jewish relations in Europe today.

Notes  1 Sam Vaknin, Digital Journal, ‘Op-Ed: Muslims are Europe’s new Jews?’ (26 July 2011), http://digitaljournal.com/article/309558 (accessed 2 November 2015).  2 Deutsche Welle, ‘Dual citizenship is a touchy subject in Germany’ (9 November 2013), www.dw.com/en/dual-citizenship-is-a-touchy-subject-in-germany/a-17215322.  3 Ibid.  4 Jeffrey Goldberg, ‘Is it time for the Jews to leave Europe?’ Atlantic Events (7 April 2015), www.theatlantic.com/live/events/is-it-time-for-the-jews-to-leave-europe/2015/ (accessed 2 November 2015). Goldberg quoted the American businessman Ronald Lauder, the President of the World Jewish Congress, who said that Europe ‘looks more like 1933 than 2015’. Lauder mentioned Jews who are afraid to wear a kippah (yarmulke) on the streets of European cities, as well as the vandalising of Jewish stores and attacks on synagogues. Goldberg objected to Lauder’s comparison, calling it ‘irresponsible’, and noted two profound differences between 1933 and 2015 – the State of Israel and the attitude of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Ibid.  5 Michel Gurfinkiel, ‘No future in France: Dire times for French Jews’, The Middle East Forum, PJ MEDIA (Philadelphia, 12 August 2012), www.meforum.org/3304/ french-jew (accessed 2 November 2015).   6 Rabbi Hanina lived through the destruction of Second Temple of Jerusalem in the first century ce. The Hebrew Mishnaic origin is: ‫ ֱהוֵי מִתְ ַ ּפ ֵלּל‬:‫ַר ִבּי ֲחנִינָא ְסגַן הַכ ֹּ ֲהנִים אֹומֵר‬ ‫ פרק‬,‫ מסכת אבות‬,‫ אִ יׁש אֶ ת ֵרעֵהּו ַחיִּים ָ ּבלָעּו (משנה‬,‫מֹוראָ ּה‬ ָ ‫ שֶ ׁאִ ְל ָמלֵא‬,‫ִבּשְ ׁלֹומָּה שֶ ׁל ַמלְכּות‬ ‫)’ג’ משנה ב‬.  7 Shammai Fishman, ‘The doctrine of Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat according to the writings of Taha Jaber al-Alwani and Yusuf al-Qaradawi’ (MA dissertation, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, April 2006), p. 8 (Hebrew). See also Shammai Fishman, Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat: A legal theory for Muslim minorities (Hudson Institute, Center on Islam, Democracy and the Future of the Muslim World, Monograph series, No. 1 (19 October 2006), https://hudson.org/content/researchattachments/attachment/1148/20061018_​ monographfishman2.pdf (accessed 2 November 2015) .  8 Fishman, ‘The doctrine of Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat’, pp. 47, 53.  9 Yasir Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Centre of Islamic Studies, in association with the Universities of Exeter and Westminster, January 2012), p. 44, www.cis.cam.ac.uk/reports/post/10-contextualising-islam-in-britain-ii (accessed 2 November 2015). 10 Claudia Corsi, ‘“Muslim communities” path in Europe: From acknowledgement to



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legal recognition’, paper submitted to the 13th Mediterranean Research Programme, Mediterranean Program of the Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Montecatini Terme, 21–24 March 2012; Susanne Olsson, ‘Contested Islamic authority: Europe as an “abode of Islam”?’ paper submitted to the 13th Mediterranean Research Programme, Mediterranean Program of the Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Montecatini Terme, 21–24 March 2012. Vaknin, ‘Op-Ed: Muslims are Europe’s new Jews?’ Ibid. Olsson, ‘Contested Islamic authority’. Ibid. Maïa de la Baume, ‘More in France are turning to Islam, challenging a nation’s idea of itself’, New York Times (3 February 2013), www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/world/ europe/rise-of-islamic-converts-challenges-france.html?pagewanted=28&-r=0&_​ r=0 (accessed 2 November 2015). Ibid. ‘Anelka denied that it was an anti-Semitic gesture, said instead that it was an “antiestablishment and anti-Zionist” move’, see BBC Sport Football, ‘Nicholas Anelka: West Brom striker defends goal celebration’ (29 December 2013); Adam LeBor, ‘Exodus: Why Europe’s Jews are fleeing once again’, Newsweek (29 July 2014), www.newsweek. com/2014/08/08/exodus-why-europes-jews-are-fleeing-once-again-261854.html (accessed 2 November 2015). Vivienne Walt, ‘No laughing matter: Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala has become star by targeting France’s Jews’, TIME (8–15 September 2014), pp. 25, 26; http://time. com/3206308/no-laughing-matter/ (accessed 2 November 2015). Ibid., p. 25. Ibid., pp. 25, 26. Walt, ‘No laughing matter’, p. 26. Ibid. Ibid. LeBor, ‘Exodus: Why Europe’s Jews are fleeing once again’. Duncan White, ‘Franck Ribéry the man to challenge Lionel Messi and Barcelona’, Telegraph (4 April 2009), www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/ champions-league/5099857/Franck-Ribery-the-man-to-challenge-Lionel-Messi-andBarcelona.html; Mikey Stafford, ‘Franck Ribéry’s career timeline’, Guardian (5 May 2009), www.theguardian.com/football/2009/may/05/franck-ribery-career-timeline-biography (accessed 2 November 2015). Ramdane Belarmi, ‘French rapper stuns fans, makes first TV appearance wearing hijab’, Al Arabiya News (1 October 2012), http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/​ 2012/10/01/241253.html (accessed 2 November 2015). Ibid. Didier Leschi, in charge of religious affairs, French Interior Ministry, quoted in ibid. ‘Awf ibn Malik is the only one who reported this Hadith, but its isnad is acceptable.

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Isnad is the chain of authorities or testimonies leading eventually to the Prophet, thus attesting to the historical authenticity of a particular Hadith. See http://www.ahlusunnah.com/threads/30071-Hadith-Erkl%C3%A4rung-Kommt-eine-Gruppe-derChristen-und-Juden-ins-Paradies (accessed 29 November 2015). See also Sunan Ibn Majah, The Book of Tribulations, Hadith No. 3992, narrated from ‘Awf bin Malik. 30 Kristin Zahra Sands, Sufi Commentaries on the Quran in Classical Islam (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 7. 31 William Montgomery Watt, The Faith and Practice of Al-Ghazali (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1953), pp. 14–16. 32 Sands, Sufi Commentaries on the Quran, p. 148, n. 3. 33 Al-Ghazali, Jawair al-Qur’an (The Jewels of the Qur’an), quoted in ibid., p. 7. 34 Pirkei Avot, chapter 5 and Mishnah 22. Rabbi Ben Bag Bag was an early Tanna, i.e., a Jewish sage whose views are recorded in the Mishnah. He was probably a disciple of Hillel the Elder, one of the most important figures in Jewish history, and lived in the century before the destruction of the Second Temple, c. 70 ce. He was probably a converted Jew, or the son of a Jewish converted mother: the Hebrew acronym B”G (‫)בן גרים = ב”ג‬, means a son of a converted woman. The second B”G means that his father was also a son of a converted mother. 35 Herbert Berg, ‘The Isna¯d and the production of cultural memory: Ibn Abba¯s as a case study’, Numen, International Review for the History of Religion, 58 (2011), 262–3. 36 Al-Hafiz Ahamd Ibn ‘Ali Ibn Hajar al-’Asqalani, Fath al-Bari bi-Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari (The Creator’s Help in commenting on al-Bukhari’s Sahih) (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1993 [1414]), 9:20–30 (Arabic). See also ‘Izz al-Din Ibn al-Athir Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali Ibn Abi al-Karam Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Karim Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahid Al-Shaybani, Usd al-Gaba fi Ma’rifat al-Sahaba (The lions of the thicket in the acquaintance with the Companions of The Prophet) (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-’Ilmiyya, 1994), vol. V, p. 372. I am indebted to Dr Muhammad al-Atawneh of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev for his help; Dr Livnat Holtzman of Bar-Ilan University; Prof Meir Hatina, Dr Roy Vilozny and Mr Yoni Sheffer of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 37 Sands, Sufi Commentaries on the Quran, pp. 9, 12, 13. Surat al-Fatihah (Koran 1: 1–7): ‘In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Praise be the God, Lord of the Universe, The Compassionate, the Merciful, Sovereign of the day of Judgement! You alone we worship, and to You alone we turn for help, The path of those you have favoured, Not to those who have incurred Your wrath, Nor of those who have gone astray.’ 38 Claude Gilliot, ‘Traditional disciplines of Qur’anic studies’, Encyclopedia of the Qur’an, Brill Online Reference Works, www.academia.edu/8177080/Gilliot _​Cl​a​u​de_​Traditional_​disciplines_​of_​Qur_​anic_​studies_​EQ_​Encyclopaedia_​of​_ ​the​_​Qur_​an_​V_​2006_​p._​318-339_​scilicet_​%CA%BFUl%C5%ABm_​al-Qur%CA %BE%C4%81n_​%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%88%D9%85_​%D8%A7%D9%84%D9% 82%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86 (accessed 2 November 2015). 39 Ibid. 40 Karen-Lise Johansen Karman, ‘Interpreting Islamic law for European Muslims: The



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role of the work of the European Council for Fatwa and Research’, in Jorgen S. Nielsen (ed.), Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, vol. 3 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), pp. 655–93. An excellent, solid research work on this issue. David Stavro, ‘The situation becomes Islamic’, Musaf Haaretz (Haaretz’s weekend magazine, 20 February 2015), p. 34 (Hebrew). Fishman, ‘The doctrine of Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat’, p. 114; Fishman, Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat: A legal theory’. Fishman, ‘The doctrine of Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat’, pp. 92–3; Fishman, Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat: A legal theory’. Johansen Karman, ‘Interpreting Islamic law’, p. 675. Ibid., p. 685. Ibid., p. 689. Fishman, ‘The doctrine of Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat’, p. 86; Fishman, Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat: A legal theory. For burial and cemetery services for Muslims in 46 European states, see Nielsen, Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, vol. 3. On Muslims living as minorities within non-Muslim majorities, see Johansen Karman, ‘Interpreting Islamic law’, p. 670. Olsson, ‘Contested Islamic authority’. Dina Lisnyanski, ‘Islamic da’wa (propaganda) in Europe: France and Italy as case studies’ (PhD dissertation, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2013), chapter 7 (Hebrew). Johansen Karman, ‘Interpreting Islamic law’, pp. 673, 683. Fishman, ‘The doctrine of Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat’, pp. 54–5; Fishman, Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat: A legal theory. Fishman, ‘The doctrine of Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat’, p. 99; Fishman, Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat: A legal theory. Bettina Graf and Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen (eds), Global Mufti: The Phenomenon of Yusuf al-Qaradawi (London: Hurst and Company, 2009); Johansen Karman, ‘Interpreting Islamic law’, p. 662; Tulin Daloglu, ‘Erdogan defends Brotherhood’s Qaradawi after arrest warrant’, Al Monitor (12 December 2014), www.al-monitor.com/pulse/orig​ inals/2014/12/qaradawi-egypt-turkey-interpol-arrest-warrant-brotherhood.html (accessed 2 November 2015). The Muslim Brotherhood was established in Egypt in 1928 by the Muslim scholar Hassan al-Banna. It is considered the most influential and among the largest movements in the Arab world. Its aim is to establish the Koran and the Sunnah version of Islam as the organisational framework for Muslim individuals and communities. Daloglu, ‘Erdogan defends Brotherhood’s Qaradawi’; also Jerusalem Post, ‘Top Sunni Muslim cleric al-Qaradawi does about face, opposes suicide bombings’, (29 July 2015), www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Top-Sunni-Muslim-cleric-al-Qaradawi-doesabout-face-opposes-suicide-bombings-410483 (accessed 2 November 2015). ‘Houston, we have a problem’ is the call that the Apollo 13 moon flight astronauts made to Houston mission control on 14 April 1970 to report a major technical problem. Zvi Konikov, ‘Shabbat in space, the legacy of Ilan Ramon’, Chabad.org (February

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2008). Konikov is the co-director of Chabad of the Space & Treasure Coasts, Florida. www.chabad.org/library/article_​cdo/aid/632169/jewish/Shabbat-in-Space.htm (accessed 2 November 2015). Judaic Responsa, Bar-Ilan University Responsa – Global Jewish Database, www.biu. ac.il/jh/Responsa/history.htm (accessed 2 November 2015). Laurie Goodstein, ‘Poll shows major shift in identity of U.S. Jews’, New York Times (1 October 2013), www.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/us/poll-shows-major-shift-inidentity-of-us-jews.html?_​r=0 (accessed 2 November 2015). Gabriel Roth, ‘American Jews are secular, intermarried, and assimilated’ (3 October 2013), www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2013/10/american_​jews_​embrace_​ your_​secular_​intermarried_​selves.html (accessed 2 November 2015). See also the novel, Gabriel Roth, The Unknowns (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2013). Goodstein, ‘Poll shows major shift in identity of U.S. Jews’. Alan Cooperman, Deputy Director, the Pew religion project, quoted in ibid. Ibid. Peter Walker and Matthew Taylor, ‘Far right on rise in Europe, says report’, Guardian (Sunday, 6 November 2011), www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/06/far-rightrise-europe-report (accessed 2 November 2015). The authors say that this view is espoused most vocally by Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom. Baron Bodissey, ‘The Gates of Vienna: The New York Times and Sweden – the dark side of paradise’, http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/05/new-york-times-andsweden-dark-side-of.html (accessed 4 September 2015). David Van Biema and Jeff Israely, ‘The passion of the Pope’, TIME (27 November 2006), p. 24, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1561120,00.html; Colin Nickerson, ‘As a mosque rises, a dispute flares in Berlin’, Boston Globe (9 January 2007), www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2007/01/09/as_​a_​mosque_​rises_​ a_​dispute_​flares_​in_​berlin/ (accessed 2 November 2015, partial article). Tariq Ramadan, ‘A struggle over Europe’s religious identity – Editorials & Commentary –­ International Herald Tribune’, in New York Times (20 September 2006), www.nytimes. com/2006/09/20/opinion/20iht-edramadan.2876272.html?_​r=0. Rose Cohen, ‘Bali, Australia and the Mossad’, Sydney, Rense.com (17 October 2002), http://rense.com/general30/balias.htm (accessed 2 November 2015). Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, ‘Under the skin of Britain’s neo-nationalists’ (7 March 2013), Politics UK, www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2013/03/07/analysisunder-the-skin-of-britain-s-neo-nationalists (accessed 2 November 2015). Matt Carr (quoting Christopher Caldwell), ‘Christopher Caldwell dissected’, book review of Christopher Caldwell, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West (New York: Doubleday, 2009), Institute of Race Relations, 2 July 2009. For review, see www.irr.org.uk/2009/july/ha000011.html (accessed 2 November 2015). Dana Herman, ‘These people are Nazi supporters’, Haaretz (21 September 2010). The burqa is a long, woman’s garment that covers the entire head including the eyes, which are covered with transparent material (no slit).



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71 Bhikhu Parekh, The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain: The Parekh Report, The Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain (London: The Runnymede Trust, 2000). The commission was set up in January 1998 by the Runnymede Trust, an independent British think-tank. The Commission’s report, which was the product of two years of deliberation, is known also as The Parekh Report. 72 Bhikhu Parekh, ‘Muslims in Britain’, Prospect Magazine (July 2003), issue 88. 73 Ibid. 74 Lisnyanski, ‘Islamic da’wa (propaganda) in Europe’. 75 Isma’il al-Faruqi, quoted in Lisnyanski, ‘Islamic da’wa (propaganda) in Europe’, chapter 5; Isma’il, al-Faruqi, ‘The nature of Islamic da’wah’, in Christian Mission and Islamic Da’wah: Proceedings of the Chambesy Dialogue Consultation (Leicester, UK: The Islamic Foundation, 1982), p. 37. See also Yasien Mohamed, ‘The definition of fitrah’, extracted from Yasien Mohamed, Fitra: The Islamic Concept of Human Nature (London: TA-HA Publishers, 1996), www.angelfire.com/al/islamicpsychology/fitrah/fitrah. html (accessed 2 November 2015). 76 Quoted in Lisnyanski, ‘Islamic da’wa (propaganda) in Europe’, chapter 5; al-Faruqi, ‘The nature of Islamic da’wah’, p. 37; Mohamed, ‘The definition of fitrah’. Isma’il al-Faruqi and his wife, Lois Lamya, were stabbed to death in their home in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, on 27 May 1986. Their pregnant daughter was also attacked; fortunately she and the baby survived. Joseph Louis Young (aka Yusuf Ali), a convert to Islam, was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of the Faruqis. Young confessed that he had killed Ismail Faruqi because he suspected him of having homosexual relations with Malaysian students who attended his classes at Temple University. While on death row Young died of natural causes in February 1996. See, Point de bascule (Tipping Point), ‘Ismail Faruqi: Muslim Leader in Montreal (1958–67) and Founder of the Main Muslim Brotherhood Research Institute in the West (1981)’ (10 February 2012), available at: http://pointdebasculecanada.ca/ismail-faruqi-muslim-leader-in-mon​ treal-1958-1967-and-founder-of-the-main-muslim-brotherhood-research-institutein-the-west-1981/ (accessed 2 November 2015). Point de bascule is a Montreal-based French-language web magazine. 77 Bernard-Henri Lévy, ‘The other face of Tariq Ramadan’, Mobylives, 2004, www. mobylives.com/BHL.html (accessed 2 November 2015); Dina Abdel Magid, ‘Tariq Ramadan’s call for a moratorium: Storm in a tea cup’ (18 April 2005), www.onislam. net/english/shariah/contemporary-issues/critiques-and-thought/439960-tariq-ram​ adans-call-for-a-moratorium.html?Thought= (accessed 2 November 2015). 78 Abdel Magid, ibid. 79 Bruce Crumely, ‘Tariq Ramadan, the 2004 TIME 100, our list of the most influential people in the world’ (26 April 2004), http://content.time.com/time/specials/pack​ ages/article/0,28804,1970858_​1970909_​1971700,00.html (accessed 2 November 2015); Paul Vallely, ‘Tariq Ramadan: “We Muslims need to get out of our intellectual and social ghettos”’, Independent (25 July 2005), www.independent.co.uk/news/ people/profiles/tariq-ramadan-we-muslims-need-to-get-out-of-our-intellectual-andsocial-ghettos-500153.html (accessed 2 November 2015).

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80 Tariq Ramadan, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 72–5. 81 Ibid. 82 Vallely, ‘Tariq Ramadan’. 83 Bernard Lewis, ‘The 2007 Irving Kristol Lecture’, American Enterprise Institute Annual Dinner (7 March 2007), www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.25815/ pub_​detail.asp (accessed 2 November 2015). 84 Amikam Nachmani, ‘Two luminaries’ Middle Eastern correspondence: Jacob Talmon and Arnold Toynbee revisited’, Ha’Mizrach He’Hadash, 52:2 (May 2013): 308–34 (Hebrew); Amikam Nachmani, ‘Middle Eastern intellectual correspondence: Jacob Talmon and Arnold Toynbee Revisited’, Israel Affairs, 20:3 (July 2014): 1–29; Amikam Nachmani, Jacob Talmon: Combining Histories and Presents. On Universities, Intellectuals, Judaism and Politics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012), chapter 9: ‘Three historians, one conflict: Jacob Talmon, Arnold Toynbee and Menahem Begin, and the Arab-Israeli Dispute’, Part One: Talmon and Toynbee, pp. 199–236. 85 Lisnyanski, ‘Islamic da’wa (propaganda) in Europe’, chapter 3; Faysal al-Mawlawi, Al-usus al shariyya lil-alaquat bayna al-muslimin waghayr al-muslimin (The legal foundations of Muslim–non-Muslim relations ) (Paris: UOIF, 1987), p. 104. The Lebanese Tripoli-born scholar Faisal al-Mawlawi (1941–2009) was the deputy chairman of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, and was a close associate of Youssef Qaradawi. See the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report, http://globalmbreport. org/?p=4396 (accessed 2 November 2015). 86 Ramadan, Western Muslims, p. 159; Lisnyanski, ‘Islamic da’wa (propaganda) in Europe’. 87 Ramadan, Western Muslims, p. 6. 88 Ibid., p. 154. 89 Ibid., pp. 167, 169. 90 Mikael Tossavainen, ‘Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism in Sweden’, Jewish Political Studies Review, 17:3–4 (Fall 2005): 5 and n. 22, www.bjpa.org/Publications/downloadFile. cfm?FileID=2340 (accessed 2 November 2015).

6 A triangle in crisis: violence, aggression, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic phenomena [Anti-Semitism in France] is a much more complicated issue. On one hand you have the anti-Semitism of the ‘Islamists’. Close to it you have the radical-Left anti-Semitism coated as anti-Zionism. In front of them you have the traditional anti-Semitism of the radical-Right. Inexplicably, the three are linked to each other, and they are daily fed by the media that mainly brings news from the Middle East in which Israel is presented in a monstrous light. (Aliette Abecassis, quoted in Shlomo Papirblat, ‘Aliette doesn’t live here anymore’)1 The anti-Semitic dynamic changes between countries. In France and Belgium it is fuelled by the frustrations of young Muslims living in poor suburbs. In Germany the new anti-Semitism blends in with the old neo-Nazi elements. In Britain it feeds off parts of the radical Left who see Israeli Jews as colonialists. In Spain, Italy and Greece the Judeophobia feeds off resentment towards the global financial system, which is widely blamed for these countries’ economic woes and deep recession. In Hungary, where there are very few Muslims, anti-Semitism is part of a wave of ultra-­nationalism sweeping the country. And across Europe, the rise of anti-EU parties has also led to a repudiation of the vision of [a] borderless, tolerant, multicultural continent, which in many cases has also brought a return of the oldest European hatred. (Anshel Pfeffer, ‘Anti-Semitism in Europe: A crisis, but not yet a catastrophe’)2

Muslims and Jews may be said to share certain basic beliefs and similarities, the most obvious ones being monotheism and various ritual elements (circumcision, ban on eating pork, ritual slaughter, etc.). As shown above, Muslims, Jews and their cultures have both become targets for restrictions by Europeans, which should be a sure recipe for the two minorities to unite and cooperate. Notwithstanding the differences between Islam and Judaism, Europeans object to both religions. ‘Europeans are not culturally equipped to understand such nuances or to keep them in mind (far less than the Americans, who are more

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religious-minded, more conversant in Biblical matters, and more familiar with the Jewish way of life).’3 This having been said, it would be inaccurate and indeed dishonest if only the similarities and shared values and beliefs were emphasised, to the exclusion of the conflicting currents that presently exist in Europe and occasionally launch Jews and Muslims on a collision course. Thus, the number of anti-Semitic incidents has sharply increased in Western Europe since 2010, particularly in France and Germany. European history is experiencing a sense of déjà vu: in the Porte de Vincennes, Paris neighbourhood siege of a Jewish supermarket in January 2015; earlier, in March 2012, when three Jewish children and their rabbi were murdered at the Ozar Hatora School in Toulouse; and in Brussels, at the Jewish Museum, where four people were gunned down in May 2014. These specific acts and others were committed by Muslims – immigrants, converts and returning European Jihadist fighters, veterans of the wars in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. In July 2014 the French government estimated that 800 French Jihadists were fighting in Syria, together with more than 500 from Britain; the number of Europeans who have gone to Syria to fight may now exceed 5,000. (It is not rare to find estimates three, four or more times greater than this figure.4) Fighting in the name of Islam wherever it is attacked by the kufr, the infidels, is seen as a means to solidify the nation of Islam, the ummah. In a nutshell, second- and third-generation Muslims in Europe have lost any affiliation to their parents’ and forefathers’ countries of origin. This is coupled to a deep sense of alienation and estrangement within their European host countries. These young people become Jihadists who nurture a contempt for the artificial borders that the colonial world imposed on the Muslims in the Middle East and Africa. They believe that these borders were deliberately demarcated to divide the nation of Islam and split it into scores of artificial nation-states. They equally despise integration or participation in public affairs or in the police and military service of their European states. Muhammad Merah, the killer of the Jewish teacher and pupils in Toulouse, had previously assassinated two French Muslim paratroopers (see below). One of the Kouachi brothers, who in January 2015 massacred the Charlie Hebdo journalists, strongly objected to the idea of Muslims participating in the French presidential elections. ‘For these lunatics [the Kouachis], when we practice and teach moderate Islam – actual Islam – we’re non-believers.’5 With mass migration from Africa and the flight of refugees from the Middle East, Muslim nationalism is being spread worldwide and has become a war without borders which can strike anywhere without warning. The latest manifestation of extremist Islamic terror is the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State in Syria and the Levant (ISIL) – Daesh in Arabic – headed by a



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caliph. The title ‘caliph’ means substitute, successor or deputy of God; the leaders of the Muslim nation, the ummah, took this title following the death of the Prophet Muhammad in ce 632.The present self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was born in 1971 in Samarra, Iraq and fought the American army following its 2003 invasion of Iraq.6 This movement and others like it – al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. – and their charismatic leaders inspire the young Muslims to become Jihadis. Indeed, each act of jihad has a domino effect somewhere else. Among the European Jihadists is Mehdi Nemmouche, a French national of Algerian origin who was accused of the attack in the Brussels Jewish Museum. Nemmouche, a convicted robber who was imprisoned in France for five years, spent 2013 in Syria fighting for the radical Muslim rebels. He returned to Europe in March 2014 and began making preparations for the May killings in Brussels.7 Cherif and Said Kouachi boasted a similar history: they were French Muslim brothers, born in Paris to parents of Algerian descent, who in early January 2015 murdered two policemen and 10 journalists (among them the editor and four cartoonists) of the editorial board of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. They were later killed by the French police. Previously, the two brothers had been sentenced to short terms in prison for terrorist offences, including fighting in Iraq and Syria. At least one of the brothers, Said, travelled in 2005 and 2011 to the home base of al-Qaeda’s most active terror cell in Yemen, where he received formal training and indoctrination and learned to use weapons. Both brothers later travelled to Syria to fight with the Muslim militias against the army of the Assad regime.8 A third accomplice, Amedi Coulibaly, killed a French policewoman and four Jewish hostages when seizing a kosher grocery store in Paris on 9 January 2015, simultaneously with the Kouachi brothers’ terror attack. He was killed by the French police. He too was closely connected to Yemen’s al-Qaeda branch. Since 2008, Muslims are reportedly over-represented – close to 27 per cent – as responsible for anti-Semitic incidents perpetrated in Europe, far more than their relative average population on the continent, about 5–6 per cent. Correspondingly, the left wing is said to be behind 22 per cent of serious antiSemitic incidents and extreme rightists behind 19 per cent.9 French Interior Minister Manuel Valls further refined these statistics. He declared that the antiSemitic threat in France ‘does not appear from foreigners, it appears to be French converts [to Islam]’.10 Indeed, a 33-year-old Muslim convert identified as Jeremy Louis Sidney, a convicted drug trafficker, threw a grenade at a kosher grocery shop in Sarcelles, Paris in September 2012; hours later, blanks were fired outside a Paris synagogue. Sidney was later killed in a French police raid on a house in Strasbourg in early October 2012.11

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Violent attacks on Jews have many ramifications. Where weapons have been used in such incidents, Jews in many French cities commonly remove their skullcaps (yarmulkes) when in public; reports repeatedly describe Muslims attacks on French Jews who wear Orthodox garb. In parallel, anti-Israel de-legitimisation has risen sharply in Europe, emanating from the Left and Muslim communities. In response to this tense atmosphere, high concrete walls have been erected around many French synagogues, which also receive special police protection, especially on Sabbaths and festivals. Jewish graveyards are regularly vandalised, generally by far-right indigenous vigilantes, who are also accused of desecrating Muslim cemeteries and mosques.12 In France, 2004 was a record year for antiJewish attacks, totalling 950. The year 2005 saw a sharp decrease. However, since 2006 between 500 and 1,000 attacks have occurred annually, mostly committed by young Muslims. While the total number of such events worldwide fell from 614 to 446 during 2011, in that year violent incidents in France rose by 45 per cent on the year 2010. In 2011 France recorded 114 incidents; by comparison, the UK had 105, Canada 68 and Australia 30.13 These clashes are all too frequent to be explained away as mere ‘episodes’. A survey conducted in spring 2005 reveals that 39 per cent of practising French Muslims show a high degree of anti-Jewish prejudice and more than 20 per cent of Muslim university graduates exhibit significant anti-Jewish sentiment.14 Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in December 2008–January 2009 against rocket attacks from Palestinian Muslim militias in Gaza brought about widespread, large-scale Muslim (and European) demonstrations. In Oslo, Norway, one target was McDonald’s fast-food restaurants because of a rumour that the chain is owned by Jews and donates money to the Israeli war effort. Text messages charging that the Saturday profits of one McDonald’s go to Israel incited many demonstrators to attack five of the Norwegian outlets, two of which were declared total write-offs.15 Likewise, organisations monitoring anti-Jewish incidents in Britain reported a dramatic increase following the Gaza operation, such as ‘Kill the Jews’ slogans daubed on walls and bus shelters in Jewish neighbourhoods, Jewish children abused in school playgrounds, synagogues fire-bombed and physical assaults on Jews wearing yarmulkes or Hassidic shtreimel fur hats.16 Cooperation between anti-Israel leftist circles and Muslims (the ‘red-green alliance’)17 is a known phenomenon in Europe. In London a self-declared socialist and lesbian woman reportedly plastered a poster on the wall of her house saying, ‘We are all Hezb’Allah now!’ in support of the Lebanese Shiite terror organisation’s 2006 summer war against Israel. Some people wondered, given her sexual and political orientation, whether she was aware of the kind of dogmas Hezb’Allah, the Party of God (Allah), and its Iranian mentors uphold and fight for and the nature of their attitudes and actions towards people like herself, even



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if they take an anti-Israel stand in public. Islam views homosexuality as a crime. Since the years 2005–6 Iran has hanged dozens of homosexuals and imprisoned, tortured and executed thousands of socialists since its establishment in 1979.18 Alas, the Left’s anti-Zionist, anti-Israel agenda, including the de-legitimising of Israel’s right to exist, produces deep-seated anti-Semitic manifestations. As Colin Shindler reveals in his thoughtful New York Times article ‘The European Left and its trouble with Jews’,19 leftists across the continent perceive the Muslim newcomers as the new working class, the new proletariat. To win them over to their political agenda, they support the Palestinian cause.20 Along the way, inevitably, anti-Israel views have deteriorated into anti-Semitic expressions (‘de-legitimisation of the state will end with de-legitimisation of the people’) which arouse only equivocal objections. There is reluctance on the part of the European Left to take a clear stand when anti-Zionism spills over into antiSemitism. ‘Such Israelophobia, enunciated by sections of the European Left, dovetailed neatly with the rise of Islamism among Palestinians and throughout the Arab world’. Shindler’s article makes connections between the Toulouse Muslim anti-Jewish violence and the murder of French Jews, and the European Left’s ambiguous reactions to such crimes. Islam, Arab culture and Muslims are perceived as victims of the West and Israel; Middle Eastern inputs as well as the Arab–Israeli and the Palestinian–Israeli conflicts feed these images and emotions. Shindler uses a host of examples and events to prove that the prevalence of an anti-Jewish alliance coupled with anti-Israel manifestations produces a commonality of views between Europeans and Muslims. Among the examples that he cites are: the Spanish Civil War, the Holocaust, the struggle for decolonisation, Che Guevara, America’s Black Panthers, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, the Vietnam War, South African Apartheid, Rhodesia and Israel being a party to the Western capitalist reactionary machinations against the colonial world, the vulnerable and persecuted Jews as against the modern-day ‘Prussians’ who rule in Israel, Jean Paul Sartre, the FLN war for Algerian independence, Israeli settlements in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip after the June 1967 Six Day War, London’s mayor Ken Livingstone and his ugly anti-Jewish utterances, the mass protests against the 2003 American invasion of Iraq. In Shindler’s opinion, this compatibility of views and images resulted in the March 2012 hate murders of a Jewish teacher and students in Toulouse by a Muslim terrorist.21 Newsweek’s July 2014 analysis of current European anti-Semitism and the resulting emigration of thousands of Jews from Europe to safer havens (or to places that grant them a sense of belonging) appeared when the 2014 war in Gaza was still raging. An intense period of ugly and violent anti-Jewish episodes was recorded at that time, particularly in Europe. The Newsweek article corroborated Shindler’s insights: European Jews were verbally and physically attacked,

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as well as their synagogues, community centres and businesses. ‘From Amiens to Athens, the world’s oldest hatred flourishes anew. For some, opposition to Israeli policies is now a justification for open hatred of Jews – even though many Jews are strongly opposed to Israel’s rightward lurch, and support the establishment of a Palestinian state.’ Newsweek’s correspondent Adam LeBor added the observation that ‘[t]hese people were not attacked because they were showing support for the Israeli government. They were attacked because they were Jews, going about their daily business’.22 On the one hand, the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, an event clearly external to Europe, arouses anti-Israel and anti-Jewish expressions and provokes European Muslims to take action. On the other hand, the rise (or decline, as may be) of anti-Semitism in Europe is strongly associated with developments within Europe. Unemployment, economic recession, high prices and fears of an oil shortage, animosity towards Jewish businesses that are perceived to be successful at the expense of Europeans and European interests, social and economic problems on the continent and the political rise of far-right parties like the Golden Dawn in Greece and Jobbik in Hungary all contribute considerably to anti-Jewish phenomena.23 Despite the above observations, the linkage between Middle East developments and anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions among Muslim immigrants requires further explanation. Largely, this linkage and the reactions to it are said to be the exception, making the Palestinian–Israeli conflict a sui generis case. A few thousand European Sunni Muslims volunteered to support and fight for ISIS. Very few have joined the armed Palestinian organisations that fight against Israel. Fraser Cameron has noted that Muslim communities in Europe are primarily concerned with local and daily issues such as freedom of religion in Europe, retaining ethnic and cultural mores, securing employment, rather than with external affairs. Questions related to education, schooling, headscarves, Halal slaughter, boys’ (and girls’) circumcision, arranged marriages, the building of mosques and minarets attract the immigrants’ attention much more than do foreign affairs.24 It is true that the armed conflicts in Chechnya, Bosnia, Afghanistan, the US invasion of Iraq, the war in Kosovo, the 1990s Algerian civil war, the Kurds in Turkey and the 2015 mass migration from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan have all aroused protests and demonstrations among Muslims in Europe. Muslim activists have even attempted to pressure European countries and the EU to intervene on behalf of the victims in these arenas of war, but the main demands have been for humanitarian measures.25 However, the Palestinian–Israeli conflict has provoked much more than calls for humanitarian action. It sets off anti-Israel and anti-Jewish protests and demands to boycott Israel and Israeli products; it sparks



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political attempts to rethink European policies towards Israel, foments campaigns to act against Israeli settlement activity in the territories occupied in June 1967 and to boycott products and goods produced there; and it incites attacks on Jewish communities in Europe – attacks that use the Palestinian conflict as a pretext. Occasionally, bloody violence and armed aggression erupt against Israel and Israelis, and against Jewish lives, institutions, cemeteries and buildings. The segregated immigrant neighbourhoods promote a hothouse atmosphere where Arabs and Muslims in Europe actively conduct a cultural and political discourse that centres on their countries of origin.26 Thus, for the most part, Middle Eastern immigrants to Western countries bring with them the antiJewish baggage that their education and cultures bred into them in their mother countries. Their encounter with Jews in their new host countries (very few Jews remain in Arab and Muslim countries) permits them to vent their inherited sentiments and express these in both anti-Jewish and anti-Israel terms.27 These anti-Semitic perceptions and attitudes are often deeply ingrained and extremely difficult to overcome. Amr Bargisi and Samuel Tadros, two Egyptian liberals, conclude sadly that Egyptian and Arab anti-Semitism contribute heavily to the forces that bind Arab solidarity: [It] is not simply a form of bigotry: It is the glue binding the otherwise incoherent ideological blend, the common denominator among disparate parties. The Zionist conspiracy theory was not merely a diversion applied by the [President Hosni] Mubarak regime, as some suggested. It is a well-established social belief in Egypt, even among self-proclaimed liberals.28

Eric Justin, who writes for the Harvard University student newspaper (previously quoted in chapter 3), elaborates on his experience in the Arab countries. Justin, of Jewish origin, asserts that Egyptian anti-Semitism is part of a wider syndrome to be found also in other Arab countries and that it is highly functional in attaining the legitimacy that Arab states seek to acquire. Inflaming feelings of anti-Semitism and hatred of Judaism helped the relatively young Arab regimes (Arab nationalism and statehood is mainly the product of the interwar period, 1919–38) to deflect popular animosity and opposition away from themselves and towards world Jewry and Israel. ‘After all, I was a demon … every facet of society was a reminder that I was dirty,’ writes Justin about his visits to Jordan and Egypt and what he encountered and felt there. Bookshops, the media, conversations with people, conspiracy theories, interpretations of Islam and of the Koran, music, videos, television, radio programmes, newspapers – all exhibited and presented literature, articles, explanations, interpretations, etc. that ridiculed Jews and demonised Judaism. Add to this the defeats that the

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Arabs experienced in conflicts with Israel and one sees a disproportionate level of hatred and racism. ‘I anticipated encountering anti-Semitism, but … I could not anticipate, nor could I have truly imagined, its systemic nature. … Quite simply, one cannot understand mass politics in the Arab world without admitting the role of anti-Semitism,’ concludes Justin.29 As noted, anti-Semitic manifestations among the various Muslim communities in Europe are reinforced by events in the greater Middle East and anti-Israel, anti-Western and anti-American sentiments. The Middle East – the theatre of many past and present confrontations between Muslims, Jews, Europeans and Americans – is the place where Muslims perceive themselves as the victims of Western violence. The Crusades are not forgotten and are often referred to, although indirectly: ‘I will not begin with the Crusaders. That is not the history behind the [present] “Jihadist death cult.” ’30 Still, the Palestinian uprisings of 1987 and 2000 (the Intifadas); the massacres of Muslims in Chechnya and Kashmir and of Gujarati Muslims in India; the wars in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan; Israel’s intermittent invasions and wars in Lebanon and Gaza – all serve as bloody reminders to Muslims, arousing grievances and wrath.31 The Egyptian Al-Ahram Weekly, in order to show that present-day Muslim grievances and violence have a history stained with Muslim blood, specified a long list of atrocities committed against the Arab and Muslim worlds: I could begin with the creation of a Jewish state in 1948 in lands inhabited by Palestinians; the 1956 invasion of Egypt by Britain, France and Israel; Israel’s preemptive war of 1967 against the Arab states; the meticulously planned destruction of Palestinian society in the West Bank and Gaza since 1967; the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, stretching from 1982 to 2000; the massacre of 200,000 Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s; the devastation of Chechnya in 1996 and since 1999; the brutalities against Kashmiris since the 1990s; the deadly sanctions against Iraq from 1990 to 1993 which killed one and a half million Iraqis; the pogrom against Gujarati Muslims in 2002; the United States invasion of Iraq in April 2003 which has already killed more than 200,000 Iraqis.32

Inevitably, as in every heated public debate, counter-views place the onus for the world’s violence and miseries on the inherent aggression associated with the Muslim religion. Muslims are accused of provoking wars in the Balkans, including Bosnia. These wars resulted in Muslims being defeated because of their miserable and pathetic performance. ‘If, for instance, Muslims meet with defeats in the Balkans it will certainly not have been for want of trying. It is more a tribute to their incompetence than their humanity. … Muslims’ defeats are a symptom, not a cause, of Muslim decline.’33 Violence is described as a pathological Muslim trait. Accordingly, Islam has used violence from its inception. If there were peri-



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ods with no Muslim violence, this was not because Muslims suddenly became peaceful, nice and tolerant, but because Western colonisation and its imposition of coercive means tamed endemic aggression. But following decolonisation, as soon as the colonial yoke was lifted, Muslims quickly and ‘naturally’ resumed violence. Osama bin Laden is brought in as evidence, such is the development and dynamics that history produces. But when Mr. bin-Laden talks to his fellow Muslims, he says something else entirely: ‘I was ordered to fight [non-Muslims] until they say that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is his prophet.’ … it is certainly orthodox Islam: Muslims must convert non-Muslims by force, if necessary, or otherwise kill them, unless they are exempted Christians or Jews [who are allowed to live as dhimmis.34] That is why Islam has been on the attack from its birth in the seventh century. Muhammad started fighting to force conversions and his followers continued fighting in all directions, successfully spreading Islam by force from Arabia to the wider Middle East, and across Asia. The only reason the continuity of Muslim aggression is news to some is because until recently almost all Muslim countries were under European colonial rule or subjected to European protectorates. Under Christian rule, Muslims could hardly continue to attack. With de-colonisation, the violence resumed. It has now reached virtually all places where Muslims are in contact with non-Muslims, so that there are almost daily reports of outrages from Nigeria, Sudan and Egypt in Africa; from Iraq (Christians are fleeing the country), Israel and Lebanon in the Middle East; from India, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia.35

We will not take issue with the historical validity of these accusations and counter-accusations. In fact, occasionally European public opinion and European governments have supported Muslim Bosnia against Christian Serbia; objected to Russia’s brutal suppression of Muslim Chechens; granted continuous support to the Palestinians and the Palestinian cause; supported the establishment of the independent state of Kosovo against Serbian policy; and granted large economic and political support to the three European countries with a Muslim majority – Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. This list notwithstanding, the events mentioned above in the Al-Ahram Weekly and its ilk often serve as the background and justification for the Muslim anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hostility and violence described in our work. The occasions when Muslims were perceived as victims resulted in a marked increase in acts of violence against Western interests and against Jews and Jewish institutions in Europe, and in the Muslim and Arab Middle East.36 Likewise, the 9/11 terror attacks on New York and Washington DC are not mentioned as examples of Muslim terrorism, but as symptomatic of the misguided and wretched international system. Politically, culturally and socially, the West (including Israel and the Jews) is the source of all evils:

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[T]he growing threat of a new imperialism which walked hand in hand with neoliberal global capital; the injustices in Middle Eastern countries, stretching from the monarchies and dictatorships which ruled virtually all of them (usually backed by the West) to the occupation of Palestine by Israel; and the inequalities of the world which led increasing numbers of young people to see the Western powers as their enemy.37

Young Muslims’ radical and extreme reactions to world dynamics shape Western and European perceptions and images of Islam in general and of Muslim immigrants in Europe in particular. Consequently, Islamophobia and Europhobia are directly related to events taking place in the greater Middle East, which lead to Muslim grievances around the globe. Ayhan Kaya summed up this phenomenon of Muslim solidarity with places and events worldwide where Muslims find themselves struggling and fighting for their causes. According to Kaya, it is not necessarily religious commandments or an endeavour for religious prevalence which motivates Muslims, but a sense of community and feelings of solidarity with their co-religionists. [There is] a correlation between the rise of the Islamophobic discourse in the West and the ongoing political crisis in the Middle East … [T]he current discourse of Islam and Muslims is inextricably bound with the issues of the protection of national security and of terrorism, which tends to frame all other issues concerning the Middle East. [T]he allegiance of post-migrant youth to Islam is not limited to their parents’ country, but extends to the worldwide Muslim community, especially involving solidarity with, and interest in, various ongoing struggles such as the Palestinian cause, and conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. For instance, the French banlieues [urban suburbs] are identified with Palestinians, Iraqis, and Afghans. … The reality in Europe today is that young Muslims are becoming politically mobilized to support causes that have less to do with faith and more to do with communal solidarity.38

Education, culture and anti-Semitism Among the contradictory attitudes and issues attached to the education received by young Muslims in today’s Europe are the following. The education and school system available to Muslim immigrant students; the learning imparted to them; the differences that exist between Western and Muslim educational institutions and their impact on the Muslim student; the schizophrenic situation in which Muslim immigrant students find themselves torn between Western and Muslim teachings; the perception of Muslim education as lacking and the ghettoisation that results from this inadequacy; poor education and the resulting



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gaps between immigrant students and Europeans of their age group; the literal interpretations that students draw from Muslim education and the uncompromising mind-set that they adopt vis-à-vis the secular, Western and atheist world around them; and the liberal, Western education that stresses the questioning and challenging of accepted beliefs, norms and prevailing thinking, in contrast to the dictated norms and compliance that Muslim religious education (and in fact, any religious education) requires from its students. The impact of this different style of education on relations between the immigrants, the European state and its society, and the European Jewish communities is crucial to the ‘triangle’ that this book presents. We have already mentioned the alienation that Muslim students feel in state elementary education. In France, for example, they learn about ‘our Gallic forefathers’ (see chapter 3) and their identity is torn between a secular education and the heritage of the receiving country, on the one hand, and the education and heritage of their faith, fathers and forefathers, on the other hand. The disconnect, frustration and animosity that ensue as they grow older soon become expressed in introversion and inwardness that often leads to juvenile delinquency, crime and confrontations with the police.39 The situation is more dire where students are exposed to private Muslim education (see below). This schooling is said to be detached from European realities. During afternoons and weekends in Muslim religious classes, youngsters are taught about the history and traditions of their or their parents’ sending countries, and contemporary Western realities are taught as something that Muslim students are not part of and should avoid. Consequently, they are indoctrinated with negative perceptions of the Western world that foster alienation and defiance towards their surrounding societies, often singling out the Jewish elements. The European state education is perceived as low quality and basically secular. It teaches the children, among other things, about the Judeo-Christian heritage (including the Holocaust); it provides mixed swimming and sports activities; and it gives sex education (including discussion about homosexuality).40 This causes many Muslim parents to seek alternative, private Muslim schooling. In Britain, for instance, the students’ native languages are non-existent among educators, with the result that teachers are much less attentive to the Muslim students’ needs and challenges. Thus, immigrant Muslims do poorly in school. Because of the language barrier, often only the imams are capable of helping students overcome their difficulties.41 Thus, the failings of the education system result in extremism, unemployment, crime and life on the dole. ‘Because of it [language] we lag behind “white” students; it eventually results in grievances and frustrations; this eventually translates into bombs,’ was one observation. Indeed, torn

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identities are extremely dangerous. These split or torn identities are described in Britain as a ‘shocking level of targeting of the Muslim c­ ommunity … [It] is indicative of the normalisation of dehumanisation of the Muslims of Britain.’ See the following sharp, even cruel charge sheet against Western education; it, not religion, is blamed for nothing less than producing idiots. The British establishment is wrong in thinking that Imams are to blame for extremism. Imams are not a solution to the problem for extremism. Extremism is nothing to do with Imams. Extremism is not created from abroad, it is coming from within. Britain fails to help Muslim communities feel part of British society. […] Muslim parents would like to see their children well versed in Standard English and to go for higher studies and research to serve humanity. The fact is that majority of Muslim children leave schools with low grades because monolingual teachers are not capable to teach Standard English to bilingual Muslim children. A Muslim is a citizen of this tiny global village. He/she does not want to become notoriously monolingual Brit. Terrorism and sexual grooming is nothing to do with Masajid [mosque], Imams and Muslim schools. Those Muslim youths who have been involved in terrorism and sexual grooming are the product of a Western education system which makes a man stupid, selfish and corrupt. They find themselves cut-off from their cultural heritage, literature and poetry. They suffer from identity crises and I blame British schooling.42

Alas, access to apparently better (i.e., private) schooling hardly meets the demand, quite aside from the fact that only the children of affluent parents are able to enrol because fees are high; in Britain it is a tiny minority of only 3 per cent.43 But worse, the Muslim private institutions lack educational infrastructure and produce the estranged and alienated student referred to above. An extreme, if not a cruel critique of this private Muslim schooling was produced by Tariq Ramadan. It is no more than technical memorisation, mechanical ritualism, the learning of dates and events, the negation of intellectual discussions and debates, laments Ramadan. It is something that definitely does not prepare these students for life in a Western culture; it surely creates parallel unequal worlds that hardly meet. Ramadan describes the negative views taught in such schools about Christians and Jews and Europe and the West. In general, whoever is not Muslim is one of ‘them’. Ramadan’s conclusion that the present Muslim education is totally detached from Western realities is threatening, if not terrifying. The gap between this Muslim schooling (on weekdays and in ‘Sunday schools’) and the reality that awaits its graduates is vast, in many cases cruel, inevitably producing ‘unhealthy schizophrenia’ (see quote below) and poor achievement. Occasionally, these frustrations are expressed in violence.



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Islamic education in Western societies … fall[s] very far short of responding to the needs of most Muslims. … [W]hat is now called ‘Islamic education’ is confined to the very technical memorization of Qur’anic verses, prophetic traditions, and rules without a real spiritual dimension. The learning of rituals spills over into mechanical ritualism, and the teaching that is offered is completely unconnected to American and European realities. It is as if the children still live ‘there’, and if one refers to ‘here’, it is above all to emphasise the defiance that the young should feel toward a society that is not ours, or theirs. So we find in this education the two failings against which the Islamic message has warned us … the reduction of spirituality to ritual technicalities, and the adoption of a dualistic and Manichean approach based on ‘us’ as opposed to ‘them’. This extends even to the life of the Prophet … which is reduced to a series of dates and events without real substance: one would have liked the young to love the ‘model’ [Muhammad], but he has been almost completely dehumanised by the content of the teaching. The educational methods are not much better. While the public school system teaches children to express themselves, give their opinions, and articulate their doubts and hopes, the exact opposite is found in some mosques and Islamic organisations. Here, one must be quiet and listen; there is no room for discussion, exchange, or debate. Many young people are asked to cope with a sort of double personality, an unhealthy schizophrenia, in which they learn to express themselves on every subject with ‘non-Muslims’ and become dumb (by giving the appearance of ‘religiously’ respecting everything they are told) when it comes to speaking about Islam or interacting with their religious teachers. They play the game of an education that has in fact lost its way. If we consider what is usually offered today to generations of young Muslims in the West, we become convinced that what is called ‘education’ (which should be the passing on of knowledge and of knowing how to be) is in fact an illadministered ‘instruction’, simply a handing on of knowledge based on principles, rules, obligations, and prohibitions, often presented in a cold, rigid, and austere manner, without soul or humanity. Some young people know by heart long suras (chapters) of the Qur’an and a dizzying number of verses and hadiths that have absolutely no impact on their daily behaviour; on the contrary, inevitably, they have taken on the outward form but have no contact with the base. Furthermore, young Muslims are very often taught to fix their ‘differentness’ by means of a critical and deprecatory discourse vis-à-vis the ‘Other’, the Westerner, ‘whom they must never resemble’. This outward value, fed during the weekend by the encouragement of a feeling of absolute Otherness, changes during the week in everyday life, precisely through contact with this ‘Other’, into an uneasiness and an inferiority complex almost impossible to live with. Eventually, the religious and spiritual education that is provided and that should give the young and not so young the means to confront the challenges of their society pushes them along one of three avenues: to pretend, to lose themselves in silence, or to reject everything and rebel.44

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Ramadan enquired about the reasons and motivations for the establishment of this private education system whose curricula and staff are practically outside of state inspection. The major reasons given for this private and practically autonomous Muslim education were to protect Muslim children from the ‘bad’ influence of the surrounding society; to distance them from the latter’s ‘unhealthy’ influence; and to make them live among Muslims. In Britain, these reasons were particularly valid with regard to Muslim girls (the majority of Muslim private schools are for girls). Hence, ‘the main concern is not to provide a comprehensive, coherent, in-depth education but above all to protect them from society. The school program often finishes at the lower secondary level, and girls find themselves forced to give up studying.’45 The school curricula and educational activities are all meant to serve these motivations. No wonder that the whole system results in Muslim parallel societies and ghettoisation. No wonder that ‘bussing’ (alas, with poor achievements) was needed in Bradford, England to enable – for the first time in their lives – ‘non-whites’ to meet ‘whites’, and ‘all-Asians’ to meet ‘all-whites’ (see chapter 3). It is a schooling system that promotes enclaves that according to Ramadan are no more than ‘artificially Islamic’; it is islands cut off from the surrounding society; it is Muslim graduates surrounded by young Europeans whom they rarely meet; it is the production of ways of life and parallel realities that are alienated and have no link with the society around them. Such are Ramadan’s severely critical impressions of the Islamic schools. True, these schools are in the West, ‘but apart from the compulsory disciplines, live in another dimension: while being not completely “here”, neither are they completely from “there”, and one would like the child to know who he is’.46 The Muslim’s existence in limbo that Ramadan describes, i.e., the poor Muslim education that produces students who are ‘neither here nor there’ is a sure recipe for alienation, frustration and extremism. Similarly, the fate of second- and third-generation immigrants is at risk: contacts and affiliation with the sending country and its heritage are, at best, theoretical. Equally, the influence of contemporary frustration and alienation vis-à-vis the receiving country is even stronger. It is not unusual to find that the outcomes of this schizophrenic life – equivocal existence and unclear identity – lead to extremism and violence. Muslim schools in Britain have been perceived, rightly or wrongly, as responsible for the segregation and radicalisation felt and pursued by young homegrown Muslims. They are certainly not the only community that attend religious schools in Britain: Anglican, Catholic and Jewish schools have been active in the United Kingdom for generations. In November 2010 the BBC’s Panorama programme revealed the amount of homophobia, extremism and anti-Semitism taught in private Muslim schools in Britain. This came three years after a BBC



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investigation found a Saudi-funded school in West London that was using texts that referred to Jewish people and Christians in derogatory terms. According to the BBC, in these Muslim weekend schools, or in classes that generally last for about two hours each evening, usually on mosque premises, children aged from six to eighteen years were taught anti-Semitic and homophobic views from textbooks.47 The children had to pick out the ‘reprehensible’ qualities of Jews from a list. Among the choices: all Jews are stingy, all Jews are rich, all Jews are powerful, mean, greedy, lustful, promiscuous, etc. The Zionist wish to establish Jewish world domination was one of the specified qualities. At that time, the 5,000 children in Britain’s Muslim private schools were learning that Jews are transformed from pigs and apes. Another text described the punishment for gay sex as death by execution and stated a difference of opinion as to whether this should be by stoning, burning or throwing the person over a cliff.48 Other textbooks taught the correct way to chop off the hands and feet of thieves, including details pertaining to the amount of blood, veins, muscles and skin involved in the procedure, plus tables or graphs showing how frequently the hands and feet of thieves are amputated. ‘[T]heir hands will be cut off for a first offence, and their foot for a subsequent offence.’ It was also found that 40 Muslim weekend schools and clubs across the UK taught the Saudi national curriculum to Muslim children. In one of the books given to six-year-old children it was explained that ‘hellfire’ is the place assigned to those dead who are not Muslim believers.49 What emerged from these texts was a clear call for separation and isolation from Western culture, and the view that Western values threaten Muslim values. A number of Muslim school websites broadcast the messages that, ‘Our children are exposed to a culture that is in opposition to almost everything Islam stands for’, and ‘We need to defend our children from the forces of evil.’50 The danger of segregating young Muslims in Britain is a ground for concern. They are ‘younger, more disaffected Muslims, mainly from working-class backgrounds, mostly unemployed [and] unmarried. These guys see themselves as totally under siege. For them, jihad is a salvation.’51 Demography and statistics confirm this last characterisation, because in 2012 more than half of the Muslims in Britain were under 25 years of age, the most youthful profile of any faith community.52 Particularly worrisome are the seminars where the next generations of imams are being educated: They don’t interact with people who are not Muslim … they don’t learn the ingredients of the Western world, so it’s very easy for them to read the medieval texts which were written at a time when Islam was under attack and say non-believers are our enemies and we have to fight them.53

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Over half a million Muslim pupils go to school in Britain, of whom approximately 97 per cent study in state-run schools; the remainder are in Muslim private schools.54 As of 2010, eight Muslim faith schools were state funded, that is, public money covered the teachers’ salaries and the running costs of the schools.55 Muslim parents prefer private schools because, in their opinion, mainstream secular schools fail to respect religious values and to maintain proper discipline.56 Similarly, French Muslim leaders consider radicalism and poor discipline to prevail throughout the state education system; Muslim extremism is not the product of Muslim schooling or the aim of private schools, they argue. If a French Muslim becomes an extremist, the source of that influence is the mainstream, secular school system: More than a million Muslims pray in French mosques, yet they don’t turn violent. Extremist preachers don’t have any influence on them. The ones who turn violent are not common worshipers, but former delinquents … who have been to public schools and youth detention centers. Society as a whole should wonder whether it’s responsible for this.57

There are those Muslim immigrants, for example in Britain, who do not recognise the existence of non-violent and benign religious schools, or the benevolent way they are described by their supporters. They quote the Indian precedent (‘Hindus slaughtered Muslims and Muslims slaughtered Hindus’) to prove that, inherently, religions bring discord, certainly so in religious schooling. They claim that if something is contributing to the fragmentation and disintegration of society, to Britain’s being a ‘community of communities’, it is the UK’s disparate religious schools. They believe deeply that Britain’s publicly funded and ‘excellent community schools’ should be good enough for Muslim students. ‘I don’t want my taxes used to pay for yet more religiously segregated schools’, they demand. Segregating people by their religion is deeply detrimental to Britain’s cohesion. Our money must not go on religious segregation My concern is about faith schools, specifically Muslim faith schools in Derbyshire. (I also understand being an ex-Muslim atheist makes my situation rare.) I imagine I am not the only one who feels deeply insulted by the proposal to open a taxpayer-funded Islamic school in Derby. Instead of educating children from different backgrounds together, so they can learn from one another, we are now going to spend our taxpayers’ money on separating children along religious lines. Don’t we see enough on the news every night about what happens when you separate communities along religious lines?



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Don’t those Derby families who came originally from the Indian sub-continent remember the religious violence following partition when Hindus slaughtered Muslims and Muslims slaughtered Hindus?58

This criticism of separate Muslim schools rose to a crescendo in 2014 in the British city of Birmingham. A ‘Muslim Plot’ was exposed (‘something ugly has been happening in Birmingham’59) to take over several local schools by sacking their head teachers and reforming the curricula so that Muslim content would dominate and boys and girls would to be taught separately, as well as other changes.60 Apparently, the take-over attempt was in accordance with the ‘academy school’ and ‘free school’ programmes, which give parents and schools greater powers and more autonomy vis-à-vis local authorities. These new prerogatives were granted in 2010 to some 2,500 schools all over Britain. The Department for Education continues the inspection of the schools, but head teachers are given considerable power to shape the curriculum and parents were encouraged to set up ‘free schools’.61 The alleged take-over attempt by Muslim teachers and parents, dubbed Operation Trojan Horse, emanated from the belief that ‘[w]e have an obligation to our children to fulfil our roles and ensure these schools are run on Islamic principles’. When the ‘corruption’ of the children (sex education, teaching about homosexuality, mixed swimming and sport, and children obliged to recite Christian prayers) was revealed, parents were encouraged to intervene and act against the schools’ head teachers. Five steps were exposed in Operation Trojan Horse (allegedly with the connivance of Muslim Salafi immigrants; on the Salafi movement, see chapter 1): Identify ‘target schools’ based in Muslim areas. Select a group of Salafi parents within the school community. Salafis are ‘most committed to Islam’ and ‘once charged up they keep going for longer’. (Salafi parents were regarded as belonging to a more orthodox branch of Islam, hence they would be more likely to be willing to help.) When the parents have been identified, we start to turn them against the head teacher and leadership team. Install a governor within the school to ‘drip feed’ ideals for a Muslim school. Identify ‘weak and disgruntled staff’ and encourage them to complain so as to bring about an external investigation. Instigate an anonymous letter campaign to local MPs, education authorities and others.62

Allegedly, a similar ‘campaign of stealth’ to take over mosques and convert them to the Salafi sect was exposed in France. ‘First they develop a following, then begin criticising the imam in order to win control over the faithful.’ Youth and converts to Islam are considered the most vulnerable to such messages. In

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2015 about 100 French mosques (out of over 2,000) are controlled by Salafis; the number was fewer than 50 four years previously.63 Two comments were linked to the uncovering of Operation Trojan Horse. The first related to political correctness, which is prevalent in European–Muslim relations and is an element repeatedly referred to in this book: ‘No one wants to be called an “Islamaphobe” or a racist, nor do they wish to be labelled a rightwing conspiracy theorist.’64 Political correctness is a precaution that is prevalent in European–Muslim relations, an element repeatedly referred to in our work. The second comment related to extremist ideas among Muslim teachers; this comment too, although indirectly, has to do with the ‘triangle’ discussed in our work. Following the discovery of the operation, the mobile phones of Muslim teachers were examined. It was found that teachers had exchanged messages about the fostering of ‘an intolerant culture’, and that simultaneously derogatory messages had also been sent. These singled out gays, the West and Israel.65 Following this vein, the next section delves into anti-Jewish and anti-Israel manifestations, which are at present heavily discernible in Muslim communities across Europe.

Muslim anti-Jewish and anti-Israel activity Muslim anti-Semitism in Europe – written, spoken, educational, religious antiJewish manifestations, as well as acts of violence and terrorism – is largely presented or disguised as anti-Israel and anti-Zionist views, and therefore is considered by some as ‘legitimate’. Consequently, this behaviour is more readily tolerated by European authorities and public opinion. Accordingly, Jan Samuelsson, a professor of Islam and comparative religion at Stockholm University, views Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism in Sweden for what it is, namely, ‘understandable, reasonable, and justified’.66 This phenomenon is particularly the case in areas of heavy Arab and Muslim migrant concentration, where local European politicians have become more attentive to the concerns of their constituents. The liberal and democratic political cultures in Western and European countries enable Muslim immigrants to express their protest quite openly and freely, and they also join forces with local right- and left-wing anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic forces and infrastructures. A clear link has been forged between criticism – and often demonisation – of Israel and the perception of Jewish–Israeli omnipotent power and conspiracy. Diaspora Jews are perceived as full partners in Israeli intrigues and it is claimed that European Jewish communities have become quasi Israeli embassies and ‘a mouthpiece for the Israeli government’.67 ‘[I]f it were not for the support of world Jewry, Israel



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would have met much greater opposition in all that pertains to its allegedly satanic behaviour toward the Palestinians.’68 In short, Diaspora Jews are considered legitimate targets in the Muslim/Arab/Palestinian conflict against Israel; without their support Israel would not have existed and become an existential threat to its neighbours. Obviously, European Jews adopt a different, more nuanced stance: ‘Even the most ardent Zionists among them are concerned not to be held accountable as Jews for the actions of the Jewish state.’69 Interestingly enough, the perception that Israel and the Jewish Diaspora are full partners found expression in Turkish Prime Minister Reçep Tayyip Erdogan’s accusation that Israel was behind the military take-over in Egypt and the June 2013 downfall of Egyptian Islamist President Muhammad Morsi, a close friend of Erdogan’s. However, on this occasion, Diaspora Jews did not suffer because of Israeli acts against the Palestinians; rather, Israel suffered because of a Jewish Diaspora activist. Erdogan’s ‘evidence’ for his accusation was words spoken by the Algerian-born, Franco-Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy in 2011. The Turkish Prime Minister regarded his writings as proof of a longstanding Israeli plot to deny power to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, even if the latter had won an election by a fair and democratic means. In responding to a question about how he would view an electoral victory by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Henri-Lévy compared such a possibility to the kind of ‘democratic coup’ that had allowed Hamas to take power in Gaza in 2006 and Hitler to become Germany’s chancellor in 1933. Asked directly, ‘If they [the Muslim Brothers] were to win a legitimate election, you would urge the military not to allow them to take power?’ Lévy replied, ‘I will urge the prevention of them coming to power by all sorts of means, yes. … I said that in Algeria and I don’t regret it. It opened a terrible period of disturbance, chaos, murders and so on, but I believe it would have been worse if we had let them come to power’ (The background to this remark is as follows: in December 1991 the Algerian FIS, the Islamic Salvation Front Party, won the elections, but the military intervened and cancelled them; in 1997 a pro-army party, the National Rally for Democracy, the RND, won the parliamentary elections.) ‘Decrying the “archaic, pre-fascist ideology” of the Muslim Brotherhood, Lévy said: “Democracy, again, is not only elections. It is values.” ’70 For Erdogan, a Sunni Muslim who perceives synonymy between Diaspora Jews and Israel, this was a strong enough proof of Israel’s being behind Morsi’s ousting. If a French Jew, Bernard-Henri Lévy, had called for the toppling of Morsi, then the State of Israel was doubtlessly behind President Morsi’s ousting. To their chagrin, Jews in Europe are perceived by Muslims and Europeans alike as a successful Western agency, ‘the hated haves’, a people who established themselves at the expense of the ‘have-nots’. Thus they are made a

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l­egitimate target for the underprivileged. And, as above, the Jewish Diaspora is held responsible, at least in spirit, for the misdeeds of the State of Israel. During the war in Gaza in the summer of 2014 the Turkish newspaper Yeni Akit, which is affiliated with Prime Minister Erdogan, demanded an apology from the Hakham Bashi, Turkey’s Chief Rabbi Ishak Haleva, for the alleged massacres that Israel was committing in Gaza. The newspaper claimed that the ingratitude of the Jews, who had found refuge in the Ottoman Empire following their expulsion from inquisitional Spain in the fifteenth century but now repaid their Muslim benefactors with evil and death, called for an apology. ‘“You have lived comfortably among us for 500 years and gotten rich at our expense. Is this your gratitude – killing Muslims?” Erdogan demand[s] that the community leader [will] apologize!’71 Further, Yeni Akit’s call for an apology from the ungrateful descendants of the Spanish Jews justifies earlier Middle Ages events like the 1492 expulsion of Spain’s Jews and suggests that there is something inherently bad in Jews, given that they are repeatedly expelled, beginning their expulsion from the Holy Land by the Romans after ce 70. Italian historian Angelo d’Orsi called for Israel to face a ‘Nuremberg Tribunal’ and said that he used the term Nuremberg ‘to shock the Italian Jewish community’, which had become ‘a mouthpiece for the Israeli government’. In Spain, on 24 July 2014, the popular newspaper El Mundo published an article by playwright Antonio Gala saying, ‘It’s not strange they (the Jews) have been so frequently expelled.’ Gala’s op-ed, entitled ‘The chosen ones?’ (ilos Elegidos?), decried Israel’s war in Gaza and expressed the view that the State of Israel and world Jewry are one and the same. Quite simply for Gala, Jews ‘were not made to coexist with others’, hence the Spanish royals had been right to expel them. He also perceived European Jews as a legitimate target on account of Israel’s wrong-doing, and he yet insisted that he was no racist (‘no soy racista’).72 The Hebrew people, tested since antiquity by ups and downs and the intimate dealings with their God, could have done much good for humanity: due to their prudence, their wisdom and endurance, their apparent religious fidelity and their proven administration of money. What is happening is that suddenly humanity is sick and tired of them: a phenomenon that has been repeated throughout their history, as if they were not made to coexist with others. This is how it is and will remain, as it always has been. No matter what the Jews call their civil or military leaders, they end up creating problems for everyone: it is ancient history. Now you must suffer their abuses in Gaza, and review it all with an apparent injustice. They are never clear.



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They ask for what was given to them and they accepted; but with new means, dimensions and benefits, with new pressure from a power situated elsewhere in the world [U.S.?] and an invisible community of blood [world Jewry?] It is normal that they manage to screw the weakest or those who today enjoy their ancient lands. It is always the same. It’s not strange that they have been so frequently expelled. What is surprising, is that they persist. Either they are not good, or someone is poisoning them. I am not a racist.73

The hate-filled Diaspora Jewish–Israel connection runs deep. A few months before the summer 2014 Gaza war, the Israeli basketball team Maccabi Tel Aviv defeated the Spanish team Real Madrid and won the European championship. Soeren Keren mentions that, following the game, nearly 18,000 people posted comments on Twitter venting their feelings. They, too, made no distinction between Israelis and Jews. ‘We’ve been defeated by bloody Jews. Hitler would not have allowed this to happen’; ‘Shitty Jews. You should all be thrown in the ovens’; ‘Jewish sons of bitches. The ovens of Auschwitz [are] your home. Syria bomb Israel’; ‘Now I understand Hitler and his hatred for the Jews’; ‘Maccabi needs to take a shower after the game. But in the gas chamber, I hope.’74 European Jews would do much better to disassociate themselves from the State of Israel, they were warned; their physical safety would not then be put at risk. Accordingly, Danish school administrators have ‘confirmed that they recommend that Jewish children should not enrol at their schools’. Jewish pupils had become too grave a security risk.75 This warning corroborated the results of a poll conducted among British Muslims in which 37 per cent saw British Jews as ‘legitimate targets as part of the struggle for justice in the Middle East’.76 On the other hand, this warning explains then Prime Minister David Cameron’s declaration to British Jews, namely, that ‘it is unfair and wrong to lay at the door of Jewish communities of Europe, policies pursued by the government of Israel, that people might not agree with – just completely wrong’.77 Despite precautions and declarations, synagogues, Jewish community centres, Jewish businesses and the homes of Jewish families became targets of arsonists in Toulouse, Paris, Helsingborg (southern Sweden), London and Antwerp.78 One ponders the reasons for the alleged tolerance of anti-Semitism in Europe. Raphael Israeli describes scenarios that are indeed worrisome. However, no one has a monopoly on setting religious centres and places of worship ablaze, and the torching of dozens of mosques and churches in Israel (42 according to Israeli Radio’s count in 2011) is defined by the Israeli authorities as Jewish terrorism.79 The sad conclusion is that the Middle East conflict has long ago reached the stage of an inter-faith struggle. This notwithstanding, Raphael Israeli’s wonder deserves to be repeated:

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There is even a suspicion that some officials, with the tacit support of their constituencies, may elect to look the other way. Otherwise, it is hard to explain how dozens of acts of violence are repeated daily across the major European and North American nations that pride themselves on respect for human rights and the enforcement of law and order. Had Jews assaulted mosques or Muslim individuals in those countries, and certainly if anyone had torched Christian churches, public outrage would have surely compelled the governments to take harsh measures.80

Terror and anti-Semitism: the kidnapping of Ilan Halimi The month of January 2006 is considered by many as a crossroads in the relations between Muslims and Jews in France, where Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish populations live. Some would say that a new chronology started – before and after January 2006. The reason: a young French Jewish man of Moroccan parentage, Ilan Halimi, was kidnapped. His kidnappers, mainly of Muslim background, tortured him for three weeks and eventually murdered him on 13 February 2006. The kidnapping was motivated by money; but anti-Semitism was the cardinal explanation of the murder. It was the first inter-ethnic or interreligious killing of a French Jew by another Frenchman since 1945. (In the early 1980s Palestinian terrorists attacked and killed Parisian Jews – see below.) The culprits belonged to the ‘Gang des Barbares’ – the Barbarians Gang and included people of different backgrounds: the children of blacks from sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, Arabs from North Africa, at least one Persian from Iran and whites and non-Muslims from Portugal and France. The majority were nominally Muslims.81 The French authorities prosecuted a total of 27 people, who were accused of entrapment, kidnapping by an organised group that resulted in death, acts of torture and barbarism, failing to assist a person in peril and premeditated murder.82 All but three were found guilty. The gang leader, Youssouf Fofana, who was French born to a Muslim family, fled to the Ivory Coast, his parents’ homeland, but was extradited back to France. He received a life sentence, with no eligibility for parole before 22 years. The appeals court in Creteil, near Paris, upheld all of the convictions in December 2010.83 Before seizing Halimi, Fofana and his accomplices had tried to kidnap other people, including some of Jewish faith, with the intent to demand a ransom. Since 2004 they had attempted extortion, and when that had failed they had moved to kidnapping, using young women as bait, focusing on Jewish music producers and Jewish-owned phone shops (as in Halimi’s case).84 Although France recorded over 1,500 anti-Semitic incidents in the two years before Halimi’s



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murder – venomous graffiti, vandalism, swastikas painted on synagogues and gravestones and attacks on Jews in public places – this was the first time since World War II that a Frenchman had killed another Frenchman because he was Jewish.85 Anti-Jewish terrorism on French soil since the war was not unknown, however. Palestinian terrorists killed six people in the popular Chez Jo Goldenberg Jewish deli in the Marais district of Paris in 1982. Earlier, in October 1980, Palestinians planted a bomb in a motorcycle saddlebag outside the Jewish synagogue in Rue Kupernik in the 16th Arrondissement. Four were killed. This was the first fatal attack against France’s Jewish community since the Nazi occupation. The Palestinian responsible for the act was arrested in Canada in October 2007.86 To return to Halimi: his body was reburied in a Jerusalem cemetery in 2007. Some have labelled the Halimi case ‘the new anti-Semitism’, emanating from the black African minority.87 The event was linked or compared to the Alfred Dreyfus affair in the 1890s and to France’s infamous conduct during World War II when the Vichy government enthusiastically rounded up Jews, including children, and turned them over to the Nazis for extermination.88 It was also compared to the Nazi Dr Josef Mengele, who experimented on Jews at Auschwitz (it was said at the time that the Nazi doctor had a parallel in Ilan Halimi’s torture and murder); and to the virulently anti-Semitic, anti-American Turkish film Valley of the Wolves, which was shown to ‘cheering’ Turkish communities in Germany and became a hit there and in Turkey. In the film, Israeli soldiers who had allegedly been deployed alongside US forces in Iraq were harvesting the organs of dead Iraqi prisoners as well as Palestinians for sale on the US organ market, the same as Mengele did.89 Together with the anti-Israel feelings that were channelled into vilification of the Jews, the ransom aspect of the Halimi kidnapping was also related to traditional anti-Semitism. The anti-Semitism felt in France may be ideologically rooted in anger against Israel, but it is fed by a new generation also taking up old anti-Semitic delusions – that all Jews are rich, that all Jews are powerful, that Jews are to blame for all the poverty and problems faced in immigrant communities.90

Accordingly, Halimi’s captors advised his family that if they did not have the money, they should ‘go and get it from your synagogue’, and later they contacted a rabbi, telling him, ‘We have a Jew.’91 The following are the main stages of Ilan Halimi’s kidnapping and assassination, based on various sources, the most detailed and balanced being the Associated Press report by Craig S. Smith, ‘The torture and death of Jew deepen fears in

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France’.92 Halimi worked at Voltaire Phone in Paris, one of a dozen tiny, Jewishowned mobile phone shops on Boulevard Voltaire in the 11th Arrondissement. On 20 January 2006, an attractive 17-year-old girl of French-Iranian origin, called Yalda, lured Halimi to an apartment in a 12-storey concrete building in the Pierre-Plate housing estate in Bagneux, near Porte d’Orleans, a neighbourhood on Paris’s southern fringes, the area of the Parisian banlieues. Halimi drove there from Boulevard Voltaire in his car.93 On his arrival a gang of youths overwhelmed him, and held him captive in an empty third-floor apartment at 1 rue Serge-Prokofiev with the help of the building’s superintendent. Later, he was moved and held prisoner for 24 days in a concrete cellar at 4 rue Serge-Prokofiev. During the three-week period, his kidnappers, at least 19 of them, tortured him. They beat him all over his body, especially his testicles, completely wrapped his head in duct tape, except for his mouth so that he could breathe and eat through a straw, stabbed him, burned his body and face with lighters and cigarettes, sodomised him with broom sticks and broke his fingers. They made hundreds of phone calls and sent innumerable e-mails and ransom demands to Halimi’s family, starting at $500,000 and dropping to $5,000, instructing the family to send the money via Western Union to Ivory Coast addresses with which Fofana, the chief culprit, maintained continuous contact during the abduction. Halimi’s captors shaved his head and sliced his cheek with a knife, photographed him with blood running down his face and e-mailed the picture to his family. As the days wore on and the ransom money failed to arrive, his captors turned increasingly cruel, stripping off his clothes and beating, scratching and cutting him. A burning cigarette was pressed into his forehead.94 They urinated on him, kept him naked, cut him with knives and finally poured gasoline on him and set him on fire. Reportedly, neighbours came along to watch and even participated in the torture, but no one called the police; the silent bystanders were thus complicit in the crime. This notwithstanding, a French-Arab neighbour professed that he ‘knew they had someone down there’, but did not say whether he knew the man was Jewish. ‘I didn’t know they were torturing him,’ he said. ‘Otherwise, I would have called the police.’95 The Washington Times remarked, ‘The alliance becomes lethal when it connects with those who won’t speak up. The reasons for silence include cowardice, fear, intimidation, indifference and finally contempt.’96 Meanwhile, the police began circulating sketches of women who served the gang as bait, drawn from the recollections of other potential male victims. This helped the police to arrest one of them. That woman led the police to her boyfriend, a young man of Portuguese descent. He gave Fofana’s name to the police. On the evening of 13 February 2006, Halimi was found in a wood behind the Ste-Geneviève-des-Bois railway station in the Essonne region south of Paris.



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He was naked, bleeding from at least four stab wounds to his throat, handcuffed, with adhesive tape covering his mouth and eyes, and bound with nylon rope to a tree some 35 metres inside a woodland near the railway tracks15 miles from rue Serge-Prokofiev. Over 80 per cent of his body had been burned with acid as well as with gasoline (possibly to destroy evidence of his captors’ DNA), to the point that he was difficult to identify. He had severe contusions, blood blisters and hematomas covering most of his body, to the point that he was more blue than flesh-coloured, multiple broken bones, one ear and one big toe missing, and his testicles looked like ‘blackened oranges’. Halimi died en route to a hospital.97

Terror: the shoe-bomber, November 2001; Mike’s Place Tel Aviv suicide bombing, April 2003; the Toulouse shootings, March 2012 As shown above Muslim educational and cultural anti-Jewish issues in Europe can and do lead to actual violence and terrorism. Such is the story of Richard Reid, a British-born Jamaican on his father’s side, a convert to Islam, whom European investigators linked to some of the continent’s most high-profile terrorist cells.98 (On European converts to Islam, see chapter 5.) Reid, ‘a convert with a convert’s zeal’, went under the code-name of Abdul Ra’uff (one of several he used) but is best known as the ‘shoe-bomber’ who attempted to down an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami in November 2001 by means of explosives hidden in his shoes. Reid was overcome by the flight attendants and passengers and his plot was thwarted. In 2002, a US Federal Court sentenced him to three consecutive life terms plus 110 years in prison without parole; he is currently an inmate in a US maximum security prison in Colorado. Reid visited Israel for 10 days in July 2001. He spent most of his time in Tel Aviv, where he inspected the high-rise Azrieli shopping centre and office complex, as well as the local bus and railway stations; he checked out the security at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Then he crossed via the Sinai into Egypt and from there flew to Turkey and on to Pakistan before being debriefed in Afghanistan.99 But Reid showed that the heartland of Islamic extremist terrorism is now in Western Europe. In the early 2000s, with the camps in Afghanistan destroyed, many of the world’s most dangerous terrorists left the Islamic world and moved to Western European cities. The result, argues Michael Elliott, who investigated the Reid case, is that this kind of Muslim terrorism could be ‘brought to justice not by US special forces or B-52 bomber pilots but by skilful forensic work and international cooperation among criminal justice professionals’.100

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But, besides his terrorist ingenuity, continues Elliott, Reid taught us another lesson, namely, that Muslim immigration into Europe is not the only source of Islam’s growth on the continent. Islam’s attraction for the poor and lowly (in Britain mainly of black origin) is another explanation: ‘Islam is a sort of natural religion for underdogs … and that’s one reason why Afro-Caribbean people have found its message very attractive.’101 Elliott directs his questions not so much to Europe’s Muslim migrants, but to the European society and cultures within which Muslim terrorism thrives. But identifying terrorists is only half the job. The real challenge is to figure out why the Muslim community in Europe has become such a rich recruiting ground for Islamic extremists. Plainly, Islam exerts an appeal to those born into the faith who feel oppressed by societies that treat them like second-class relics of European colonialism. Islam also promises something to converts – like Reid … who feel marginalized by modern life. For Europeans, the presence of the terrorist networks should suggest that there is something rotten within their rich societies.102

Unlike Richard Reid’s futile airborne ‘shoe terrorism’, the attack in Tel Aviv on Mike’s Place, a seaside bar, was more harmful, and lethal. In the winter of 2003 a group of Britons of Pakistani origin visited Israel and collected the intelligence that later made possible a terror attack in Tel Aviv. Two terrorists, British citizens of Pakistani origin, entered Israel via Jordan in mid-April 2003. In the following fortnight they visited the West Bank (Hebron, Ramallah and Nablus), Gaza, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, then returned to Jordan, and re-entered Israel a few hours prior to the attack on 30 April. The first suicide bomber blew himself to pieces at the entrance to the Mike’s Place bar. Three people were killed – two musicians and a waitress – and over 50 were injured. The second bomber went to a hotel in nearby Jaffa. His explosive device, which was disguised as a book, failed to detonate, but the explosion of the detonator itself injured him. His drowned body was washed ashore on the Tel Aviv beach front a fortnight later. The two were identified as Asif Muhammad Hanif, aged 22, from Hounslow, West London, who attacked Mike’s Place, and Omar Khan Sharif, aged 27, from Derby, who drowned.103 They were considered ordinary, ‘normal’ men, employed and devoted to their families, parents and children. Sharif, the son of a successful Pakistani businessman, had two young children. He was the youngest of six children of Kashmiri immigrants and had attended the £12,000-a-year Foremarke Hall, in Foremarke, Derbyshire, the preparatory establishment of Repton public school. Hanif was a business studies student whose friends called him ‘Huggy Bear’ because of his massive, six foot, three inch-tall frame and apparently gentle personality. Both men looked like Asians but were defined as



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‘very British’. They reportedly shunned radicals who leafleted their mosques in West London and Derby.104 The issue of who is more susceptible to turn to terrorist activities is a big question. Is it some inherent aspect of Islam that encourages young Muslims to terrorise the societies in which they were born and live? Or is it environmental elements that push young, frustrated and alienated Muslim migrants towards extremism? The French police generated a profile of a potential Muslim terrorist who prepares himself to act violently. He usually shaves his beard immediately before going into action, so as not to arouse suspicion. He is keen to remain inconspicuous. He refrains from using mobile phones and turns radical in lowkey ways like reading and watching radical internet sites at home, and not in public places like mosques, which are most likely under surveillance. The police concluded that prisons and internet sites are the two main influences leading to Islamic radicalisation. A 2008 French government report noted that over 100 French prison inmates were preaching radical Islamist propaganda.105 The February 2015 killing in Copenhagen of a Danish film director and a Jewish security guard brought about various attempts to understand this phenomenon. The terrorist, Omar Abdel Hamid el Hussein, aged 22, died later in a gun battle with Danish police. He was born in Denmark into a Muslim Jordanian-Palestinian immigrant family and was a Danish citizen. He stormed into a cultural centre that was holding an event titled ‘Art, blasphemy and freedom of expression’, where he killed the Danish film director. The next day, at the Copenhagen Great Synagogue, he killed a Jewish security guard. Soren Esperson, deputy chairman of the right-wing populist Danish People’s Party, derided pleas from leading mainstream politicians, including Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, that Islam should not be blamed for the violence. ‘Of course, this has something to do with Islam, just as the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades and witch burning had something to do with Christianity.’106 Aydin Soei, a Danish sociologist, argued that terrorism was a phenomenon produced by Europe’s urban neighbourhoods, not a product of the teachings of the Koran or their distortions by militant preachers. ‘This wasn’t an intellectual Islamist with a long beard. … This was a loser man from the ghetto who is very, very angry at Danish society.’ Indeed el Hussein belonged to a gang of teenagers with little education, loose contacts to Islam and big chips on their shoulders about a society from which they felt excluded. ‘Part of their identity, part of their narrative is: We are outsiders because of who we are and how we look.’107 Incidentally, el Hussein’s friends visited the spot where he died in the police shoot-out and removed flowers that had been laid in memoriam – a ritual that they said was contrary to Islamic teachings. In place of the flowers they left a

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printed leaflet that fulminated against what they described as Denmark’s double standards, noting that Hussein’s body had been left in a pool of blood while the body of the Jewish security guard killed at the synagogue had been quickly covered. This, the leaflet said, exposed promises of equality as a fraud and showed that ‘religion and background make a difference’.108 Lack of love and education and exclusion from society have also been linked to terrorist behaviour. Latifa Ibn-Ziaten, the mother of the French Muslim paratrooper who was murdered by the jihadist Mohammad Merah (see below), explained that ‘I shiver and am pained whenever I hear this name [Merah’s]. [But] I don’t blame him, he is also a victim. He did not have love, he did not receive education, and he was not affiliated with any proper and decent body. When someone lives in hatred, without education, he becomes a noxious weed.’109 Tariq Ramadan, when referring to the Muslim-perpetrated terrorism on London’s transport system (7 July 2005, see below), sought to explain the motivations of the four terrorists; he claimed that the answer lies in a distorted, literalistic interpretation of Muslim theology. ‘What turned four young Muslims born and brought up in Yorkshire into suicide bombers was a radical and literalist Islamic discourse which the mainstream Muslim community did not do enough to pre-empt, he says. Disdain was not enough. “They needed to assert that this kind of talk is not just un-Islamic. It is anti-Islamic.” ’110 For the Americans, it was perhaps easier to attribute the horrific terror acts of 11 September 2001 (9/11) to outsiders, that is, people who were not the products of American education or its culture but who came to America on a mission. However, unlike the 9/11 terrorists, the four 7/7 British Muslim terrorists who attacked the London transport system on 7 July 2005 (hence 7/7) were all insiders. Fifty-two civilians and the four suicide bombers were killed and over 700 were injured. Three of the attackers were British-born and all were educated in Britain, so all four were at home with the culture and society. Information culled from the biographies of the four attackers – three of Pakistani descent born in England and one Jamaican-born, who was five years old when he immigrated into Britain – reveals that all had parents, families, children, brothers and sisters, jobs (a learning mentor at a primary school; a vendor in a fishand-chip shop), and that one left a pregnant wife. One of them was reckoned to be an outstanding sportsman, excelling at cricket, the triple jump, long-distance running, football and ju-jitsu, lived in a semi-detached house in Beeston, a suburb of Leeds in West Yorkshire, had an estate valued at £121,000 after taxes and debts and ‘was proud to be British’.111 He also attended Leeds Metropolitan University, and was a member of the Holbeck football team in Leeds and of his local cricket team. Another had received his GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education in Great Britain and in some former British colonies



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and territories) in English language, English literature, mathematics, science, Urdu, design technology and a GNVQ in Business Studies (General National Vocational Qualification, a certificate of vocational education in the UK available until 2007; since 2007 students are offered alternatives). Together, the three terrorists of Pakistani descent – Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30; Shehzad Tanweer, 22; Hasib Hussain, the youngest at 18 – and the Jamaican-born Germaine Lindsay, 19, shared the strongest marks of Britishness. What could be more British than fish and chips, cricket and football? What more does anyone need to want to live, and not to commit suicide or become a terrorist? How much more love and education (as specified by Latifa Ibn-Ziaten above) does one need so as not to kill ‘white’ British or French people, or a paratrooper co-religionist serving his country of France, or his Jewish neighbours in Paris, Toulouse, Brussels and Copenhagen? Another reminder of violent events that are linked to integration (or the lack thereof) of young Muslim immigrants into Western societies is the Muslim terrorists of the Boston Marathon bombings in April 2013, who killed three and wounded 170. ‘He said, “he had no American friends; he couldn’t understand them [the Americans]” ’, were the reported words of the elder brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, the chief suspect in the Marathon bombings who was later killed by the police.112 That said, the New York Times described another reality about the two young, physically fit (boxing and wrestling), ‘nice’ young guys: both were accepted, appreciated and respected by authorities and classmates alike; both wore fancy jeans, button-ups, T-shirts and alligator shoes; both seemed to be fully integrated into American culture and society. The younger brother, Dzhokhar, gathered around him a group of friends so loyal that said they would testify for him, if it came to that.113 Again, what else could have been done that could have prevented the Tsarnaev brothers from choosing the radical terrorist option? What no one who knew them could say, was why the young men, immigrants of Chechen heritage, would set off bombs among innocent people. The Tsarnaevs came with their family to the U.S. almost a decade ago from Kyrgyzstan, after living briefly in the Dagestan region of Russia. Tamerlan, who was killed early Friday morning [19 April 2013] in a shootout with law enforcement officers, was 15 at the time. Dzhokhar, who was in custody Friday evening [19 April 2013], was only 8. Dzhokhar … was liked and respected by his classmates at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School … A classmate remembered how elated he seemed on the night of the senior prom. … ‘He was happy to be there, and people were happy he was there … He was accepted and very well liked’. A talented wrestler, he was listed as a Greater Boston League Winter All-Star. ‘He was a smart kid.’ … In 2011 the year he graduated [he] was awarded a $2,500 scholarship by the City of Cambridge; an honor granted only 35 to 40 students a year.114

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Stronger motives than identity and Britishness (or Americanism when referring to the Tsarnaev brothers) caused the 7/7 terrorists to define themselves as soldiers at war and killing British citizens in the heart of London. Yes, Muslim immigrants demanded a British withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq, and an end to British financial and military support to the US and Israel. Hurting non-­combatant Britons was declared justifiable: they deserved to be among the 7/7 victims because they had elected a government that ‘continues to oppress our mothers, children, brothers and sisters in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya’.115 One of the four 7/7 terrorists insisted that British Muslim solidarity did not stop in these Middle Eastern and Asian battlefields; equally culpable are rank-and-file Britons, who are guilty by the very fact that they practise democracy and elect a sinful government. Ordinary Britons should pay for their sins, even though they profess to be innocent bystanders. The Western standards of living and liberal democracy cannot cover what young Muslim immigrants are facing, namely, a solution to the identity split between being loyal to their receiving countries and identifying with Muslim communities in a world with which the West is engaged in a vicious war. And where words have no impact, blood does. I’m going to keep this short and to the point because it’s all been said before by far more eloquent people than me. And our words have no impact upon you [Western peoples], therefore I’m going to talk to you in a language that you understand. Our words are dead until we give them life with our blood. […] I and thousands like me are forsaking everything for what we believe. Our driving motivation doesn’t come from tangible commodities that this world has to offer. Our religion is Islam – obedience to the one true God, Allah, and following the footsteps of the final prophet and messenger Muhammad.... This is how our ethical stances are dictated. Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. And your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters. Until we feel security, you will be our targets. And until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation. (Emphasis in original) 116

Muslim terrorism against Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe has used reasons similar to those submitted when Muslim violence has been directed against Europe and the West. The West is portrayed as a threat to the very existence of Muslims, as well as to Muslim lands and values. The case of Palestine has been



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put on a par with other places where, globally, Islam is under attack and facing an existential threat. Emanuel Sivan, a renowned Israeli expert on Islam and the modern Middle East, furnishes us with the rationalisation behind the jihad mentality of this kind of terrorism. We are dealing with deeply frustrated and extremely angry immigrants. True, once there were many more; today ‘only’ a quarter of them are ready to kill their non-Muslim neighbours. But Sivan talks about the second- and third-generation Muslim immigrant in Europe whose yardsticks and benchmarks are not his father’s and grandfather’s birth-country but his ‘white’ European age bracket. In many cases estranged from their biological families, these young Muslim migrants have found new homes and new families, instead of the regular, traditional ones. Supporters of al-Qaeda are mainly young, second- and even third-generation migrants from Arab countries. While the first generation remembered what was in the country of origin and compared his situation to that of those who stayed at home [i.e., in the sending countries], their children and grandchildren [who are now in the European receiving countries] are full of frustration, feelings of deprivation, and a strong feeling of discrimination. They compare themselves to their age group in the receiving country, not to those who remained in the countries of origin [of their forefathers]. In each European state there are thousands of ‘re-borns’ that join the fundamentalist organizations. Hundreds of them become vigilantes. These are large numbers that constitute a threat to the West. They are active in clandestine cells. The activists who were captured during the years and interrogated told their captors about the organization to which they belonged as their genuine home. The other members of the organization are their family, their brothers. A survey done recently in the poor suburbs of Paris, in which many of these migrants live, found that on one hand there is an improvement in the feeling of belonging [to the French society] and in the level of satisfaction, but on the other hand the number of those who are not content remains high. Whereas 20 years ago 40 per cent of the interviewees were hostile to the society in which they live, today the number is around 25 per cent. In other words, every fourth person from this community is not pleased by his life there and he feels hostile towards his neighborhood.117

Occasionally this mentality erupts and explodes among a quarter of alienated Muslim migrants. The terror attack in Toulouse was one of these events.

The attack on the Ozar Hatora school, Toulouse, March 2012 Rarely does an event embody in it, as if in a nutshell, the most important facets of the presents and histories of a European people and the minorities that live within it. This is what marks out the terror attack on Toulouse’s Jewish

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Ozar Hatora school in March 2012: Muslim extremism, the encounter between Muslim immigrants and the police, the Holocaust and the French role in it, relations between Jews and Muslims, the feuds within the wider Muslim immigrant community, immigration and crime, questions of hyphenated identity (like Franco-Muslims, Anglo-Jews, etc.) and the existence (or not) of a global Muslim nation, the service of Muslims in European armies, secularism versus religion, the integration of Muslim immigrants in a European society, and so on – these and more were the issues that emerged following the terror attack on the Ozar Hatora school. These issues will now be discussed, for they go to the core of the ‘triangle’ that this book deals with. On 22 July 2012, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Vel’ d’Hiv (Vélodrome d’Hiver, Winter Vélodrome, the 1942 site of the round-up and deportation of Parisian Jews to Auschwitz), François Hollande, President of France, paid tribute to the victims of this ugly manhunt. The following are excerpts from Hollande’s speech on that occasion. The rounding-up of the Jews and their ensuing extermination were France’s sole responsibility and onus, declared the President; it was an independent, enthusiastic French initiative to eradicate Franco-Jewry; not a single German soldier participated in the Vel’ d’Hiv round-up. According to Hollande, the 1942 Vel’ d’Hiv was part and parcel of French history, as was the Toulouse massacre of 2012. Anti-Semitism and its products (the Holocaust, Toulouse) are not Jewish chronology, they are European history, stressed Hollande. One of the lessons drawn from this is that whoever comes to Europe and does not recognise the centrality of the Holocaust, by definition separates himself from one of the most important elements that define European history and identity. The speech, certainly its main insights, is worth repeating. Seventy years ago, on 16 July 1942, early in the morning, 13,152 men, women and children were arrested in their homes. Childless couples and single people were interned in Drancy [a north-eastern suburb of Paris] […] The others were taken to the Vélodrome d’Hiver. Piled together for five days in inhuman conditions, they were taken from there to the [internment] camps of Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande [two small villages about 50 kilometres from Orleans and 80 from Paris]. A clear directive had been given by the Vichy administration: ‘The children must not leave in the same convoys as the parents.’ So, after heart-rending separations, they departed – the parents on one side, the children on the other – for AuschwitzBirkenau, where the deportees of Drancy had preceded them by a few days. There, they were murdered, solely for being Jews. This crime took place here, in our capital, in our streets, the courtyards of our buildings, our stairways, our school playgrounds. It was to pave the way for other roundups, in Marseille and throughout France …



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There were also other deportations, notably of gypsies. …76,000 French Jews were deported to the death camps. Only 2,500 returned. … We owe the Jewish martyrs of the Vélodrome d’Hiver the truth about what happened 70 years ago. The truth is that French police – on the basis of the lists they had themselves drawn up – undertook to arrest the thousands of innocent people trapped on 16 July 1942. And that the French gendarmerie escorted them to the internment camps. The truth is that no German soldiers – not a single one – were mobilized at any stage of the operation. The truth is that this crime was committed in France, by France. To his great credit, President Jacques Chirac recognized this truth, in this very spot on 16 July 1995. ‘France,’ he said, ‘France, country of the Enlightenment and human rights, land of welcome and asylum, France, that day, was committing the irreparable’. […] The Shoah was [not] created from nothing and [did not] come from nowhere. True, it was set in motion by the unprecedented and terrifying combination of singlemindedness in its racist frenzy and industrial rationality in its execution. But it was also made possible by centuries of blindness, stupidity, lies and hatred. It was preceded by many warning signs, which failed to alert people’s consciences. I am aware of the fears expressed by some of you. I want to respond to them. Conscious of this history, the Republic will [eradicate] all anti-Semitic acts with the utmost determination, but also all remarks that may lead France’s Jews even to feel uneasy in their own country. In this area, nothing is indifferent. Everything will be fought with the last ounce of energy. Being silent about anti-Semitism, dissimulating it, explaining it already means accepting it. The safety of France’s Jews is not just a matter for Jews, it is a matter for all French people, and I intend it to be guaranteed under all circumstances and in all places. […] All ideologies of exclusion, all forms of intolerance, all fanaticism, all xenophobia that seek to develop the mentality of hatred will find their way blocked by the Republic. To tirelessly teach historical truth; to scrupulously ensure respect for the values of the Republic; to constantly recall the demand for religious tolerance, in the framework of our laïque [secular] laws never to give way on the principles of freedom and human dignity; always to further the promise of equality and emancipation. Those are the measures we must collectively assign ourselves. […] Four months ago children were killed in Toulouse exactly for the same reason as those in the Vel’ d’Hiv – because they were Jewish. Anti-Semitism is not a kind of observation; it is abomination. Hence it is extremely important to look directly at it, to call it by its name, and to recognize what it is. In every place that it exists we will expose its face and punish it.118

Dr Louisa Zanoun, a historian of immigration formerly at Concordia University and Dawson College, Canada, explained the intertwined and painful

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circumstances in which France, its Jews and its Muslim migrants find themselves. She conducted her research with the terror attack on Ozar Hatora school in the background. As President Hollande related in his Vel’ d’Hiv speech, the Jews had hoped to find favour in the French values of equality, tolerance and protection; instead, they were murdered. Zanoun expected to find in France similar values applying to the Muslim immigrants; she was disappointed. France’s declared secularism and historical struggle against the Church, religion and Catholicism continues today vis-à-vis its Muslim immigrants, insisted Zanoun. From the immigrants’ perspective, it is an attempt to strip them of their identity. Many of the country’s [France] estimated 4.7 million Muslims are finding it hard to integrate …I’m thinking of young men, it’s difficult to find work, employment, they’re not easily trusted. For the past century, the French state has aggressively insisted on secularism in the public sphere. What began as an effort to break the Catholic Church’s grip on the nation is seen by many Muslims today as an effort to stifle their religion. It affects them in their day-to-day lives, with the police for instance. It’s about the perception that French society and the authorities have of those people [the Muslims] – that they are unable to integrate, that their religion is a barrier. It’s all about the values of the republic. [T]he current atmosphere is a corruption of what the French Republic was founded for. Originally, it was supposed to be inclusive. It was about including all the people who believed in the values of the Republic. Nowadays, it’s very exclusive because to belong to the Republic, you have to give up your religion. You have to give up your culture. Now some immigrants are not prepared to do that. And why should they?119

Vel’ d’Hiv’s Jews were confident that as French citizens they were worthy of rights and privileges. They were wrong. According to Zanoun, Muslim immigrants in France also ask to be included despite their being different. Their religion is perceived as a barrier to becoming accepted by the secular French state. They call for tolerance towards their different religion, culture and ethnicity. They have to cope with what looks to them like an imposition of aggressive secularism, perceived as a deliberate, anti-Muslim policy. They are unemployed; they are looked upon with much suspicion. As a result, some revolt and resort to terrorism as in Toulouse, argued Zanoun. One could argue with Zanoun whether terrorism is the only remedy to the cul-de-sac that she describes. However, what matters is how and why some Muslim immigrants perceive the realities that they encounter and their preferred violent solutions to prevail over those realities.



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Police attitudes and Muslim violence Louisa Zanoun mentions the encounter between European law-enforcement bodies and the Muslim migrants that leaves a residue of animosity. Indeed, interactions between the authorities and immigrants are often traumatic for both sides. Brown-skinned and with a marked foreign accent, immigrants are subject to police profiling, enquiries and searches that occasionally verge on harassment and other manifestations of racial discrimination.120 On average a quarter of the Muslim population in Europe are stopped three times by the police during the course of a year. Equally distressing is the fact that up to 98 per cent of Muslims who are subjected to racist crimes (e.g., in Austria) do not report their victimisation to the police.121 The chances for a young Turk living in Germany to have a violent encounter with the German police are six times greater than a for ‘white’, non-immigrant, young German.122 In general, Muslims throughout Europe do not have a positive perception of the police; in particular, they complain about frequent stop-and-search policies. The French police are singled out for their alleged racist remarks and mistreatment.123 For the sake of comparison, Britain’s Home Office reported in the early 2000s that people from minority ethnic communities are at a greater risk of being victims of crime than ‘white’ people. The Home Office report also found the following pertaining to law authority–minority encounters: In 2002/03, Black people were six times more likely and Asian people almost twice as likely, to be stopped and searched than White people. Black people were around six times more likely to be arrested than White people in 2002/03, although Asian people were only slightly more likely to be arrested than White people. Black defendants were four times more likely to be sentenced to prison than White people in 2002/03, while Asian defendants were slightly less likely to be sentenced to prison than White people.124

In spite of the above report, the opposite behaviour seems to emerge from the reluctance of the police in Rotherham, northern England, to investigate allegations that scores of Muslim immigrants of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Afghani descent were involved for 16 years (1997–2013) in 1,400 cases of rape of children and teenage ‘white’ girls, some as young as 11. All of the victims were young ‘white’ girls; most of the alleged perpetrators were young men from the three mentioned countries who were working in night-time industries like taxi driving and take-away restaurants. Apparently, this was a recurring

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p­ attern in several other English towns (Oxford, Oldham, Rochdale), as well as in Scotland.125 ‘One girl [in Rotherham] told investigators that gang rape was part of growing up in her neighbourhood … Rape became normality.’ The astonishing reply of police officers with regard to their inaction and that of other authorities (social workers, etc.) and city council officials desisting from intervention was ‘that they did not act for fear of being accused of racism’.126 A 2003 BBC documentary programme, ‘The Secret Policeman’, reported racist phenomena among British trainee policemen: one of the officers admitted that he would put on a Ku Klux Klan hood and kill his Muslim ‘Paki’ colleague (the only Asian officer on the course) if he could get away with it. ‘I fucking hate him … I’d kill him. I’d put my fucking hood on my head and fucking chase him down the road … If I could get away with burying the fucker under a train track, he’s fucking going under the train track,’ the trainee told his colleagues, eight of whom the programme reported as expressing similar views. The trainee added that he would stop a member of the public just because they were black or Asian. ‘I’m stopping him because I’m fucking English. At the end of the day mate, we look after our own.’127 The Muslim (‘Paki’) trainee’s reaction was ‘what he said briefly is that he represents the majority, the only difference being that he has the courage to articulate it’.128 Remaining within the field of public security, in the Netherlands half of prison inmates are immigrants, mostly Muslims, although less than one-tenth of the 16.3 million Dutch people belong to ethnic minorities. North African Muslims are wildly over-represented in French prisons, where they make up a majority of the inmates, up to nine times more than inmates with French fathers. In jails close to France’s urban suburbs Muslims account for as many as 80 per cent of inmates. Altogether, 60 per cent of France’s prison population are Muslims, although Muslims comprise only about 10 per cent of the populace. In Brussels, Belgian police officers are advised not to be seen drinking coffee in public during Ramadan; police women are advised not to enforce law and order on Muslim men but to leave it to their male counterparts. Since the beginning of 2005, ‘unrest’ is a mild description of the situation in France. The worst incidents were the October–November 2005 riots in the banlieues (suburbs) of Paris and in many other urban centres. These riots started following the death by electrocution of two immigrant boys of North African origin who fled from the police and tried to hide in an electrical substation. But, in the early 2000s, even before these riots, some 9,000 French police cars were stoned; 10,000 buses and cars were burned; and 300 churches, synagogues, schools, houses, stores, factories and industrial centres were set ablaze, vandalised and looted, particularly in the no-go areas of France’s inner cities. The 2006 winter demonstrations against the drawings of the Prophet Muhammad occa-



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sioned another wave of violence in which migrants and the police confronted each other. Muslim youth led these incidents in places populated mainly by Arab and African immigrants. Some 6,000 young people were interned and interrogated by the police. Most of the rioters were born in France and were French citizens, second-generation young migrants. Their parents – first-generation immigrants – were hardly seen in the streets during the riots and demonstrations. In fact, they were among the first victims of the riots because their cars and businesses were set ablaze. Nevertheless, calls were made for the parents to be made accountable and punishable for the misdeeds of their children.129 So-called ‘quiet’ nights in the early 2000s were those nights when only about three dozen cars were set alight in France’s urban centres, with rap singers (see below) threatening to torch ‘Sarko’s car’ (viz., Nicolas Sarkozy, French Home Secretary at the time, later President of the Republic, 2007–12; Sarkozy once labelled the rioters ‘scum’). To emphasise how rampant the rioting was, in the period of January–July 2005 alone, some 21,900 cars were burned in a ritual of criminal defiance. Throughout France, some 480 incidents of violence against police were recorded each month, a 30 per cent increase over the previous year.130

Muslim rap music: targeting Europeans and Jews Rap music performed by French Muslims, mostly of Arab and African descent and Muslim converts, is a form of social, cultural and political protest and criticism heard practically all over Europe since the mid-1990s. Occasionally, French and European Jews are the targets of Muslim rapper music. The song ‘La France’, sung by the French hip-hop band Sniper, was banned in France in 2001. The then French Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy called the lyrics ‘violent, racist and abusive’, particularly the lines ‘Pour mission exterminer les ministers et les fachos / Frere, je lance un appel, on est la pour tout niquer, leur laisser des traces et des sequelles, avant de crever / mon seul souhait, desormais, est de nous voir les anvahir.’ (Our mission is to exterminate ministers and fascists / Brother, I call on you, we’re here to fuck everything, to leave them signs and results before dying / The only thing I want is to see us invade them.) The rap song also cruelly attacked the French authorities, allegedly for years of intentional deprivation, repressive discrimination, legal injustices and exclusion of minorities from national politics. Hence, La France est une grac on s’est fait trahir Le systeme, voilà ce qui nous pousse ales hair

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La haine c’est ce qui rend nos propos vulgaires On nique la France sous une tendance de musique populaire On est d’accord et on se moque des repressions On se fout de la Republique et de la liberté d’expression Foudrait changer les lois et pouvoir voir Bientôt a l’Élysée des arabes et des noirs au pouvoir.131

That is to say: France is a bitch and we’ve been betrayed / The system is what makes us hate them / The hatred is what makes our words vulgar / We fuck France over with pop music / We agree and we don’t care about repression / We don’t give a damn about the Republic or the freedom of expression / The laws should be changed and we should see/Arabs and blacks in power, soon at the Élysée [Palace].

The Washington Times termed this music ‘Islamo-fascist hate rap’. The newspaper criticised the ‘word from the intelligentsia all-over’ and the fact that the French Muslim riots had nothing to do with Islam or with ‘its non-assimilable legions in the heart of Europe’.132 Instead, the paper divined that the roots for the Muslim youth’s wrath and their incinerat[ion of] lines of parked buses or immolat[ing] the occasional grand-mere on crutches, is French racism, institutional neglect, failure to integrate. It’s also snobbery, and don’t forget George W. Bush. … They are, we hear tell, unemployed toughs and secular criminals, devoted not to Allah so much as to what you might call, loosely and very grimly, French ‘culture’ – French pop culture, that is.133

Olivier Roy, professor of modern history at the European University Institute in Florence and a research director at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), emphasised the universal social grievances and frustrations from which the riots stemmed. There was nothing Muslim or French about them; there was nothing pan-Islamic about them: there were no references to Palestine or Iraq, insisted Roy.134 Also, when one noticed the collapse and the practical non-existence of the traditional family system, the absence of senior leadership and the absence of effective community bodies, one began to comprehend the rioters’ fury. A lost generation of aimless youths is what Roy describes: There are no leaders in these areas for a very simple reason: there is no community in the neighborhoods. Traditional parental control has disappeared and many Muslim families are headed by a single parent. Elders, imams and social workers have lost control. […]



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[T]here is nothing particularly Muslim, or even French, about the violence. Rather, we are witnessing the temporary rising up of one small part of a Western underclass culture that reaches from Paris to London to Los Angeles and beyond. In the end, we are dealing here with problems found by any culture in which inequities and cultural differences come in conflict with high ideals. … The struggle to integrate an angry underclass is one shared across the Western world. They express simmering anger fueled by unemployment and racism. The lesson, then, is that while these riots originate in areas largely populated by immigrants of Islamic heritage, they have little to do with the wrath of a Muslim community. 135

French Muslim rioters of the mid-2000s echoed Afro-American feelings of disappointment and exclusion that had fuelled black violence in American suburbs in the 1960s. What these French youths wanted, wrote Roy, was full citizenship. France had let them down; France would be set ablaze by them. But the French youths are not fighting to be recognized as a minority group, either ethnic or religious; they want to be accepted as full citizens. They have believed in the French model (individual integration through citizenship) but feel cheated because of their social and economic exclusion. Hence they destroy what they see as the tools of failed social promotion: schools, social welfare offices, gymnasiums. Disappointment leads to nihilism. For many, fighting the police is some sort of a game, and a rite of passage.136

Our elites instructed us, wrote the Washington Times, that these youths rioted not ‘because of Islamic attitudes toward a non-Islamic country, but because of establishment attitudes towards a downtrodden minority. Integration, we hear, or lack thereof, is the problem, so integration is also the answer.’ However, the newspaper then wondered what would be the chances of integration of people whose rap music goes like this (abbreviations are in the original): But how will France – or ‘FranSSe,’ as rapper ‘Mr. R’ has titled this song – integrate this? ‘France is a b-, don’t forget to f- her to exhaustion. You have to treat her like a whore, man! … France is one of the b- who gave birth to you … I am not at home and I don’t give a d-, and besides the state can go f- itself. I pee on Napoleon and General de Gaulle … F- Cops, sons of whores …137

Similar wonders arise from the following ‘music’ (again, abbreviations in the original): ‘I f-the police, I sodomise and pee on the law! Our enemies are the men in blue.’ Indeed, French cops wear blue uniforms, and the band NTM that sang the song was among the most popular French rap groups at the time. NTM stands for no less than Nique ta mere, or ‘Fuck your mother’.138

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Occasionally, Jews are the targets of Muslim rap music. In a song titled ‘Eenmnas’ (One man’s), the Dutch rapper Ismo sang, ‘I hate those fucking Jews more than the Nazis’, ‘Don’t shake hands with faggots’ and ‘Don’t believe in anything but the Koran.’ This was rap music by Ismael Houllich, a Dutch citizen of Muslim migrant descent. Typically, although being a minority member himself, Ismo directed his hatred against other minorities and deprived groups. (In chapter 2 we mentioned Gordon Allport, the founder of modern prejudice research, who observed that a person with negative attitudes towards one minority is likely to target other minorities.) As expected, Ismo protested, denied and rejected being homophobic, although he did differentiate between Jews and Zionists: They are trying to twist my words against me … I don’t hate all Jews. I hate only Zionist Jews that made Palestine smaller than my neighborhood. It all depends on how you interpret the song. By ‘faggots’ I didn’t mean homosexuals and by ‘Jews’ I didn’t mean all Jews. My fans realize that.139

Hozny, another Dutch Muslim rapper, cruelly lambasted the right-wing, anti-Muslim and pro-Israel politician Geert Wilders. (Wilders’ views were provocative and irritating; some were extremely so, certainly to Muslims, on Islam, immigration, danger to Europe and Western civilisation, Israel, Jews, etc. For example, Europe is ‘the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents … Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead’; ‘Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages – at the same time’; ‘Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy … If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies’; ‘Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.’140) In his music Hozny referred to Wilders’ childhood and painful family history. Geert Wilders, derogatively called Geertje by Hozny, was born to a Dutch father and an Indonesian mother from the city of Sukabumi (about 80 km south of Jakarta). These were extremely hurtful memories that Hozny aimed at, apparently, Wilders’ Achilles’ heel. Ever since his birth Geertje feels he’s less. / It [the reason for his feeling inferior] was Sukabumi, that’s where his mother was born. / At primary school he was already teased about this, was called a nigger by his classmates, got beaten up, [and] was shutout in the playground. / With his brother Paul he’s broken contacts because he didn’t want to hear his stupid crap.141



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Hozny mentioned Wilders’ Israeli connection: ‘As a soldier in Israel he was happy among the Jews / Then hate for Islam was born in his eyes / How are things with your kippah? / Are you being oppressed by the Jewish faith?’142 Hozny’s song about Wilders, with necessary corrections and clarifications, embraces the gist and spirit of his critical rap music. Apparently, without his Israeli experience (after graduating from secondary school Wilders travelled to Israel and spent a few months on an Israeli agricultural settlement), Wilders would not have hated Islam. Had he not fulminated against Muslim immigrants, the media would not have paid attention to Wilders; and without the depressing Jewish influence (symbolically epitomised by the yarmulke), Wilders would not have become an opponent of Islam. The lies you spread throughout the country / where once [it] was hate for [the] Germans, now it’s [for] Islam. / When he [Geert Wilders] hears the name of the Prophet, he can’t concentrate. / You’re [Geert Wilders] still alive only because Allah wants [it] so. / Without Islam your heart is dead. / Without us you do not interest the media. / Thanks to us you’re important in this country. / As a soldier in Israel he liked to be with Jews. / Then his hate for Islam also started in his heart. / Then it all started with his hateful stories: Islam is no good, Islam is dangerous, and Islam is a threat to the whole country. / [He] goes right-off the [edge] about Islam. / [He demands to do] away with mosques and imams. / Then Theo van Gogh was recklessly murdered … [so] more votes went to Geertje. / Then he published his flop film Fitna [a 2008 short film that sharply criticises the Koran, claiming that Islam spreads hate and violently opposes all those who do not follow it]. / Then the headscarf-tax [fine?] or rather the ‘head-rag’ tax and your anti-Islam articles. / We notice that you are mentally ill, a psychopath, from statements comparing Mein Kampf’ with the Holy Quran. / Geertje, Islam is 2.1 billion; the DKDB [The Royal and Diplomatic Protection Service, a special force in charge of the security and protection of the Dutch Royal House, the diplomatic service, government members, etc.], won’t help when they come to get you. / What about that cap or yarmulke on your head? Is Geertje being oppressed by the Jewish faith? / I do this [rap music] not for me but … for the girls in their headscarves. / I do this for every Muslim in the Netherlands and elsewhere.143

In general, more security is the authorities’ answer to the growing tensions between immigrants and Europeans. However, the increase in the number of police officers in the suburbs also means more harassment and more random searches of young people with a ‘suspicious’ look, who in turn complain that they are being unfairly singled out.144 Similarly, proposals to use military-led training programmes to deal with young offenders and mandatory counselling for parents of unruly primary schoolchildren only fuelled more complaints. Also, an initiative to create b­ lue-collar

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apprenticeships for teenagers from the age of 14 was tabled, but this was sharply criticised for removing children from the public education system at too early an age. Apparently, the seemingly inferior status that was applied to these teenagers segregated them from their young ‘white’ European counterparts who could continue their schooling, thus benefiting from future jobs and businesses. Another idea called for anonymous résumés from job applicants, thus aiming to curb discrimination against job seekers with foreign-sounding names or from troubled neighbourhoods. It is ‘gimmicky, even humiliating’, protested young migrant job seekers who called to fight discrimination, not to disguise differences, ‘as if differences are a crime’.145 In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced support for boot camps and other new penalties for youth criminals (‘warning shot’ arrest, i.e., short jail terms for youth offenders who would normally be paroled for their crimes) in an attempt to combat mainly violent foreign youth crime. Forty-three per cent of all violent crimes in Germany are committed by people under 21 years of age; nearly half of these crimes involve foreign youths. However, statistics from the German Federal Crime Office show that crimes of all categories committed by non-Germans declined for nine years running prior to 2008, and youth crime as a percentage of total crime (by Germans and immigrants alike) had been stable at about 21 per cent since 1993.146 This brief focus on the encounter between immigrants and police officers in Europe stresses the importance of reaching understandings within the two sectors. Although the following describes Britain, its lessons are applicable to other European countries. The encounters of British black, Irish and Asian people with the police are a microcosm of their contact with the state. The reason is that ‘the police have more impact on everyday lives of communities than any other single agency. They can engender a sense of security and justice, but also much distrust and anger. … The anger is about heavy policing and police neglect – ­criminalisation and harassment on the one hand and inadequate attention to racist crime and behaviour on the other.’147 Another aspect of police activity in relation to Muslim communities is the Jewish demand for security in order to frustrate Muslim violence against Jews and Jewish sites (schools, synagogues, businesses, etc.). The dramatic rise in such violent acts, in France for example, has put a heavier load on local police. Policemen complain that ‘instead of going after criminals, they are keeping watch on Jewish institutions, which some consider a waste of time’. The French police, composed of the Police Nationale, the Gendarmerie Nationale and other agencies, a force of about 270,000 officers, include Muslims, some of whom reportedly pleaded not to be given synagogue surveillance duty.148



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The Millet system Occasionally, the bitter taste of these authority–immigrant encounters has led to Muslim demands for further segregation. In various French cities youths demand that areas where Muslims form a majority should be reorganised on the basis of the Millet system, originated by the Ottoman Empire. Each religious community enjoyed the right to organise its life in accordance with its culture and beliefs; thus, according to this plan, each community and ethnic group would operate under its own personal and public laws in these neighbourhoods. The word Millet comes from the Arabic millah, meaning ‘nation’, which suggests the establishment of mini-nations (community neighbourhoods) featuring bilingual Muslim schools teaching lessons in the local European language and Arabic. There is also a demand for recognition of Arabic as an official language. Alternatively, there are growing calls for the European state to view bilingual or multilingual education as a problem and to insist on the dominance of one language and a monolingual system of only the European language in schools. Others view bi/multilingualism as an asset; research findings clearly show that children who speak two languages or more do better in school than those who are proficient in only one.149 There have also been calls for the lowering of the age of consent to nine years, like the Prophet Muhammad’s youngest spouse (for which Susanne Winter, an Austrian right-wing candidate for the Graz city council called the Prophet a paedophile and ‘child molester’).150 In reality, in some of France’s major urban centres, facets of a de facto Millet system are already in place, with women obliged to wear the hijab, men obliged to grow beards and alcohol and pork forbidden. Ramadan fasting and other religious laws are observed, as is a ban on smoking in public places, etc. In such localities, ‘places of sin’ such as cinemas, bars, clubs etc., are closed down and local non-Muslim administration bureaus are replaced by other bodies more attentive and responsive to Muslim rules. As Michael Radu observed, in these suburbs ‘Keep Out’ is the message directed at the French authorities.151 But France is not alone. In Bonn, Germany socio-religious pressure was brought to bear on Muslim girls who did not wear the veil and young men who consumed alcohol. In London, radical Islamists have campaigned for the imposition of Sharia law in several areas of the city. Wuppertal in Germany was confronted by an active Sharia police force: a group of men in orange safety vests imprinted with the words ‘Sharia Police’ started patrolling outside the city’s discos and pubs and on the streets. They distributed pamphlets urging Muslims to observe Muslim strictures against alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography and

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prostitution. The group declared that its function was to impose Muslim law, in the first instance on local Muslims only, and to create a ‘Sharia-Controlled Zone’. The municipal authorities and police were quick to act against the new local assembly, including the rival police force in their midst; charges of unlawful assembly and use of an unauthorised uniform in public were brought against members of the group. Wuppertal’s far-rightists also responded, by forming an alternative group, the City Defence, whose function was the ‘returning [of] safety and order to the city’.152

Islam and terrorism To return to acts and crimes committed against Jews: the attack on the Ozar Hatora school was part of a series of attacks by French Muslim immigrants or their offspring in March 2012 on what, for them, symbolised the enemies of Islam. French Jews were considered an obvious foe, for reasons we have already mentioned in relation to Ilan Halimi’s murder and for other reasons to be elaborated on below. But before directing opposition to Jews, i.e., externally, the enemy from within, the nearest enemy has first to be dealt with. These are fellow Muslims who do not abide by religious and cultural rules as defined by the Islamists. For example, phenomena like integration and, more seriously, assimilation into French Western society and the removal of the distinctions that differentiate Muslims from non-Muslims (e.g., the hijab) are issues that need to be solved urgently, together with the imposition of Muslim norms, if necessary by force. The only way to build the Islamic State and establish God’s sovereignty is by fighting; all other means are excluded, particularly preaching or participation in politics. The fight is a religious obligation and priority in the struggle must be accorded to the nearest enemy (Arab regimes), not the far away one (the West).153

Accordingly, Islam – in particular its fundamentalist form as defined and detailed by various sources – is seen as a shield against integration. Islam, and if necessary, over-Islamisation, must be a wall against assimilation, secularism and integration. It ought to be said that this kind of accentuated Islam represents a small minority; the vast majority of Muslims in Europe – perhaps 95 per cent or more – wish to live their lives in maximal compatibility with the European lifestyle and standard of living. However, extreme Islam calls for a cultural rupture with Europe and professes disengagement from the host society. Feelings and acts of rage, contempt for liberal democracy and violence against the secular West and



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its organs, particularly the military (and Muslim servicemen and women – see below), make news that attracts maximum media coverage, and certainly not calls for integration.154 In their millions, Muslims in Europe attempt to conduct a normative life within secular societies. Still, much more coverage has been given to Azzam Tamimi, the high-profile supporter of the Palestinian Muslim movement Hamas in Britain. Tamimi and his ilk made it clear that the War on Terror currently waged by several European countries in the wars in Syria and Iraq is not being conducted in the name of the Muslims who live in Europe. On the contrary, it is practically war on Muslims and on Islam. Tamimi has emphasised, ‘We are Muslims in Europe, not European-Muslims. We have an identity … we have a Shariah, and we have an ummah (nation) that we are proud of.’ In short, as Tamimi claimed, and as Tariq Modood has defined, Muslims in Europe are not of the ‘hyphenated identities’ type such as Irish-Americans.155 The hyphen that connects two worlds together is not applicable here. If a hyphenated identity does exist, then it is the Pakistani-Muslim who lives in Britain, the AlgerianMuslim who lives in France, the Turkish-Muslim who lives in Germany and so on. ‘We are Muslims and that’s that. There is no such animal as a Muslim with a dual identity, and there will not be.’ Hence, ‘everything is haraam [forbidden]. You have to live like the Prophet was living at the time of Medina. The paradigm is the Prophet at the time of Medina. All other things do not count and are very bad’ is the mantra of the anti-hyphen Muslims.156 The attack on the Ozar Hatora school was preceded by the murder of French paratroopers of Muslim origin. Service in European militaries and fighting against fellow Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan on behalf of Western interests is seen by fundamentalist and jihadist Muslims as the epitome of assimilation and loss of Muslim identity, something to be resisted and fought. The following are a few of the difficulties that a Muslim recruit might face when in the national service of his host European country: questions of identity and allegiance, religious restrictions, food restrictions, service together with women soldiers, the need to keep the Muslim background a secret, a Muslim soldier being a victim of jokes and stereotypical remarks, instances of discrimination, harassment and namecalling (‘camel jockey’, ‘haaji’, ‘raghead’, etc.), participation in acts against Muslim communities abroad, the inevitable legal, cultural and religious conflicts that emerge because of these difficulties, and particularly the hostile attitudes of fellow Muslims at home (Europe) towards their co-religionist soldiers serving in Western militaries. Muslim troops may feel that they are being used as a tactic to inferiorise and even to dehumanise the enemy who is also a Muslim; hence, the latter’s meagre achievements, poor standard of living, low morale, etc., will play on the mind of a Westernised, Europeanised Muslim soldier. Finally,

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Muslim servicemen and women in a European military environment are likely to suffer discrimination by being assigned extra duty at Christmas, New Year (and Thanksgiving in the US army), by insulting, anti-Muslim graffiti on prayer centres and by officers who encourage their troops to kill Muslims or insist on Christian prayers being said by the troops regardless of their faith, etc.157 On the other hand, a genuine dilemma faces Muslim soldiers who consider resigning from the military because of the aforementioned difficulties. Resignation may jeopardise the integration of other Muslims into European or US military forces and arouses grave doubts about their loyalty and allegiance.158 ‘Muslim Americans are American first?’ ‘Should we trust them?’159 Or the equivalent in Great Britain: ‘There is a minority of people who have a negative perception of the British armed forces and these tend to be second- and thirdgeneration Muslims. It’s about time they began treating this country as their own. They live here in this peaceful country and that’s largely down to the armed forces who protect them; I’m a serving Muslim in the forces and I am just doing my job. It’s not for the soldiers to decide what country to invade or what action to take, that’s up to the politicians.’160 Muslims are no longer a rarity in European militaries. About 2,000 serve in the Dutch army; 1,000 serve in the Austrian military, making up 3.5 per cent of the Austrian armed forces.161 The Dutch Ministry of Defence does not know the exact percentage of its Muslim personnel: soldiers may state their religion, or not. Some countries, like France, do not ask the draftees for their religious denomination.162 Islam in Europe reported on the difficulties faced by a Muslim sergeant in the Dutch signal corps: how he sees a mission in a Muslim country and the reactions he faces while in Holland and in uniform. What is so peculiar about a non-white European person in uniform? Does wearing a uniform mean adoption of Western values at the expense of giving up original ethnic and religious values? ‘I’m first and foremost a soldier, and afterward a Muslim,’ [said the sergeant]. Once he walked through Rotterdam in his desert-coloured camouflage uniform when several Moroccan street-kids stepped up to him. ‘Traitor!’ they shouted. [The] ­sergeant … somehow understood it. ‘They thought, ah, this guy is brown, he doesn’t belong to the Dutch army. Those kids are brought up like that. I walked up to them and explained that I’m just trying to contribute my part to a better world. It says nowhere in the Koran that you’re a traitor if you do what you believe in. But they didn’t understand it and began to curse. I continued walking then’. For some – mostly young immigrants – taunting Muslim soldiers is a favourite activity: calling an integrated Muslim a traitor. … Why is [a sergeant] with his Indonesian appearance, characterized as a traitor anyway? The young sergeant shrugs. ‘There’s in particular a lot of ignorance hiding behind their response. They see somebody who’s not white,



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but who does wear a uniform that stands for Western values? That doesn’t go down well.’163

The ignorance that the Dutch signal corps sergeant complained about results, occasionally, in violence. In England the police arrested suspected terrorists who had a list of British Muslim soldiers whom they considered traitors. The Dutch Muslim sergeant reacted to this news, questioning Muslims who attack other Muslims because the latter interpret the Koran differently, despite the fact that the very same Book forbids killing a fellow Muslim. The same holds, according to the Rotterdam sergeant who had served in Afghanistan, for Afghan Muslims. ‘They turn against Western powers, but they apparently have no difficulty murdering coreligionists in the same land in order to achieve their goals.’164 Life as a Muslim US marine is no better. The ‘home front’ is hostile and the resulting schizophrenia is not easy to cope with. One is not sure whether it is more dangerous in Afghanistan or when coming back home and facing the wrath of one’s own community and family. Though their abilities as speaking the local languages and understanding the local culture in the Middle East are considered to be advantages in their military service context, when they are coming back home, sometimes they have to struggle with their own communities and with their own families. They don’t necessarily get their support and worse than this: they have to live with being marked by the people from their own mosque as traitors, having to deal with demonstrations against them by their wives who see them as part of the imperialist crusade, etc. These raise among them questions about their own feelings, mixed between being part of their heritage, culture and families and being part of the American culture; proud of the job they accomplished and being awarded a Combat Action Ribbon and/or a Purple Heart by the American society.165 The event that produced the ‘nearest enemy’ (see below) to which priority should be given when dealing harshly with the enemies of Islam was the ‘MidiPyrenees’ shootings of March 2012 (known also as the ‘Toulouse Attacks’). The enemies were members of the Muslim community who, seemingly, followed a forbidden way of life: as French soldiers they killed Muslims in Afghanistan, and conducted a threatening kind of Islam (integration, assimilation), hence they should be sternly dealt with. Three French Muslim paratroopers were therefore shot dead. The first fatal attack was on 11 March 2012, targeting Master Sergeant Imad Ibn-Ziaten of the 1st Parachute Logistics Regiment (1er régiment du train parachutiste) outside a gym in Toulouse. The assassinated paratrooper was waiting for a potential buyer of his motorcycle; the buyer turned out to be his killer. Latifa Ibn-Ziaten, Imad’s mother, described the chilly and humiliating encounter between Imad and his killer.

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To verify that he is not wrong, the moment they met Merah [the killer] asked IbnZiaten if he is a soldier in the French army. When Imad confirmed, Merah demanded that Imad would lie down on his belly, so that Merah would feel that he managed to humiliate France. ‘Take off your gun,’ asked Ibn-Ziaten, and added that ‘I will not lie down on the floor, go away.’ When the terrorist repeated his demand, the soldier persisted, ‘You want to shoot? Go on, shoot!’ Merah did not wait, cried out, ‘In the name of Allah,’ and shot once at Ziaten’s head. The killer and his victim lived 800 meters from each other; both were sons to parents who emigrated from North Africa, both Muslims, but each of them chose a totally different way. When Ibn-Ziaten, the French soldier, fell lifeless on the ground, Merah who decided to humiliate the country where he was born, went on his way to kill his other victims.166

The French paratrooper Ibn-Ziaten was buried in M’diq, his family’s home town in Morocco. Sometime in the past, at his request before going on a French military mission in Chad, Imad had asked to be buried is M’diq, his father’s home town. ‘He loved the town in which his father was born, he loved the sea. When the disaster happened I consulted his friends. I was afraid I was wrong. All told me that he wanted to be buried in Morocco. Then I remembered that I always told him [Imad] that Morocco is my mother and France is my father. It might be that in his thoughts he wanted to be with his mother.’ Latifa Ibn-Ziaten published a book about the assassination of her son, Mort pour la France (Died for France). ‘My son died as a soldier. He was killed because he was a soldier, and his blood was shed in France, that is to say he died for France.’167 The second killing was on 15 March 2012 at a shopping centre in Montauban, a town north of Toulouse. Two uniformed soldiers were killed: Corporal Abel Chennouf and Private Mohamed Legouad of the 17th Parachute Engineer Regiment (17e régiment du génie parachutiste). A third soldier was seriously injured and was left in a coma. On 19 March 2012 the third attack took place at the Ozar Hatora Jewish Day School in Toulouse, a branch of a chain of at least 20 Jewish schools throughout France. The victims were an adult and three children – Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his sons Aryeh and Gabriel aged six and three, and an eight-year-old girl, Miriam Monsonego. They were all buried in Jerusalem, Israel. The killer was buried in Algeria because his father feared his son’s grave might be desecrated if he were buried in France. Four pupils were injured.168 President Sarkozy termed it as the worst school shooting in French history.169 The police identified the killer as Mohammed Merah, a 23-year old French Muslim, born to parents of Algerian descent. He was known to the police and had been imprisoned twice (2007, 2009) for thefts and driving offences. French authorities also had reports about Merah’s visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he was arrested in Kandahar in December 2010. Following the Ozar Hatora attack, Merah was killed by French police after a 32-hour siege. Merah’s



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father said that he would sue the police for the killing of his son; Abdelkader, a brother, was arrested for aiding and abetting Merah. Signals from his mobile phone were emitted close to the Ozar Hatora school at the time of the attack, and weapons were found in his flat – an Uzi sub-machine gun and a World War II Sten gun.170 Before he was killed, Merah informed the media that France’s 2010 ban on wearing the burqa, Jewish atrocities against Palestinians and French army involvement in the war in Afghanistan were the motivations behind his attacks. ‘I am very determined, and I did not do this [the killings in Montauban and Toulouse] in order to be caught. … It is important that you should know that in front of you stands a man who is not afraid to die. I love death as you love life,’ declared Merah in typical jihadi-suicidal words. He also claimed that al-Qaeda had sent him on his murderous mission.171 Muslim soldiers in Western armies, some maintain, represent the highest standard of Muslim integration into their new havens. They are prepared to die for their host European (or North American) countries. And worse (from their point of view) is that they are even ready to kill Muslim co-religionists in Iraq and Afghanistan. As such, they constitute a real threat for those who preach isolation and resist integration; European Jews also constitute a threat for these Muslim isolationists. Tsilla Hershco, an Israeli specialist on France’s politics and society, describes the connection between the miserable and poor performance of young Muslims in France and the bitterness and frustration they exhibit towards French Jews – a successful, rich sector, in their words, ‘that runs France and runs the world’.172 Academics and journalists have pointed out that social and economic factors were behind the anti-Semitic violence: the lack of integration of thousands of young Muslims into French society, discrimination, unemployment, poor housing conditions, and inferior schooling and education – all of which have resulted in growing feelings of bitterness, alienation and frustration towards the French Republic. […] The violence of Muslims against Jews was explained as resentment and outrage directed against a segment of the population that is perceived as politically, economically, and socially well-integrated into mainstream French society.173

In a temporal summation of the Toulouse shootings France’s Jewish community attempted to communicate its concerns to France’s Muslim leadership. Notwithstanding the obvious facets of conflict, the two largest Muslim and Jewish communities in Europe share various common ideals and experiences. A considerable portion of France’s Jews are of North African origin and settled in the colonial European power base over the last two or three g­ enerations. The same is true of the majority of France’s Muslim population. Despite the

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present Arab–Israeli conflict in the Middle East and the fact that following the Toulouse attack anti-Semitic events escalated during the first eight months of 2012 in comparison to the same period in the previous year (53 per cent more; 386 anti-Semitic acts were perpetrated, including 101 acts of vandalism and 285 threats),174 common memories of North Africa remained fresh in the minds of both peoples. The commonality of a shared past history and geography should form a basis for building bridges leading to cooperation and even unity in matters of mutual interest. Also, alienation towards the French state is not a must; even if Paris criticises Jerusalem, ‘France is France and Israel is Israel’. This should work also for the Muslim communities who empathise with their Palestinian brethren: French Jews should not be a target for Muslim frustrations regarding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. After the [Toulouse] attack, the Jewish leadership decided … to negotiate with Muslim leaders. … ‘When our parents, Jews from North Africa, came to France we were in the same situation [as Muslims are now]. They started from scratch. They worked hard, fought, built themselves, simultaneously paid homage to the French state. On one hand the present feeling in the community is that we must get together and declare war [on Muslim anti-Semitism], struggle systematically, fight evil, terror and anti-Semitism. On the other hand Jewish leaders try to create a dialogue with the Muslims. If that happens, maybe the Muslims will understand that France is France and Israel is Israel, and you could love Israel but disagree with its political choices. Not all of us in France and in Israel are made of the same color and of the same piece.175

European Jews, Israel and Zionism In the summer of 2014, when the war in Gaza flared up, Britain’s Guardian newspaper (a sharp critic of Israel) published a convincing editorial that called not to hold world Jewry accountable for Israel’s policies and actions. The newspaper reacted to the intermittent cycle in which the Israeli–Arab conflict escalates and European Jews are conflated with Israeli conduct; often this fusion results in anti-Semitic verbal and physical attacks. To attack a European Jew for what Israel does is racism. Israel is Israel, and Diaspora Jews are Diaspora Jews, and the two should be kept utterly distinct. Nor should Jews dissociate from Israel, condemn or apologise for Israeli acts, asserted the Guardian.176 The newspaper expressed a clearly different attitude towards Diaspora Jews from the one demanded of the Jewish community in Malmö, Sweden (see chapter 2) or of the Hakham Bashi, the Chief Rabbi of Turkey (see above). Most Jews feel bound up with Israel, writes the Guardian, and it mentions that among those Jews some could be highly critical and doubtful regarding the con-



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duct of the Israeli government. Hence, to demand Jews to sever this connection, i.e., to order how their Jewishness should be displayed – well, ‘Such demands have an ugly history’, the editorial reminds its readers. Indeed, history seems to repeat itself: the Guardian talks about an alarming increase in attacks during a course of a single July 2014 week in which eight synagogues in France were attacked; firebombs were launched on French and German synagogues by mobs and individuals whose chants and banners included ‘Death to Jews’ and ‘Slit Jews’ throats’. As for Germany, these incidents are ‘More chilling still, given that country’s history’, the newspaper recalls. The chants of pro-Palestinian protesters in Germany included some ‘literary gems’ like ‘Jew, coward pig, come out and fight alone’, and ‘Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas’. ‘[T]hese are the worst times since the Nazi era’, warned Jewish leaders. In Britain too, July 2014 was among the worst peak months of anti-Semitic incidents since the early 1980s (a time of intermittent eruptions of the Lebanese–Israeli conflict). It should not need saying, but it does: people can be as angry as they like at the Israeli government, but to attack a synagogue, threaten children at a Jewish school, or throw a brick through the window of a Jewish grocery store is vile and contemptible racism. It cannot be excused by reference to Israeli military behaviour. The two are and should be kept utterly distinct. Some may counter that that is impossible, given the strong attachment of most Jews to Israel. But this is less complicated than it looks. Yes, Jews feel bound up with Israel, they believe in its right to survive and thrive. But that does not mean they should be held responsible for its policy, on which some may disagree and over which they have no control. Nor should they be required to declare their distance from Israel as a condition for admission into polite society. […] This is a test for those who take a strong stance in support of the Palestinians, but in truth it is a test for all of us.177

Another view refers to European Jews who recognise the existence of a substantive difference between Israelis and European Diaspora Jews; that difference justifies a separation between the two sectors. It is not the ‘official’ difference that results from different citizenships but, rather, a much deeper difference that has to do with identity and philosophy. Israel, being a sovereign, independent state, openly and independently conducts its policies and foreign relations vis-à-vis the world. Often, Israeli acts and declarations arouse criticism and objection; occasionally, they detrimentally affect the attitudes of the European authorities – but more so those of European societies and public ­opinion – towards their Jewish minorities. Occasionally such detrimental European attitudes reflect anti-Semitic expressions and deteriorate into violent physical acts against European Jews. Such attitudes and actions towards European Jews are to

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be found among European ‘whites’ (right- and left-wingers), as well as among Muslim immigrants. Alternatively, European Jews, being a minority in their countries, conduct their activities in a way that – unlike in Israel – reflects a low profile and strives not to provoke the anger and criticism of the Gentile societies and countries in which they live. If at all, European Jewish criticism of the policies of the European state is done – again, unlike in Israel – inconspicuously, respectfully and in closed circles. The old Zionist–Jewish Diaspora controversy is thus active and vibrant. Zionist ideology did not advocate waiting for statehood to happen but, rather, to be proactive in the state’s creation. Zionism thus clashed with the Jewish religious belief that only a heavenly miracle or messianic intervention will bring about the rebuilt Jewish state. Building the Third Temple was a euphemism for Jewish rule in Zion for the third time, after the First and Second Temples were destroyed in 587 bce and 70 ce, respectively. It is written in the Babylonian Talmud that the ‘Third Temple will descend out of the fire from Heaven’. God had sent fire into Zion and only God could rebuild what was consumed by His fire.178 (‘The Lord has accomplished his fury; he has poured out his fierce anger, and has kindled a fire in Zyyon and it has devoured its foundations’ [Lam. 4:11]. And, ‘[F]or I, says the Lord, will be to her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her’ [Zech. 2:9]). Hence, by not adhering to the Jewish religious path and the Diaspora’s low profile, Zionism revolts against Heaven and earth, i.e., arouses the wrath of both (‘earth’ meaning the ‘Gentile Nations’, ‫)אומות העולם‬. Infuriating God aside, the reactions within the ‘triangle’ are relevant. European and Muslim elements that act against European Jews justify their criticism and anti-Jewish acts by citing Israeli policies against the Palestinians, and sometimes Lebanon, in the recent past. The conspicuous, high-profile way in which the State of Israel expresses and conducts its policies and activities vis-à-vis its neighbours and the European states is eventually mirrored in a deterioration of European Jewry’s relations with their majority populations and with Muslim communities. In short, Israel’s actions have implications for the triangle. In regard to the above, Gad Yair, an Israeli sociologist, writing in the Israeli daily Haaretz, recalled two recent relevant episodes. Yair quotes Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe, an ultra-Orthodox Hassidic leader who lives in New York, and an unnamed Dutch Jewish sociologist from Amsterdam who reacted to a lecture given by Yair. The Rabbi attributed the murder of Israeli Jews by Palestinians to the very fact that Jews live in Israel and pursue the hubristic Zionist national ideology of establishing Israel and Jewish statehood. Israeli Zionists pursue this end instead of becoming devout Orthodox Jews who wait and pray for the above-mentioned heavenly intervention to grant them



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sovereignty and statehood. ‘For two thousand years Jewish greatness was being victims, not killers. […] For two thousand years millions of Diaspora Jews were killed. Jews were killed, they were not the killers. This was the strength of Jews in the Diaspora … Jews should not carry the sword of vengeance, nor any other sword. They should confine themselves to the ghetto and leave the Gentiles to run the world. Jews have to wait for heavenly redemption, and to pray for God’s help,’ were the Rabbi’s words.179 The Dutch Jewish sociologist protested that Yair, the Israeli, criticised Europe openly; this is a clear violation of the Jewish Diasporic norm and codes, that is, not to discuss Jewish and non-Jewish relations in public. Yair concludes from these two reactions that unequivocally there is still a huge, wide-open chasm between Zionist Israelis and Diaspora Jews. Furthermore, the latter are deeply worried lest they will have to pay the price for Israel’s defiance and rebelliousness in its political and diplomatic conduct. Gad Yair’s observations, Rabbi Teitelbaum’s views and that of the Dutch Jewish sociologist are very important as they reflect valid views in Israel and in the Jewish world about the yawning rift between Israelis and Diaspora Jews. We are fortunate to quote here, with Yair’s kind permission, several excerpts from his article that accurately describe the present-day contradictory perceptions of Diaspora Jews and Israelis. [The anonymous Dutch Jewish sociologist] said that in a lecture delivered to an audience of non-Jews, I [Gad Yair] violated the hidden Jewish consensus of not discussing openly the intricacies of the relations between Jews and non-Jews. ‘We are a minority,’ he wrote [the Dutch Jewish sociologist], ‘and because of this we are dependent on the good will of the majority population, and we can’t deviate and take different attitudes, nor distinguish and elevate ourselves above them.’ That is to say, Jews could discuss their fears of the Gentiles, or take a pride in their achievements in comparison to the Gentiles – but they can do this only within the ghetto walls, under the silence of the closed synagogue. There is no doubt that there is a difference between us, he wrote to me; between you, ‘the tough and opinionated Israeli’ and us, ‘polite and confidential [European] Jews’. In your lecture, he wrote, you washed the dirty linen in public [even if it is] a scientific truth, and by this you put us [Diaspora Jews] in danger. As a result they [the Gentiles] might think that we [Diaspora Jews] are different and not equal to them. For years we hide from the Gentiles and talk only behind their backs. But you, the Israeli, you pushed us out of the closet. Jews are careful not to do this. These two anecdotes prove how far Zionists are from the Jewish tradition of the Diaspora. Israelis who were suckled on the values of popular Zionism that developed in Israel, perceive the Diaspora views of the Rabbi from America and of the Dutch Jewish sociologist as something strange and puzzling. The two reacted as Jews always did in the Diaspora. They are anxious and feeble because they had chosen to remain a fearful minority among the Gentiles. When criticizing us, the Rabbi and the

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s­ociologist say to us, the Zionists, that our sovereignty and our straightforwardness put them in danger. By attempting to become responsible for our fate and determine it, we Israelis not only rebel against Heaven and violate the hubris transgression by not waiting for the help of God; but by our behaviour and reactions towards the Palestinians we create a strategic danger to all the Diaspora Jews. This Jewish reaction tells that the Zionists are indeed different from their brothers in the Diaspora. Zionists absorbed a banal nationalism and conduct daily life that is based on sovereignty and self-defence, on strength and defiance against the world. More than this, Zionism perceives and defines itself as the negative of the Diaspora Jewishness. In this sense Israelis … do not bow their heads anymore before the Gentiles and are not ready anymore to bend and hide as victims. … They [Israelis] loudly rebuke all those servile and cautious Jews that live in New York and Amsterdam and become afraid because of this. […] The native Zionists exhibit sovereignty and independence and are responsible for their fate and determine it. Unlike the ghetto Jews of today, we are not afraid to tell straightforwardly to the Gentile peoples that we do not believe them or their representatives. We are convinced that they are ready to exterminate us. … Indeed, both the Satmar Rebbe and the Dutch sociologist live on a different moral planet, different from the one we live on. Their fearful reactions and their criticism of us show how different is our Zionist character from the one of those who had chosen to stick to the Diaspora and to give up [taking part in] the responsibility and sovereignty that the Land of Israel has created and bestowed on us. We should know this: the break […] between Jewish history and the Zionist movement still exists.180

We find Yair’s article and insights very accurate and highly perceptive. One could probably take issue with his findings and conclusions, and either corroborate or refute them. A deeper analysis is beyond the scope of our discussion. However, it is beneficial to compare the above low-key Jewish profile with the Muslim populace’s modes of criticism and protest against the European state that are currently prevalent across that continent. There is nothing inconspicuous about them. On the contrary, the idea is to criticise the West openly and publicly for its weaknesses and faults, to revivify obligatory Muslim vows in order to rectify Western defects, to disseminate the message (as already mentioned in chapter 5) that every human being is born Muslim, hence it is the function of the Muslim minorities to spread this truth and enlighten the Europeans and to predict the inevitable Islamisation of the West, or otherwise its fall. For example, in licensed demonstrations approved and escorted by the London Metropolitan Police, the following banners were waved: ‘Europe is the cancer, Islam is the answer’, ‘Europe you will pay: your 9/11 is on its way’, ‘Freedom go to hell’, ‘Liberalism go to hell’, ‘Freedom of expression go to hell’, ‘Democracy go to hell’, ‘Europe you will pay, Bin Laden is on his way’, ‘Europe you will pay, fantastic 4 are on their way’ (that is, to say the four terrorists who bombed the



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London transportation system on 7/7). These were the demonstrations sparked off by the Muhammad cartoons published in a Danish newspaper in September 2005. According to Muslim teachings, drawing human faces, and certainly the Prophet’s, is strictly forbidden.181 For some Europeans and Muslims, the Muslims’ present-day open criticism of Europe and of Europeans is only the prelude to the ineluctable march of Islamisation that is waiting in the wings to conquer the continent. Muslim preachings in the mosques and on the internet today are voices of the future.

‘Not if we seize Europe, but when’182 The spokesman and leader of Sharia4Belgium, Fouad Belkacem alias Abu Imran, was sincere, open, conspicuous and high-profile in Dale Hurd’s interview with him on CBN News in March 2012.183 The bottom line according to Imran is that it is only a matter of time before Islam prevails and Belgium, Europe and the rest of the non-Muslim world submit to Allah. It happened in the past (in Spain), and it will happen in the near future throughout Europe. The duty of Muslims is to change and rectify Western society and to save the West from its perverted norms – chiefly democracy, because legislation is a divine act, one not for human beings to control. ‘Democracy is the opposite of Islam […] ‘Allah is the legislator.’ It is impossible to be a democratic Muslim – it is like ‘speaking to a Christian Jew, or a Muslim Jew’, it is impossible. Future prospects are indeed bleak for Western Europe, chiefly for Belgium, because ‘[t]he victory of Allah … is very near’: in c. 2030 the majority of Belgians will be Muslim, just wait and see, is the message of Abu Imran. Unless, that is, Belgians follow his advice: ‘If [the citizens of Belgium] want to push us back, … maybe they can start by marrying four wives and have a lot of children.’184 The following are further selected excerpts from the interview and paraphrases by Dale Hurd of things that Abu Imran said. ‘Pimp’ Dewinter is the way Abu Imran called the Belgian politician ‘Filip’ Dewinter, the leader of the right-wing Vlaams Belang Party [Flemish Interest], this because Dewinter allowed his daughter An-Sofie Dewinter to be photographed in a bikini and burqah with the Dutch words ‘Freedom or Islam’ emblazoned on her bikini. ‘This [Belgian] community is a dirty, perverted community. We see that this community is breaking down, so we need to save this community like we saved it in Spain [Imran refers to the Muslim invasion of Spain 1,300 years ago]. We need to save this community and enlighten this community with Islam.’ Imran calls for the replacing of Belgian law with Sharia law, including amputation, stoning and death for thieves, adulterers and homosexuals. Imran protested about

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the [over-]exaggeration in the West’s preoccupation with the stoning, amputation and death penalty, which he claimed is ‘one-thousandth of the Sharia’. In 1,302 years of Islam about sixty hands were amputated; is this something that represents the Sharia?185

Muslims rectifying the perverted defects of European culture and society, with the declared aim of showing them the right path, i.e., the truth, and eventually Islamising them, has a vague parallel in the Jewish belief in Tikkun Olam, repairing the world, rectifying it, healing its social and cultural defects and miseries. In its current incarnation, Tikkun Olam can refer to any positive activity, from a direct service project such as working in a soup kitchen or shelter, to political action, to philanthropy.186 It should be emphasised and reiterated, however that this concept contains no Jewish intention to convert, missionise or Judaise among non-Jews. On the contrary, Judaism is wholly averse to proselytisation and, indeed, discourages it – not to mention the fact that male circumcision is required in order to become an accepted member of the Jewish people and their faith, which repels the vast majority of potential converts. Rabbi Helbo, who was active in Babylon at the end of the third century ce, observed that ‘Proselytes are hard for Israel, as leprosy [sic] is to the skin’ (Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 70b), and again ‘Converts are harmful to Israel as a sore or as psoriasis [sapachat, ‫( ’]ספחת‬Babylonian Talmud, Niddah 13b). The Bible also has guidance for Judaism on the matter of converts: ‘For the Lord will have mercy on Ya’akov, and will yet choose Yisra’el, and set them in their own land; and the stranger shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Ya’aqov’ (Isaiah 14:1). (The Hebrew word for ‘cleave’ is venispechu, ‫וניספחו‬, and is close to (same root, ‫ )ספח‬the word ‫ספחת‬, sapachat, psoriasis (more in the next, concluding chapter). Proverbs 1:15 also warns against converts: ‘He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it; but he that hates suretyship is safe.’ The Talmud follows this insight: a bad thing after a bad thing would befall those who accept converts (Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 109b). In Jewish history we find examples where converts to Judaism put Jews in existential danger because, naturally, the non-Jewish majority objected strongly to people converting and leaving their religious beliefs. In Islam a convert to another religion merited the death penalty, as did those who accepted him, which was enough to deter the Jewish community from encouraging or accepting converts from Islam. Also, converts were said to continue their previous lifestyles, which was a stumbling block for the Jews living with them. Jews also feared that in times of crisis converts would resort to their previous beliefs and desert their fellow Jews.187 And some converts even became more devout than their fellow Jews, thus shaming the latter, another reason for not accepting



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proselytes. On the other hand, the Bible is unequivocal concerning the inclusive way that converts should be treated: ‘And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, you shall not wrong with him. But the stranger that dwells with you shall be to you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God’ (Lev. 19:33–4). To return to the ideal of Tikkun Olam: it teaches the pure joys of healing, perfecting and transforming the world into a better place, only through various Jewish insights and principles, but never through conversion. What is astonishing is that a minor people with no universalistic aims of conquest, one often accused of plots to dominate the world and subjected to oppression and attempts at extermination, and one that could never guarantee its own survival, nonetheless would freely offer the majority around it ideas and hopes for bettering the world for everyone, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. In return for this, throughout much of history Jews were humiliated, shut away in ghettos, down-trodden, but kept alive as Islam and Christianity’s way of demonstrating their own triumphal edge. This showcasing of a miserable remnant was more impressive and effective than the annihilation of those who rejected Muhammad and Jesus.188 Such treatment certainly did not encourage people to become Jewish. And when Jewish influence did have an impact on non-Jews, many perceived it as a bad and detrimental influence. Suffice it to recall that Arnold Toynbee declared that the greatest calamity that ever happened to the Western world was its pollution by Judaism (see chapter 5). Haunted presents inherited from painful histories do not promise happy futures. Indeed, this chapter points to difficult and all too frequently violent, often bloody scenarios that inevitably are ‘triangular’ in shape. In the Conclusion we attempt to evaluate the future that awaits the ‘triangle’. The open-door policies of major Western European powers (particularly Germany) welcoming hundreds of thousands of Muslim immigrants and refugees fleeing from war in Iraq and Syria, or those desperate to escape African poverty and strife, arriving on small boats into southern Europe (Italy and Greece), are making daily headlines. Does Europe’s politically correct behaviour in 2015–16 resonate with memories of its barbaric treatment of Jews and other minorities in the 1930s and 1940s? What kind of frightening future might the peaceful invasion of refugees and economic migrants who are predominantly Muslims bring to Europe? Or will European Christians and Jews’ exposure to and direct encounters with Muslim immigrants change mutual distrust and ameliorate preconceived perceptions? The Conclusion to this book will attempt to evaluate present developments and suggest alternative future prospects.

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Notes 1 Aliette Abecassis, Alyah, La tentation du depart (Paris: Michel-Albin, 2015). Abecassis quoted here in Shlomo Papirblat, ‘Aliette doesn’t live here anymore’, Haaretz, Galeria (1 June 2015). Abecassis’ bestseller reports on her experience as a Jewish woman in France following events in the 2000s like the war in Gaza, the murder of Ilan Halimi, the massacre at the Toulouse Jewish school and the 2015 massacres at the Charlie Hebdo office and the Jewish kosher grocery in Paris. 2 Anshel Pfeffer, ‘Anti-Semitism in Europe: A crisis, but not yet a catastrophe’, Haaretz (12 August 2014). 3 Michel Gurfinkiel, ‘No future in France: Dire times for French Jews’ (Philadelphia: The Middle East Forum, 12 August 2012) PJ MEDIA, www.meforum.org/3304/ french-jews (accessed 22 November 2015). 4 BBC News, Europe, ‘Brussels Jewish Museum killings: Suspect “admitted attack” ’ (1 June 2014); Ashley Kirk, ‘Iraq and Syria: How many foreign fighters are fighting for ISIL?’ Telegraph (12 August 2015), www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ islamic-state/11770816/Iraq-and-Syria-How-many-foreign-fighters-are-fightingfor-Isil.html (accessed 20 March 2016). 5 Jethro Mullen and Josh Levs, ‘Charlie Hebdo shooting: Who are the suspects?’, CNN (9 January 2015). 6 Pfeffer, ‘Anti-Semitism in Europe’. 7 Adam LeBor, ‘Exodus: Why Europe’s Jews are fleeing once again’, Newsweek (29 July 2014), www.newsweek.com/2014/08/08/exodus-why-europes-jews-are-fleeingonce-again-261854.html (accessed 28 November 2015). 8 USA TODAY (9 January 2015); Mullen and Levs, ‘Charlie Hebdo shooting’. 9 Bethany Bell, ‘Anti-Semitism “on the rise” say Europe Jews’, BBC News, Europe (8 November 2013), www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24857207 (accessed 28 November 2015). 10 LeBor, ‘Exodus’; BBC News, Europe, ‘France boosts security at Jewish sites’ (7  October 2012), www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19862589 (accessed 28 November 2015). 11 BBC News, Europe, ‘France boosts security’. 12 Ram Sokol, ‘Ministry report: Attacks against Jews on the rise’, Jerusalem Post (28 January 2013, www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=301176 (accessed 28 November 2015); Greg Keller, ‘Report: 4 injured after explosion at kosher store’, CNS News.com (19 September 2012), http://cnsnews.com/news/ article/report-4-injured-after-explosion-kosher-store (accessed 28 November 2015). 13 Sokol, ‘Ministry report’. 14 Jean Yves Camus, ‘The French case’, in Günther Jikeli, Robin Stoller and Hanne Thoma (eds), Proceedings of the Conference on Strategies and Effective Practices for Fighting Antisemitism among People with a Muslim or Arab Background in Europe (Berlin: International Institute for Education and Research on Anti-Semitism, 2007).



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15 Erik Eiglad, The Anti-Jewish Riots in Oslo (Porsgrunn, Norway: Communalism Press, 2010), p. 53. During the demonstrations, Bishop Gunnar Stalsett, then the bishop of Oslo, defined support of Israel as an ‘un-Christian’ act (see Eiglad, p. 62). 16 Howard Jacobson, ‘English anti-Semitism on the march’, New Republic (15 April 2009). 17 Ehud Rosen, Mapping the Organizational Sources of the Global Delegitimization Campaign against Israel in the U.K. (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, 2010), p. 17. 18 Azar Majedi, ‘When a lesbian says: We are all Hezb’Allah now!’, quoted in Matthew N. Lyons (13 October 2007), http://threewayfight.blogspot.co.il/2007/10/whenlesbian-says-we-are-all-hezb-allah.html (accessed 28 November 2015). Azar Majedi was born in Iran, left for Europe in 1984 and is a member of the Worker Communist Party of Iran. 19 Colin Shindler, ‘The European Left and its trouble with Jews’, New York Times Sunday Review (27 October 2012), www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/opinion/sunday/ europes-trouble-with-jews.html?_​r=0 (accessed 6 December 2015). Shindler is an emeritus professor, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 20 Colin Shindler, Israel and the European Left: Between Solidarity and Delegitimization (New York: Continuum, 2012), p. 274. 21 Shindler, ‘The European Left and its trouble with Jews’. 22 Stephen Pollard, the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, quoted in LeBor, ‘Exodus’. 23 Sokol, ‘Ministry report’. 24 Cameron Fraser, ‘The Islamic factor in the European Union’s foreign policy’, in Shireen T. Hunter (ed.), Islam, Europe’s Second Religion: The New Social, Cultural, and Political Landscape (Westport, CT and London: Praeger, 2002), pp. 263–4. 25 Fraser, ‘The Islamic factor’, p. 264. 26 Mikael Tossavainen, ‘Arab and Muslim Anti-Semitism in Sweden,’ Jewish Political Studies Review 17:3–4 (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs [JCPA], Fall 2005), p. 3, or see www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=2370 (accessed 28 November 2015). 27 Günther Jikeli, Robin Stoller and Hanne Thoma (eds), Proceedings of the Conference on Strategies and Effective Practices for Fighting Antisemitism among People with a Muslim or Arab Background in Europe (Berlin: International Institute for Education and Research on Anti-Semitism, 2007). 28 Amr Bargisi and Samuel Tadros, ‘After the Fall: Boosters insisted the Egyptian revolution would yield a liberal democracy; Islamists’ electoral success vindicates the pessimists’, TABLET Magazine (9 December 2011), www.tabletmag.com/jewishnews-and-politics/85746/after-the-fall (accessed 28 November 2015). Amr Bargisi is the Albert Einstein Fellow at the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, Germany. Samuel Tadros is a research fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom. Both are senior partners in the Egyptian Union of Liberal Youth. 29 Eric T. Justin, ‘Protocols of the Elders of Crazy: On anti-Semitism in the Arab world’, The Harvard Crimson (3 October 2011), www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/10/3/ arab-world-antisemitism-jews/ (accessed 28 November 2015).

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30 Shahid Alam, ‘America shares the blame’, Al Ahram Weekly (10 August 2005), www. masress.com/en/ahramweekly/16255 (accessed 22 November 2015). Alam, a professor of economics at Northeastern University, responded here to Thomas Friedman’s article, ‘If it’s a Muslim problem, it needs a Muslim solution’, New York Times (8 July 2005), www.nytimes.com/2005/07/08/opinion/if-its-a-muslimproblem-it-needs-a-muslim-solution.html?_​r=0 (accessed 22 November 2015). 31 Alam, ‘America shares the blame’; Friedman, ‘If it’s a Muslim problem, it needs a Muslim solution’. In the Hindu–Muslim riots in February 2002 in the Indian state of Gujarat, 800 Muslims were killed and hundreds were reported missing. More than 500 places of worship (mosques, temples and churches) were destroyed or damaged. Thousands of Muslim business were destroyed or damaged. Sixty thousand Muslims fled their homes, and about 8,000 were arrested. There were also Hindu casualties: over 250 were killed, 10,000 fled their homes, and around 30,000 were arrested. 32 Alam, ‘America shares the blame’. 33 Will Cummins, ‘Muslims are a threat to our way of life’, Sunday Telegraph (25 July 2004), www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3608849/Muslims-are-athreat-to-our-way-of-life.html (accessed 22 November 2015). 34 Christians and Jews (‘Peoples of the Book’) are exempted from the death-or-­ conversion choice imposed on pagans (the Zoroastrians of Iran were later added to the list), but under all known schools of Muslim law, Christians and Jews are allowed to survive only as dhimmis, or protected subjects, under a long list of deliberately humiliating restrictions, obligations and prohibitions. Some are obsolete – dhimmis had to pay a head tax, they were not allowed to ride horses as opposed to humble donkeys, carry knives and many more – but others remain in force. See Edward N. Luttwak, ‘Three myths about Islam’, New York Sun (3 May 2006), www.nysun. com/arts/three-myths-about-islam/32014/ (accessed 22 November 2015). From his book review of Efraim Karsh, Islamic Imperialism: A History (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2006). Luttwak is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 35 Ibid. 36 Raphael Israeli, ‘Anti-Semitism revived: The impact of the Intifada on Muslim immigrant groups in western democracies’, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, No. 455 (1 June 2001), pp. 2, 3; see also Raphael Israeli, Muslim Anti-Semitism in Christian Europe (New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2009). 37 Rosen, Mapping the organizational sources of the global delegitimization campaign, p. 19. 38 Ayhan Kaya, ‘Islamophobia as a form of governmentality: Unbearable weightiness of the politics of fear’, Willy Brandt Series of Working Papers in International Migration and Ethnic Relations, 1/11 (Malmö University, Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare [MIM], 2011), pp. 4–6, 31, 36. 39 Mustapha Benchenane, interview, Haaretz (12 December 2005) (Hebrew). 40 Phil Mackie, ‘“Islamic takeover plot” in Birmingham schools investigated’, BBC News (7 March 2014), www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-26482599 (accessed 28 November 2015).



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41 Economist, ‘How to tame a Trojan horse: Extremism in Birmingham schools poses a conundrum for reformers’, Readers’ comments (26 July 2014), www.economist. com/news/britain/21608774-extremism-birmingham-schools-poses-conund​rumreformers-how-tame-troJanuary-horse (accessed 28 November 2015). 42 Ibid. 43 Tariq Ramadan, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 131; Yasir Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Centre of Islamic Studies, in association with the Universities of Exeter and Westminster, January 2012), pp. 74, 76, www.cis.cam.ac.uk/reports/ post/10-contextualising-islam-in-britain-ii (accessed 28 November 2015). See also quotation in comments by Iftikhar Ahmad, https://theconversation.com/the-lifeexperiences-that-can-prevent-sympathies-for-terrorism-from-developing-65587 (accessed 29 October 2016). 44 Ramadan, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam, pp. 127–8. 45 Ibid., p. 244, note 2. 46 Ibid., p. 131. 47 BBC News, UK, ‘Saudi school lessons in UK concern government’ (22 November 2010), www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11799713 (accessed 28 November 2015). See also Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II, p. 67. 48 BBC News, UK, ‘Saudi school lessons in UK’. 49 Haroon Siddique, ‘BBC’s Panorama claims Islamic schools teach antisemitism and homophobia’, Guardian (22 November 2010), www.theguardian.com/media/2010/ nov/22/bbc-panorama-islamic-schools-antisemitism (accessed 28 November 2015). See also BBC News, UK, ‘Saudi school lessons in UK’. 50 BBC News, UK, ‘Saudi school lessons in UK’. 51 Michael Elliott, ‘The shoe bomber’s world: What does the saga of Richard Reid tell us about al-Qaeda?’ TIME (16 February 2002); TIME (25 February 2002). See also www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,203478,00.html#ixzz1g7qYTJHW (accessed 28 November 2015). 52 Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II, p. 90. 53 Usama Hasan, an Islamic scholar and part-time imam in East London, quoted in Siddique, ‘BBC’s Panorama claims’. 54 Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II, pp. 74, 76. 55 Tariq Modood and Nasar Meer, ‘Britain: Contemporary developments in cases of Muslim-state engagement’, in Anna Triandafyllidou (ed.), Muslims in 21st century Europe: Structural and cultural perspectives (London: Routledge, 2010), p. 88. 56 Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II, pp. 74, 76. 57 Mohammed Moussaoui, head of France’s Muslim Council, quoted in Shirli Sitbon, ‘French Jews face unprecedented wave of anti-Semitic attacks’, Haaretz (10 October 2012). 58 Saj Ahmed, ‘Our money must not go on religious segregation’, Derby Telegraph (23 November 2010), www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/money-religious-segregation/story11583008-detail/story.html (accessed 28 November 2015).

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Economist, ‘How to tame a Trojan horse’. Mackie, ‘“Islamic takeover plot” ’. Economist, ‘How to tame a Trojan horse’. Mackie, ‘“Islamic takeover plot” ’. Elaine Ganley, ‘Austere brand of Islam on rise in Europe, stirring concerns’, Associated Press (21 June 2015), http://bigstory.ap.org/article/f011f5c4c5654d​ cf9a7666ef2355ffce/austere-brand-islam-rise-europe-stirring-concerns (accessed 28 November 2015). 64 Mackie, ‘“Islamic takeover plot” ’. 65 Economist, ‘How to tame a Trojan horse’. 66 Eiglad, The anti-Jewish riots in Oslo, p. 70. 67 The Italian historian Angelo D’Orsi, quoted in Pfeffer, ‘Anti-Semitism in Europe’. 68 Tel Aviv University, Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, Moshe Kantor Database for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism, Antisemitism Worldwide 2011, General Analysis, p. 19. 69 Pfeffer, ‘Anti-Semitism in Europe’. 70 Robert Mackey and Sebnem Arsu, ‘Israel behind Egypt’s coup, Erdogan says’, New York Times (21 August 2013), http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/ israel-behind-egypts-coup-erdogan-says/?_​r=0 (accessed 22 November 2015). 71 Faruk Kose, open letter to Hakham Bashi, the Chief Rabbi of Turkey, Yeni Akit (15 July 2014). 72 Quoted in Pfeffer, ‘Anti-Semitism in Europe’. Antonio Gala is a Spanish poet, playwright and novelist who became the president of the Spanish-Arab Friendship Association in 1981. On 25 July 2014 Angelo d’Orsi published a petition, ‘Gaza: We accuse and a call for “Nuremberg for Israel” ’, in the internet historical magazine Historia Magistra (D’Orsi is the magazine’s editor). I am deeply grateful for Ms Mila Rathaus’ assistance on this issue. 73 Antonio Gala, ‘The chosen ones?’ El Mundo (24 July 2014) (Spanish), translated in Soeren Kern, ‘Spanish anti-Semitism is alive and well’, BreakingIsraelNews (4   August 2014), www.breakingisraelnews.com/19491/spanish-anti-semitismalive-well/#KoKgDQ9TiSdoMwti.97 (accessed 28 November 2015). 74 Quoted in Kern, ‘Spanish anti-Semitism is alive and well’. 75 Eiglad, The anti-Jewish riots in Oslo, p. 74. 76 Washington Times, ‘The rising tide of anti-Semitism’ (2 April 2006), www.was​h​ ingtontimes.com/news/2006/apr/2/20060402–112829–7874r/ (accessed 23 November 2015); Table 28, Muslim Poll – December 2005, www.populus.co.uk/ uploads/Muslim_​Poll-Times.pdf (accessed 29 November 2015). 77 David Cameron, quoted in Jeffrey Goldberg, ‘Is it time for the Jews to leave Europe?’ Atlantic Online (15 March 2015), www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ archive/2015/04/is-it-time-for-the-jews-to-leave-europe/386279/ (accessed 28 November 2015). In 2014 (the Gaza war between Israel and the Palestinians had broken out in the summer of that year), 1,168 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded



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in Britain. This is more than double the number of incidents in 2013, and it exceeds the record from 2009 – 931 incidents. New York Times, ‘Anti-Jewish violence in Europe’ (6 January 2009), www.nytimes. com/2009/01/06/world/europe/06iht-france.4.19132225.html (accessed 28 November 2015). Israel TV News, Channel 2, ‘Rivlin: It is Jewish terrorism’ (Hebrew) (9 November 2011), www.mako.co.il/news-israel/local/Article-49c1e5f3e988331017.htm (acc­ essed 28 November 2015). Israeli, ‘Anti-Semitism revived’, p. 7. Wikipedia, ‘Ilan Halimi’, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilan_​Halimi (accessed 28 November 2015); Craig S. Smith, ‘The torture and death of Jew deepen fears in France’, New York Times (5 March 2006), www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/international/europe/05france.html?pagewanted=all&_​r=0 (accessed 23 November 2015); Associated Press, New York Times, ‘France: Convictions upheld in killing of French Jew’ (17 December 2010), www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/world/ asia/18briefs-France.html (accessed 23 November 2015). Associated Press, ‘Suspects in death of French Jew face trial’ (29 April 2009), www. ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3708128,00.html (accessed 23 November 2015). Le Monde, ‘Meurtre d’Ilan Halimi: “Le gang des barbares juge en appel, sans son leader” ’ (25 October 2010); Smith, ‘The torture and death of Jew’. Smith, ‘The torture and death of Jew’. Washington Times, ‘The rising tide of anti-Semitism’; Wikipedia, ‘Ilan Halimi’. Or Heller, ‘The terrorist was caught after 27 years’, Maariv (11 October 2007, Hebrew); ‘Ottawa, Canada – court bails alleged Paris synagogue bomber’ (31 March 2009); Vos iz neias, www.vosizneias.com/29691/2009/03/31/ottawa-canadacourt-bails-alleged-paris-synagogue-bomber (accessed 28 November 2015). Camus, ‘The French case’, pp. 17–30. Washington Times, ‘The rising tide of anti-Semitism’. Ibid.; Robert L. Pollock, ‘Erdogan and the decline of the Turks’, Wall Street Journal (3 June 2010), www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487048756045752813921 95250402 (accessed 23 November 2015). Henri Hajdenberg, former head of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions (CRIF, Conseil Representatif des Institutions juives de France), quoted in Washington Times, ‘The rising tide of anti-Semitism’. Smith, ‘The torture and death of Jew’. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Associated Press, ‘France: Convictions upheld’. Washington Times, ‘The rising tide of anti-Semitism’. Wikipedia, ‘Ilan Halimi’. Yossi Milman, ‘Ein Gvoul’, Haaretz, Galleria (9 September 2011) (Hebrew). Elliott, ‘The shoe bomber’s world’.

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Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Milman, ‘Ein Gvoul’. Jeevan Vasagar, Vikram Dodd and Conal Urquhart, ‘Bombers posed as peace activists’, Guardian (2 May 2003), www.theguardian.com/world/2003/may/02/terror​ ism.israel (accessed 23 November 2015); Matthew Kalman, ‘Bravado of cafe bomb Britons’, Daily Mail (27 March 2016), www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-299640/ Bravado-cafe-bomb-Britons.html (accessed 28 November 2015). Sitbon, ‘French Jews face unprecedented wave’. Andrew Higgins and Melissa Eddy, ‘Terror attacks by a native son rock Denmark’, New York Times (15 February 2015), www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/europe/ copenhagen-attacks-suspect-is-killed-police-say.html (accessed 23 November 2015). Andrew Higgins and Melissa Eddy, ‘Anger of suspect in Danish killings is seen as only loosely tied to Islam’, New York Times (16 February 2015), www.nytimes. com/2015/02/17/world/europe/copenhagen-denmark-attacks.html?_​r=0 (acc­es­ sed 28 November 2015). Higgins and Eddy, ‘Anger of suspect in Danish killings.’ Hussein’s body fell face up on the sidewalk, and it left a pool of blood that was hosed away about twelve hours later by the fire department. Latifa Ibn-Ziaten quoted in Lior Zilberstein, ‘I will go to the end of the world so that no parent will suffer like me’, Yedioth Aharonoth (17 May 2013) (Hebrew), p. 19. Paul Vallely, ‘Tariq Ramadan: “We Muslims need to get out of our intellectual and social ghettos” ’, Independent (25 July 2005), www.independent.co.uk/news/ people/profiles/tariq-ramadan-we-muslims-need-to-get-out-of-our-intellectualand-social-ghettos-5346817.html (accessed 28 November 2015). ‘Video of London bomber released’, Guardian (6 July 2006), www.theguardian. com/uk/2006/jul/06/july7.uksecurity1 (accessed 23 November 2015); Daily Mail, ‘Suicide bomber profile: The cricketer’ (14 July 2005), www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ article-355620/Suicide-bomber-profile-The-cricketer.html (accessed 28 November 2015). Tim Lister and Paul Cruickshank, ‘Older suspect in Boston bombings grew increasingly religious, analysis shows’, CNN (21 April 2013), http://edition.cnn. com/2013/04/20/us/brother-religious-language/index.html?hpt=hp_​t2. Erica Goode and Serge Kovaleski, ‘Boy at home in U.S., swayed by one who wasn’t’, New York Times (21 April 2013), www.nytimes.com/2013/04/20/us/details-oftsarnaev-brothers-boston-suspects-emerge.html?ref=ericagoode&_​r=0 (accessed 28 November 2015). Ibid. BBC News, ‘Shehzad Tanweer, one of the four 7 July 2005 bombers,’ video statement, ‘Video of 7 July bomber released’ (6 July 2006), http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/ hi/uk_​news/5154714.stm (accessed 28 November 2015). Mohammad Sidique Khan, one of the four 7 July 2005 bombers, full text of the



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videotape aired on Al Jazeera (1 September 2005); BBC News (1 September 2005), http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_​news/4206800.stm (accessed 28 November 2015). Emanuel Sivan, quoted in Ariela Ringel-Hofman, ‘The head was destroyed, the snake is alive’, Yedioth Aharonoth, Saturday magazine (6 May 2011) (Hebrew). ‘70th anniversary of the Vel’ d’Hiv roundup – speech by M. Francois Hollande, President of the Republic’, France to the United States, Consulate General of France in Miami (22 July 2012), www.consulfrance-miami.org/spip.php?article3235 (accessed 28 November 2015). Louisa Zanoun, a historian of immigration, formerly at Concordia University and Dawson College, Canada, quoted in Richard Allen Greene, ‘Ahead of elections, French Muslims feel like scapegoats for nation’s problems’, CNN (4 May 2012). Sam Vaknin, Digital Journal, ‘Op-Ed: Muslims are Europe’s New Jews?’ (26 July 2011), http://digitaljournal.com/article/309558 (accessed 28 November 2015). EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), Minorities and Discrimination Survey (EU – MIDIS 02), 2009, Data in Focus Report/Muslims, pp. 3, 12, http://fra. europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_​uploads/448-EU-MIDIS_​MUSLIMS_​EN.pdf (accessed 28 November 2015). Adar Primor, Haaretz, 16 July 2001; European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenopobia (EUMC), Muslims in the European Union. Discrimination and Islamophobia, EUMC (2006), pp. 16, 69. Günther Jikeli, ‘Discrimination against Muslims and anti-Semitic views among young Muslims in Europe’, in Roni Stauber and Beryl Belsky (eds), Papers on Anti-Semitism and Racism, Tel Aviv University, The Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry (February 2013), p. 4, www.kantorcenter.tau.ac.il/sites/default/ files/jikeli.pdf (accessed 28 November 2015). UK Home Office, Race Equality in Public Services, 2005 (London: Race Cohesion, Equality and Faith Directorate, 2005), p. 9. Katrin Bennhold, ‘British years of rape and “utter contempt” in Britain: Life in an English town where abuse of young girls flourished’, New York Times (1 September 2014), www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/world/europe/reckoning-starts-in-brit​ ain-on-abuse-of-girls.html (accessed 28 November 2015). Ibid. Rebecca Allison, ‘Secret film catches PC apeing Ku Klux Klan’, Guardian (22 October 2003), www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/oct/22/bbc.race (accessed 23 November 2015). Hassan Butt, a radical Muslim from Manchester who helped recruit Muslims to fight in Afghanistan, quoted in Aatish Taseer, ‘A British Jihadist’, Prospect Magazine, Issue 113 (August 2005), www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/a-british-jihadist-has​ san-butt (accessed 27 October 2016). Olivier Roy, ‘Get French or die trying’, New York Times (9 November 2005), www. nytimes.com/2005/11/09/opinion/get-french-or-die-trying.html (accessed 23 November 2015).

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130 Elaine Sciolono and Ariane Bernard, ‘Anger festering in French areas scarred by riots’, New York Times (21 October 2006), www.nytimes.com/2006/10/21/world/ europe/21france.html?pagewanted=print (accessed 23 November 2015); Ian Buruma, ‘Tariq Ramadan has an identity issue’, New York Times Magazine (4 February 2007), www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/magazine/04ramadan.t.html?pagewanted =all (accessed 23 November 2015); Daniel Ben Simon, Haaretz (27 March 2007). 131 Olivier Guitta, ‘Homegrown gangstas: France faces a wave of domestically produced anti-French rap’, The Weekly Standard (23 September 2005), www.weeklystandard. com/content/public/articles/000/000/006/103uqtmz.asp (accessed 28 November 2015). 132 Washington Times, ‘Islamo-fascist hate rap’ (10 November 2005), www.washing​ton​ times.com/news/2005/nov/10/20051110–080159–7881r/ (accessed 28 Nov­em­ ber 2015). 133 Ibid. 134 Roy, ‘Get French or die trying’. 135 Ibid. 136 Ibid. 137 Washington Times, ‘Islamo-fascist hate rap’. 138 Guitta, ‘Homegrown gangstas’. 139 Robert Spencer, ‘Dutch Muslim rapper: I hate Jews more than the Nazis did’, Jihad Watch (2 May 2014), www.jihadwatch.org/2014/05/dutch-muslim-rapper-i-hatejews-more-than-the-nazis-did# (accessed 28 November 2015). 140 Geert Wilders, ‘Wisdom and courage’. Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom, the Netherlands, Speech at the Four Seasons, New York, EuropeNews (25 September 2008), http://europenews.dk/en/node/14505 (accessed 6 December 2015). Inter alia, ‘Wisdom and courage’ included, ‘In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the [word] farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims. In once tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear “whore, whore”. Israel is our first line of defense; many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West. … On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed.’ 141 RYOT, ‘Dutch rapper Hozny’s new music video calls for the murder of politician Geert Wilders’, English translation by Toby King (March (?) 2014), www.ryot.org/ music-video-dutch-rapper-hozny-calls-murder-politician-geert-wilders/608501 (accessed 28 November 2015). 142 Spencer, ‘Dutch Muslim rapper’. 143 RYOT, ‘Dutch rapper Hozny’s new music’. 144 Sciolono and Bernard, ‘Anger festering in French areas’. 145 Michael Radu, ‘Europe, Fall 2005: Gangs in search of an ideology’, Watch on the West,



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Foreign Policy Research Institute, 6:7 (November 2005); Economist, ‘Tales from Eurabia’ (24 June 2006), p. 11; Samir Mihi, founder of ACLEFEU, an association created in Clichy-sous-Bois to promote the suburbs, quoted in Sciolono and Bernard, ‘Anger festering in French areas’. 146 Reuters, ‘Merkel backs proposal to crack down on young offenders in Germany’, New York Times (4 January 2008), www.nytimes.com/2008/01/04/world/ europe/04iht-germany.4.9027449.html?_​r=0 (accessed 28 November 2015). 147 Parekh, Bhikhu, The Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, The Parekh Report, The Runnymede Trust (London: Profile Books, 2002), pp. 110–12. 148 Sitbon, ‘French Jews face unprecedented wave’. 149 Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II. 150 Jack Goody, Islam in Europe (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004), p. 109; Christopher Hitchens, ‘Londonistan calling’, Vanity Fair (June 2007); Spiegel Online, ‘Austrian politician calls Prophet Muhammad a “child molester” ’ (14 January 2008), http:// europenews.dk/en/node/5545 (accessed 28 November 2015). 151 Radu, ‘Europe, Fall 2005’. More on Europeans and Muslim headscarves in John R. Bowen, Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006); Dominic McGoldrick, Human Rights and Religion: The Islamic Headscarf Debate in Europe (Oxford: Hart, 2006). 152 Ofer Aderet, ‘Salafists have established a “Sharia Police” in a German city’, Haaretz (7 September 2014, Hebrew), p. 7. 153 Juan Jose Escobar Stemmann, Spanish diplomat, ‘Middle East Salafism’s influence and the radicalization of Muslim communities in Europe’, quoting Abu Qatada, the spiritual father of al-Qaeda. The Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA), 10:3, Article 1/10 (September 2006). 154 Stemmann, ‘Middle East Salafism’s influence’. 155 Azzam Tamimi, ‘Justice a call to humanity’, Islamic Forum Europe, Article ref. no: ATC327 (8 September 2006); Tariq Modood, ‘Remaking multiculturalism after 7/7’, openDemocracy (29 September 2005), p. 3. 156 Jocelyne Cesari, in ‘Euro-Islam: The dynamics of effective integration’, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Washington DC, 21 June 2006), www. wilsoncenter.org/event/euro-islam-the-dynamics-effective-integration (accessed 29 November 2015). 157 Kathleen Gray and Donna Leinwand, ‘Fort Hood ups challenge to recruit Muslim, Arab troops’, USA TODAY (11 December 2009); Andrea Elliot, ‘Complications grow for Muslims serving in U.S. military’, New York Times (8 November 2009), www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/us/09muslim.html?_​r=0 (accessed 23 November 2015). Arab Americans and Muslims in the US military remain a tiny minority. In 2009, of nearly 1.4 million active soldiers, about 3,560 were Arab Americans. The US military does not keep full data on the number of Muslim troops. 158 Basheer M. Nafi, ‘Fatwa and war: On the allegiance of the American Muslim soldiers in the aftermath of September 11’, Islamic Law and Society, 11:1 (2004), 78–116.

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159 Washington Times, ‘Muslim Americans are Americans first’, letter to the editor (15 October 2001). 160 Corporal Mohsin Mughal, of Pakistani origin, who served in the British military, quoted in, ‘A British Muslim soldier has said: “Islamists should treat UK as their own country” ’ (18 January 2010), http://twining.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/abritish-muslim-soldier-has-said-islamists (accessed 28 November 2015). 161 Islam in Europe, ‘Netherlands: Interview with a Muslim soldier’ (12 May 2009), quoting Reformatorisch Dagblad (Dutch); European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, Muslims in the European Union, pp. 47, 48, 49. 162 Islam in Europe, ‘Netherlands: Muslim soldiers valuable resource’ (17 January 2008), quoting BN/De (Dutch), http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2008/01/nether​ lands-muslim-soldiers-valuable.html (accessed 28 November 2015). 163 Buddy Masfirdaus, a sergeant in the Dutch signal corps, in Islam in Europe, ‘Netherlands: Interview with a Muslim soldier’ (12 May 2009), quoting Reformatorisch Dagblad (Dutch). http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2009/05/netherlands-interviewwith-muslim.html (accessed 28 November 2015). The report also quotes Dr Femke Bosman of the University of Tilburg, who researched cultural diversity in the Dutch army. 164 Ibid. 165 Andrea Elliott ‘Sorting out life as Muslims and Marines’, New York Times (7 August 2006), www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/nyregion/07marines.html?ref=iraq (acc­ es­sed 23 November 2015). 166 Zilberstein, ‘I will go to the end of the world’. 167 Ibid. See also Latifa Ibn-Ziaten, Mort pour la France (Paris: Flammarion, 2013). 168 BBC News, Europe, ‘Shootings in Toulouse and Montauban: What we know’ (22 March 2012), www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17428860 (accessed 28 November 2015); BBC News, Europe, ‘Shootings in Toulouse and Montauban: The victims’ (27 March 2012), www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17443337 (accessed 28 November 2015). 169 Johanna Decorse and Jamey Keaten, ‘Looking to kill: 4 slain at French Jewish school’, Associated Press (19 March 2012), http://news.yahoo.com/looking-kill-4-slainfrench-jewish-school-182826490.html (accessed 23 November 2015) ; USA TODAY, ‘Gunman kills 4, including Rabbi, outside France school’ (19 March 2012), www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012–03–19/france-school-shooting/53641238/1 (accessed 23 November 2015); BBC News, Europe, ‘Vigilance call after French Jews hit by attacks’ (28 March 2012), www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17534308 (accessed 28 November 2015). 170 Peter Allen, ‘Pregnant girlfriend of corporal killed by Al Qaeda gunman will be allowed to marry her partner in posthumous ceremony’, Daily Mail (25 March 2012), www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2120122/Toulouse-killings-Caroline-Monetmarry-murdered-boyfriend (accessed 24 November 2015). 171 Aviva Lori, ‘I accuse’, Haaretz weekend magazine (10 August 2012) (Hebrew) pp. 48, 49.



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172 Ibid., p. 51. 173 Tsilla Hershco, ‘After Toulouse: Combating anti-Semitism in France’, The BeginSadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies, BESA Center Perspectives. Paper no. 169 (April 4, 2012). 174 Lori, ‘I accuse’, p. 50; Gurfinkiel, ‘No future in France’; Sitbon, ‘French Jews face unprecedented wave’. 175 Carol Massliah, French lawyer representing the victims of Toulouse shootings, quoted in Lori, ‘I accuse’, p. 51. 176 Guardian, ‘Guardian view on Gaza and the rise of anti-Semitism’, Editorial (8 August 2014), www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/08/guardian-view-gazarise-antisemitism (accessed 28 November 2015). 177 Ibid. 178 Babylonian Talmud, Bava Kamma 60b. 179 Gad Yair, ‘The break is still wide and open’, Haaretz (10 July 2014, Hebrew), p. 17. Professor Yair teaches sociology and anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 180 Ibid. 181 Frosty Wooldridge, ‘Muslims in 21st century America and Europe: Turning your country into their country’, Church and State (29 November 2012), http://churchandstate.org.uk/2012/12/muslims-in-21-century-america-and-europe-turning-yourcountry-into-their-country/ (accessed 28 November 2015); BBC News, ‘Pressure on police over protest’ (5 February 2006); Owen Bowcott, ‘Arrest extremist marchers, police told’, Guardian (6 February 2006), www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/ feb/06/raceandreligion.muhammadcartoons (accessed 24 November 2015). 182 CNN, ‘ISIS: Not if we take Europe, but when’ (22 December 2014). 183 Dale Hurd, ‘Belgistan? Sharia showdown looms in Brussels’, CBN News (Christian Broadcasting Network) (17 March 2012), www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2012/ March/Belgistan-Sharia-Showdown-Looms-in-Brussels/ (accessed 28 November 2015). 184 Ibid. 185 Ibid. 186 Jill Jacobs, ‘The history of “Tikkun Olam”: A new definition of tikkun olam’ (June 2007), www.zeek.net/706tohu/index.php?page=2 (accessed 10 September 2015). Rabbi Jill Jacobs is the director of Education for the Jewish Funds for Justice (JFSJ), a national public foundation dedicated to mobilising the resources of American Jews to combat the root causes of domestic social and economic injustice. 187 Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 45b; Jerusalem Talmud, Avoda Zara, Chapter 2, 2. 188 David Ohana, ‘Jacob L. Talmon, Gershom Scholem and the price of Messianism’, in ‘Jacob Talmon and totalitarianism today: legacy and revision’, History of European Ideas, special edition 34:2 (June 2008), 169–88.

7 Conclusion: brighter European– Muslim–Jewish futures? The encounter between Muslims and the West has never been easy. Crusaders, the Reconquista, the Bosnian massacre in the 1990s are but a few of the painful events in a long history, randomly chosen, that are often referred to and employed towards an agenda. The present encounter is proving even more difficult than previous confrontations between Europe and its Muslim migrants and refugees. The latter are strongly inclined to empathise and identify with their co-religionists who face troubles and problems in various places in the world. Their wish – or more generally commitment, certainly among some of them – is to spread the Muslim gospel in their new receiving country. They are under an obligation to preserve their religion, values and ethnicities while living as minorities among non-Muslim majorities. All the while, they request the receiving societies to absorb them and grant them the rights and benefits of Western liberal democracies – human, social and political privileges and citizenship, even though the majority of Muslims in France, Germany and Britain still lack voting rights (see chapter 5). They seek permission to exert their influence and be a party to their new host society’s decision-making bodies – occasionally ironically so, in order to maintain their status quo as outsiders living in ghettos. These and other elements turn European–Muslim relationships into an exceedingly complex and multifaceted encounter loaded with cultural, religious, geo-political, historical and emotional aspects. The fact that the European host countries were once the migrants’ colonial masters compounds the sensitivities and animosities between the two parties. We have already mentioned the reservations regarding the Muslims’ allegiance to their newly adopted Western countries. There are those who see them as pretenders whose first loyalty is to their sending countries and, above all, to their Muslim religion (see chapter 3). Here is a clear echo of allegations of dual loyalty made against Diaspora Jews and their allegiance to the State of Israel. These and other issues create difficulties and conflicts in the process of absorbing Muslim immigrants into their European host countries. These conflicts are all too clear when the absorbing countries



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clash with rioting Muslim communities and radicalised terrorists on the streets at home, or with militant, extremist Islamic organisations in war-torn countries in the Middle East and Africa. Many of the issues that have detrimental effects on the European–Muslim encounter do not present themselves in relations between Europe and its Jewish minorities. The latter see themselves – and usually, though not always, are so perceived – as full citizens of their European nations. They do not have a religious agenda that obliges them to spread the Jewish gospel. On the contrary, Judaism strongly discourages such activity and does its utmost to deter would-be converts (see chapter 6). What is more, Jews are integrating and assimilating into the non-Jewish mainstream at an unprecedented pace, certainly in North America. Intermarriage and the consequent drift away from Judaism are decimating Jewish communities all over the Western world. Among the Jewish population, those who observe Jewish religious rites in the synagogue and at home and revere and enjoy their culture are a minority. The offspring of Jewish men and non-Jewish mothers are not recognised by Jews as Jewish; only children born of Jewish mothers are Jewish. The so-called ‘silent Holocaust’ or ‘sweet Holocaust’ phenomenon is wreaking havoc among the Jewish populace; 58 per cent of all American Jews are assimilated today (71 per cent among non-­ Orthodox American Jews), whereas as recently as the 1970s Jewish assimilation was just 17 per cent.1 Europe’s post-World War II tolerant, ‘tip-toeing’, politically correct behaviour in fully accepting the Jews in the wake of its barbaric conduct during the Holocaust has led to far greater absorption of Jews than ever before. As a result, Jews feel ‘great’ in most of the continent, particularly in Berlin. The Israeli political scientist Shlomo Avineri explains: Israelis in particular, Jews in general, enjoy privileges and immunity in Germany; this behaviour stems from the German guilty conscience pertaining to the Holocaust. Whatever thoughts the Germans have concerning Israelis, seldom will they express them out loud. In line with German political correctness, it is forbidden (verboten) to criticize Jews. For genuine historical reasons, the average German – who had been given an excellent democratic and anti-Nazi education following the destruction Hitler inflicted on Europe, on the Jews and indeed on Germany itself – steps gingerly; he tip-toes and is very cautious when talking about Jews and Israelis. The fact that many Israelis [and Jews] have immigrated to Germany serves as a ‘declaration of good conduct’ for Germany showing that the country has unburdened itself from the Nazi spectre. This is the reason why Germans hug the Israelis, praise them and, God forbid, do not say a bad word publicly about their behaviour, whatever it may be.2

The apparent Jewish integration of recent generations, marked by a high representation for a small minority in administrative, professional and cultural

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European elites (see chapter 5), and the relatively accommodating nature of Jewish theology to fit in with national laws and statutes (Dina Demalchuta Dina, see chapter 4) are models that Muslims will probably emulate, but only with reservations and stipulations. At present, Muslims show that they prefer to preserve their culture, ethnicity and religion. Occasionally, Muslim theologians allow deviations from the Muslim Sharia law when it serves other, more prevalent or important Muslim principles. The irony of Islamophobia is that it makes it easy for Muslim minorities to remain culturally and religiously Muslim, just as state- and church-driven anti-Semitism has done for the Jews of Europe. An example that reflects the wish to preserve Muslim codes, but also highlights the difficulties of Muslim integration in Western societies, is Tariq Ramadan’s suggestion in March 2005 to suspend the punishments of flogging, stoning, amputation, death and honour killing. ‘Islam is being used to degrade and subjugate women and men in certain Muslim societies,’ wrote Ramadan, adding that the women and the poor, ‘the doubly victimised, never the wealthy, the powerful, or the oppressors’, are the victims of these codes. The harsh penalties and the conditions that justified them are Koranic in origin; the conditions of society under which they were laid down are nearly impossible to re-create; further, says Ramadan, there are historical precedents for suspending these punishments. These penalties are seldom applied, so why not weed them out?3 Other Muslim thinkers fear a slippery slope and accuse Ramadan of selling out, or worse, of promoting ‘Islam-lite’. By means of such calls Islam ‘is being torn apart from within’.4 The conservatives’ (some would call them ‘absolutists’) concern is that integration by pruning Muslim codes and adopting Western standards will lead to an avalanche – another word for assimilation. ‘When this call comes from a respectable scholar like Dr Tariq Ramadan, it may encourage others to disrespect the laws of Allah. … If we call today for an international moratorium on corporal punishment, stoning and the death penalty, then tomorrow I am so worried that they may ask Muslims to suspend their Friday prayer.’5 European–Jewish histories and presents, the Holocaust in particular, could become a paralysing element in terms of Europe’s relations with its Muslim minorities. Perverse accusations hold the monstrous genocide of the Jews, beginning in the late 1930s and peaking during World War II, responsible for Western Europeans’ present-day politically correct conduct in the face of hundreds of thousands of incoming Muslim immigrants and asylum seekers. That is, a positive paralysis is apparently preventing the mistreatment of immigrants and the acceptance of all comers, almost without question. Europeans are described as helpless to prevent what is essentially a westward shift of the Muslim population. The cause of this situation is attributed to the universal moral legacy of the Holocaust – curiously, without any mention of Jews. In spite of their seam-



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less integration and assimilation into German society, in less than a decade that country’s Jews were entirely segregated from its society and all their contributions to it were erased. Thus, apparently, the legacy of the Holocaust says let minorities be forewarned that they should expect hard times ahead, if not an impossible future, in Europe. The impending return of the 1930s is held up as a warning. A nonchalant mood on the part of minorities could be an invitation for a twenty-first-century return of various aspects of the 1930s and 1940s. Europeans and Muslims admonish each other about the dreaded possibility of the past returning to haunt Europe once again. One way or another, the past should serve as a warning, telling us ‘do not repeat me’. In this sense, the past should be a positive lesson, one that should never be allowed to return. The Muslims’ apparent reluctance to accept that the Holocaust ever happened (even though they blame it for the fate and grievances of the Palestinian people), their inclination to deny it, their reluctance to hear and learn about it and their refusal to discuss its lessons and implications may condemn them to a sort of exclusion. We repeat: whoever comes to Europe and does not recognise the Holocaust, by definition is separating himself from one of the most important defining elements of European identity, history and Europeanness today. Anti-Semitic attitudes and acts in Europe and elsewhere, whether emanating from the European majority or the Muslim minority, are a barometer of much deeper and more widespread societal and ideological upheaval to come. Europe’s historical difficulty in accepting others and their otherness has had and still has a detrimental impact on Europe. As shown in our work, the passing of laws and regulations that limit or prohibit Muslim religious practices (halal animal slaughter, circumcision, female dress for modesty’s sake) is perceived by some as directed first and foremost against the Jews. It is easier to initiate restrictions on Muslim communities than to quarrel with post-World War II Holocaust Jewry, but the real target is allegedly the latter. Because of this, the prudent Muslim reaction to restrictions imposed on Muslims and Jews alike is to let the Jews fight the battle. Usually, the latter do not fail to quickly remind the Europeans of their recent past behaviour, not only towards the Jews but also towards other minorities. The forms of anti-Semitism witnessed among European Muslims elicit complex cultural, religious and political explanations. Some Muslims are convinced that the Jewish world is inseparably bound up with Israel, and that together they are leading the Western conspiracy against Islam and the Arab world. The Middle East conflicts and the West’s position regarding them, i.e., inferred external input, provide a reason for Muslims to act violently against European Jews, the State of Israel and Westerners generally. On the other hand, the roots of European anti-Semitism are based on internal social, religious and cultural

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elements. No matter what the sources of today’s anti-Semitism in Europe, the ‘triangle’ of Europeans, Muslims and Jews is presently becoming bent out of shape. It is easier and more usual for the media and public opinion to focus on the divisions and controversies than on the intersecting points of mutual interest. Yet, common interests do exist between Muslim minorities and European Jewish communities. European objections to male circumcision and non-stunning animal slaughter have produced cooperation and mutual support between Jewish and Muslim officials. Muslims, many of whom are migrants, immigrants or refugees without citizens’ rights and know-how (especially language), keep a low profile and leave the experienced Jewish leadership, as citizens of their respective countries (and sometimes also Israel and the Jewish world) to handle European politicians and governments.

Europe’s challenge: the immigration crisis In the absence of a concerted EU policy on immigration at the supra-national level, some member states find this domain to be a place for reasserting their national hegemony. Eastern European states hastily built border fences and beefed up guards at crossing points in an attempt to control the massive tide of Syrian and Iraqi refugees in 2015–16. As for Western Europe, re-establishing control over national borders has been the hope of two known ‘Eurosceptics’: France’s Marine Le Pen and Holland’s Geert Wilders. ‘Today is the beginning of the liberation from the European elite, the monster in Brussels,’ Wilders declared after meeting Le Pen. ‘We want to decide how we control our borders, our money, our economy, our currency.’6 Others feel that because there is no overall concerted policy the individual European states, lacking authority, guidelines and funds, are therefore unable to deal with the inundation of refugees and immigrants. Authorities in states fronting the Mediterranean Basin, especially hard-pressed Italy and Greece, requested a supra-national approach to the crisis by EU and the UN, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. Between January and June 2014, 59,880 migrants and refugees landed on Italian shores alone, almost as many as in the whole of the year 2011, which was the previous the record. The Italian Ministry of Interior announced that between 1 January 1999 and 31 August 2014 almost half a million migrants were smuggled in. Between January and September 2015 about 475,000 immigrants, among them 182,000 Syrians and many from Afghanistan, came to Europe by sea.7 Overwhelmed, the Italians cannot cope alone. The head of Italy’s Red Cross pleaded, ‘My volunteers are really, really tired. I’m very afraid. … We continue to talk of an emergency about migrants … [I]t’s not pos-



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sible to talk about an “emergency” after 20 years … We need to have a plan.’8 The EU was quick enough to issue directives on fishing, but when it comes to policies on migrants coming by sea, many of whom drown on the way, the issue has been largely excluded from the EU agenda and left to each member state to handle. ‘A Europe that tells the Calabrian fisherman that he must use a certain technique to catch tuna, but then turns its back where there are dead bodies in the sea [of drowned illegal immigrants], cannot call itself civilised.’9 In November 2014 Italy abandoned its expensive naval search and rescue Operation Mare Nostrum (Operation Our Sea) that was meant to save stranded immigrants, crossing the Mediterranean in unfit vessels, from drowning. However, the EU was reluctant to finance Mare Nostrum, arguing that the operation was actually encouraging thousands of migrants to board decrepit boats, confident that if they got into trouble on the high seas they would be rescued by the Italians. Operation Triton, the EU replacement for Mare Nostrum, is a smaller operation with just one third of the funding and a limited patrol range of no more than 30 nautical miles off European coasts. Still, thousands of illegal immigrants continue to cross the sea and attempt to reach Europe despite the limitations imposed on Operation Triton, which mean many will continue to be lost at sea.10 As explained by TIME’s Vivienne Walt, under European law the first country where an asylum seeker arrives is responsible for documenting and handling his or her asylum application; if successful, the claimant has the right to remain only within that country. Processing the applications and separating legitimate asylum seekers from economic migrants is a huge logistical, ethical and legal challenge. Countries are not legally required to give a home to those looking for a better way of life – even if they are escaping crippling poverty or life-threatening natural conditions (drought, crop failures, etc.) – but only to those who are fleeing deadly conflicts, or possible arrest or execution because of their faith, political beliefs or sexual orientation. Under European law only this second group can be granted refugee status.11 Southern European countries, especially Italy, Malta and Greece, receive the majority of migrants. Italy, for example, overwhelmed with processing and sheltering the new arrivals, is appealing to northern European countries like Britain and the Netherlands to change the rules and take in more refugees. So far, these countries and others have demurred, although one new EU measure includes plans to deploy teams in Italy and Greece to help process refugee applications.12 In this context the reaction of Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, bears pointing out: ‘The European Union’s idea that certain countries let immigrants in and then they distribute them among the other member states is crazy.’13 Pope Francis’s words in his 2014 address to the European Parliament were

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highly critical of EU policies. He directly linked the deaths of masses of immigrants in the Mediterranean to the absence of a united European policy to tackle the root of the problem – the conflicts and miseries in the sending countries.14 According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 3,419 asylum seekers and immigrants drowned or died of hyperthermia or hypothermia in the Mediterranean in 2014. But in the case of tragedies at sea, the assumption is that the majority of bodies are never found. Of those victims who are recovered, the majority seem to be from the Horn of Africa (Somalia and Eritrea) or the Middle East (mainly Syria and Iraq). Many migrants come undocumented, and so even those bodies that are recovered reveal little or nothing about their provenance or identities. In many regions, for example in sub-Saharan Africa, NGOs, media and governments do not track migrant deaths.15 In 2014 nearly 70 per cent of deaths recorded by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) refer to missing immigrants drowned at sea. In the majority of fatalities occurring in 2014, it was not even possible to establish whether the deceased were male or female. The IOM’s statistics for 2014 and those of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) show that between 3,072 and 3,500 are believed to have died en route in the Mediterranean, compared with an estimated 700 in 2013. Globally, the IOM estimates that at least 4,077 migrants died in 2014, and that some 40,000 (!) have died since the year 2000. Some experts have suggested that for every body discovered, at least two others will never be recovered, and if the current rates continue, 30,000 (!) migrants could drown in the Mediterranean in the coming years.16 ‘The only way you can stop the deaths [of illegal immigrants in the Mediterranean] is in fact, to stop the boats’ was the advice of the Australian Prime Minster to the EU. Australia, like the EU, faces thousands of illegal immigrants attempting to reach its shores in unseaworthy boats. Canberra refuses to process any of these migrants’ asylum claims, instead detaining them on remote islands and thus practising a policy of detention that is aimed at deterring illegal immigration and preventing deaths at sea.17 Stop the boats, help the sending countries so that people will stay at home and initiate a joint EU effort were among the Pope’s suggestions. No single European state can cope efficiently, decently and with dignity when overwhelmed by immigrants showing up on its doorstep. Immigration is the effect; the causes are the woeful conditions in the sending countries, Pope Francis lamented: [T]here needs to be a united response to the question of migration. We cannot allow the Mediterranean to become a vast cemetery! The boats landing daily on the shores of Europe are filled with men and women who need acceptance and assistance. The absence of mutual support within the European Union runs the risk of encouraging



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particularistic solutions to the problem, solutions which fail to take into account the human dignity of immigrants, and thus contribute to slave labor and continuing social tensions. Europe will be able to confront the problems associated with immigration … Only if it is capable of adopting fair, courageous and realistic policies which can assist the countries of origin in their own social and political development and in their efforts to resolve internal conflicts – the principal cause of this phenomenon – rather than adopting policies motivated by self-interest, which increase and feed such conflicts. We need to take action against the causes and not only the effects.18

Whither Europe’s ethnic–religious–national clash? The economic and euro-currency crises; the European nation-states’ loss of certain facets of their national identities since joining the EU and its effect on minorities and immigrants; the trend away from faith communities; the status of religion in the public sphere; church and state relations since the Enlightenment and the French Revolution: all these have been resolved in favour of European secularism, particularly in north-western (Protestant) Europe. Today, however, these issues have re-emerged in Europe. The secular European state is faced with Muslim religious demands affecting the public arena, such as the building of mosques and minarets competing with churches and synagogues, the appearance of hijab-clad women, halal animal slaughter offending the supporters of animal rights. The individual European state is not necessarily legally or ethically prepared to meet such challenges. A European mayor or city council leader who may be called on to handle religious demands is very likely to have been born into a secular European family that for generations has marginalised religious practice to a minimum. Also, a passive and perhaps even impotent and marginalised Christianity has to face conspicuously active, dynamic and what many consider alien Muslim practices, laws and policies. Christianity, more than 2,000 years of age, has largely lost its ‘triumphalist attitude’ as defined by Bernard Lewis (see chapter 1) when challenged by the ‘triumphalism’ that characterises a younger, vibrant Islam, dating from the late sixth century.19 The prospects of multiculturalism in Europe, that is, that Muslim immigrants will be accepted and absorbed, have raised heated discussions among European leaders and ordinary people alike since the loosening of colonialist ties that led to the Muslim nationalist period in the Middle East and North Africa. Wars and rampages are the milestones that dot the two decades straddling the twentieth and twenty-first centuries of European history. The break-up of Yugoslavia, followed by civil war, in the early 1990s revealed minimal or no tolerance

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towards minorities. The trial in The Hague of General Ratko Mladic´ (‘Butcher of Bosnia’),20 the Serbian Army Chief of Staff, revealed massacres of a genocidal magnitude (‘ethnic cleansing’), rape and torture, war crimes and crimes against humanity. In March 2016 the same United Nations tribunal in The Hague found the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžic´ guilty of genocide in the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre and sentenced him to 40 years in jail. Those war crimes against humanity, now confirmed by a court of law, that were committed during the conflict in Bosnia left 8,000 Muslim men dead. In Srebrenica the devastation took on biblical proportions. The slaughter was without exception: ‘thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword’ (Deut. 20:13), leading to the feminisation of the Bosnian Muslim population as the intention was to leave the city without its men. The war in Bosnia also exhibited another form of abuse of the feminine sex: the systematic rape of thousands of women. Some quote the number of 20,000, while the Bosnian Ministry of Interior reported 50,000 rape cases.21 These mass rape cases implied that the Bosnian men were physically weak, another clear feminine trait. Culturally, men are supposed to defend their women with all their power; in failing to do so, they revealed a feminine lack of physical strength rendering them as members of the community of women. Also, the thousands of women who were raped in Bosnia became clear evidence of another form of eradication. These women would be eliminated as potential future mothers with whom Bosnian Muslim men would willingly father children. Traditionally a raped woman has been forbidden to men, and in many communities it is prohibited to marry such a woman. This further impacts on the demography of a community and reduces its overall population. As a result, rapists who were caught and prosecuted were also charged with genocide. In brief, one may wonder, in the light these recent dark events, if there is any chance that Europe might behave differently towards her modern minorities, differently from the brutality and savagery she has meted out to minorities throughout her history. It is not necessary to have been Jewish during the Holocaust to be conscious of the fact that throughout European history forces were motivated by the desire to root out and destroy the other, the foreigner, or any group that was different. The British Council’s Our Shared Europe programme emphasises histories and narratives as well as current events in which Europeans and Muslims have acted together and pursued common interests. ‘One of the project’s central themes [is] the substantial and multifarious contributions made by Muslim individuals and communities to European culture and identity’, the publication maintains. It clarifies that it uses the word ‘Muslims’ to mean those who profess the Islamic faith as well as those originating from Muslim cultural backgrounds.22 Sara Silvestri found that there are also positive interactions between Muslim



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and non-Muslim inhabitants of Europe. For example, people of all denominations and beliefs participated together in the anti-war demonstrations that took place all over Europe in response to the US and British decision to go to war in Iraq in early 2003. About a million people participated in 2003 the protest in London against the invasion of Iraq. The demonstration was organised by the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party and the Stalinist Communist Party of Britain. Some Muslims voiced apprehension about participating in a protest with non-Muslims, but the MAB leadership decreed that it was religiously permissible if halal food was provided and men and women were given separate areas.23 This shows, explains Silvestri, that each group is able to maintain its own identity and fight for the cause of social justice without rejecting its own origins and views. This leads to the realisation that in practice Europeans – the majority and minorities alike – do have common values that they believe in and can fight for together.24 Similarly, British Muslim civic activity for the betterment of society as a whole, regardless of faith affiliation, took place after earthquakes hit in Haiti (2010) and Japan (2011) and during the famine in Somalia (2011).25

Muslim mass migration to Europe, 2015–16 As we approach the end of this study, we devote a few final words to evaluations of the immigration of hundreds of thousands of Muslims into Europe in 2015–16. Yigal Bin-Nun, whom we mentioned earlier (chapter 3), titled his article ‘The Arabs saved Europe’. Its opening words are no less surprising: ‘Arab immigration is the best thing that happened to Europe in the last 50 years.’26 The European obsession with ethnic purity is seen by Bin-Nun as the progenitor of every evil, certainly of the nationalistic apocalyptic calamities that befell Europe and, as a result, the rest of the world. Despite Muslim-inspired terrorism and extremist violence across Europe, Bin-Nun bases his findings and conclusions regarding the influx of migrants on his French experience, and identifies it as a touchstone for Western Europe. The January 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack and the kosher shop shootings that followed it certainly call into question the conclusion that any good can be predicted for Europe’s future in the wake of massive Muslim immigration. However, Bin-Nun predicts a future of improved Muslim– Arab–Jewish–Israeli relations. And perhaps most surprisingly, he observes that the majority of Muslim and Arab immigrants in France will eventually become French patriots. By extension, he believes that the French case foreshadows that the injection of immigrants in large numbers will eventually produce a positive overall outcome throughout twenty-first-century Europe. Bin-Nun writes,

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For example, the majority of Arabs in France, have become French patriots. Try to recall his Arab origin to the son of a Moroccan immigrant; immediately he will call you a racist: ‘I am French like everybody else.’ At school he could have taken Arabic as a second, foreign language; instead he preferred Spanish or Italian. Israelis will be surprised to learn that many French Arabs feel sympathy towards Jews, and reveal surprising admiration towards Israel, certainly more than native French people do.27

The evil that ethnic purity produces will be reduced, thanks to immigration, argues Bin-Nun. Hence, the more Asian and African immigrants, the better for Europe. Sooner or later, the descendants of these immigrants will marry local Europeans and will change European demography. It is a pity, laments Bin-Nun that this did not happen half a century ago: European barbarity – no doubt BinNun had in mind the Holocaust – would not then have been possible. Gradually they will become French, Belgians, Swedes and Germans. They will provoke social excitement and social fermentation that will bring about re-thinking and second thoughts pertaining to the Continental culture. And precisely because of this, it will become a different Europe: not the one that deteriorated to the most extreme racism in world history; not the Europe that brought terrible catastrophes to humanity. The European lesson from the second half of the 20th century is clear: ethnicreligious-national isolation and introversion led to disaster. Europe sank into massive killings because ethnic-radical-nationalism emerged there. What would have happened if millions of Arabs, Africans, Indians and Chinese lived in Europe on the eve of the Second World War? Could an extermination plan have existed then in Europe if mixed marriages had been rampant among ethnic groups in Berlin, Paris, Rome and London? Scientific enlightenment and high culture did not prevent Europe from deteriorating into ethnic racism. The best thing that could happen to Europe is the arrival of masses of foreigners from poor countries that will be absorbed on the Continent.28

Our work began by quoting the sceptical and perhaps sad conclusion of the Pew Global Attitude Project pertaining to elations between Europe, the West and the Muslim world. Pew’s main finding was that a real divide exists between Western and Muslim peoples. While not much common ground was found between the two camps, the same project detected brighter views, specifically among Muslims living in Europe. Living together has produced different, perhaps more optimistic attitudes. Notwithstanding Emanuel Sivan’s grim statistics which show that a quarter of Europe’s Muslim migrants are dissatisfied with their host countries and consequently direct their aggression against them (see chapter 6), he too leaves some room for optimism: a decline from 40 to 25 per cent, over a 20-year period from the early 1990s, in the number of those who feel discontented and alienated in their receiving countries.



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When people come closer or even live together, extremes may meet and so become moderated. However, proximity is definitely not a sure recipe for turning contenders into lovers; occasionally, it is a recipe for the opposite. For a minor example one might look at British–Muslim co-existence, where fragmentation into a ‘community of communities’ has developed in which the two sides seldom meet and consequently develop alienating images of each other. (Chapter 3: ‘I never met anyone on this estate who wasn’t like us from around here … There is little wonder that the ignorance about each other’s communities can easily grow into fear.’) British Muslims are therefore more prone than other Muslims in the West to hold negative perceptions of Westerners, with more than half believing that Western populations are selfish, arrogant, greedy, immoral, violent and disrespectful towards women.29 And yet, when proximity enables a closer look that substitutes the reality of a person for ill-conceived preconceptions, perhaps the uncertainties and doubts will begin to fade away. Muslims residing in Europe also see the positive facets of Western culture – political tolerance, democracy, human rights and, quite simply, freedom.30 Their views of Jews become less hostile than those among Middle Eastern Arabs and North African Muslims; the anti-Jewish baggage they bring with them from their sending countries is challenged in countless ways and experiences, and so we conclude this study with a small reason to be hopeful. In sharp contrast, the survey found that European Muslims hold more temperate views of the West than do Muslims in the Mideast, Africa and Asia. Muslims in Great Britain, France, Germany and Spain have more positive views of Westerners than do Muslims in the Mideast and Asia. They largely hold positive views toward Christians and have less negative views of Jews than do Muslims in the Mideast and Asia. […] The good news is that Muslims in Europe, despite their concerns about their future, are nonetheless far more moderate and positive toward the West than are Muslims living in the Mideast, Africa and Asia. Their attitudes and the general populations in the host countries suggest that exposure may lead to improved understanding.31

Epilogue An immigration crisis took Europe by surprise in the summer and autumn of 2015. Nearly half a million immigrants and refugees have landed in European ports and on lonely continental shores, and the estimates indicate that millions will follow in 2016 and beyond. This mass exodus has exposed Europe and the whole world to images of waves of people on the move such as have not seen since World War II. The suddenness of this latest encounter of the European continent with Muslim immigration is proving extremely difficult

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and ­challenging, to say the least. Not surprisingly, visions of the Holocaust, the exodus of European Jewry and the fate of ‘Nazism’s ultimate victims’32 come to the fore as the European state is forced once again to look itself in the mirror of history as homeless, helpless immigrant refugees, the ‘others’ of today, clamour to enter its territory in their thousands. Trains packed with decrepit and exhausted people, being transferred to unknown or obscure destinations, sometimes led on by deceitful lies or promises as to the real destinations of these trains, have not failed to arouse memories of similar episodes some 75 years ago in which Jews were the cargo. The scenes of refugees being kicked and clubbed and pushed into chain-link enclosures, or up against newly built barbed-wire border fences, have not failed to arouse chilling memories from the past. Seeing Muslim refugees and asylum seekers temporarily housed in the barracks of the Nazi Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps in Germany produced a bitter reaction that ‘soon the Germans will teach them that “Arbeit macht frei” ’, work is liberating.33 These scenes, and reactions to them, prove that the memory of European–Jewish histories remains very close to the surface in the minds of millions throughout the world as the present encounters between Europeans and Muslims unfold in new, undreamed of ways, even as the Holocaust was inconceivable before it happened. With those thoughts in mind, some European countries have shown a commendable reluctance to apply combative means to prevent foreign migrants from entering their territories. It is equally reassuring that their citizens have reached out to warmly welcome the refugees with offerings of food and clothing upon their arrival in railway stations. This too has been attributed to the legacy of the Holocaust: the lessons learned from it and the politically correct behaviour adopted show that the Holocaust must never be repeated. In short, this is the epitome of our work. At the other end of the spectrum, unwillingness to accept the migrants has been particularly pronounced in East European countries. Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Poland and several other countries made it plain that their policy towards the Muslim influx was one of exclusion, a closed door. In terms of their histories, these countries have experienced centuries of foreign occupation and persecution of their people; they were granted independence only by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The euphoria, alas, did not last long: Nazi and Communist occupations doomed them to devastation, exploitation and misery for much of the twentieth century. The resumption of their independence occurred only in the 1990s. They have been masters of their own destinies for less than a generation – too short a time for a people to feel assured and confident in their nationalism. Their reluctance to admit a foreign element that might be destabilising is clearly discernible.34



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Jan Gross, a Polish-born historian of war and society and a professor of history at Princeton University, acquired much fame for his 2001 book, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community of Jedwabne, Poland, in which he investigated the July 1941 massacre of 1,600 Jews in the village of Jedwabne. This crime was not committed by the Gestapo or German Nazi soldiers but by the Jews’ Polish neighbours. (The New York Times titled its book review of Neighbors ‘Hitler’s willing executioners’.35) In 2015 Gross commented on the East European countries’ (the ‘EU’s newest member states’) refusal to admit Muslim migrants or even to allow the migrants transit rights on their way to Western Europe. In an extremely blatant, even cruel ‘J’accuse’ in the manner of Emile Zola’s famous indictment against Alfred Dreyfus’ persecutors, Gross straightforwardly linked the extermination of East European Jews in World War II to the present plight of Muslim refugees in Europe. The gist of Gross’s protest is that East Europeans have forgotten none of their hatreds and learned nothing from the wartime horrors. For them, the war has not yet finished; they have not yet imbibed its lessons or changed their attitudes, accuses Gross. Germany, however, has changed through an arduous process of rethinking and repentance, he insists. East Europeans have not. We will not validate or refute Gross’s findings, neither accepting nor dismissing the linkage he proposes between the Holocaust and the contemporary Muslim plight in Europe. Suffice it to say that the subject of our work – the ‘triangle’ and the never-ending historical and contemporary inputs that it pours into present and future European realities – is also the gist of Gross’s painful insights; hence we are fortunate to be permitted to cite from his article as follows: Eastern Europe’s crisis of shame Jan T. Gross BERLIN – As thousands of refugees pour into Europe to escape the horrors of war, with many dying along the way, a different sort of tragedy has played out in many of the European Union’s newest member states. The states known collectively as ‘Eastern Europe,’ including my native Poland, have revealed themselves to be intolerant, illiberal, xenophobic, and incapable of remembering the spirit of solidarity that carried them to freedom a quarter-century ago. These are the same societies that clamored before and after the fall of communism for a ‘return to Europe,’ proudly proclaiming that they shared its values. But what did they think Europe stands for? Since 1989 – and particularly since 2004, when they joined the EU – they have benefited from massive financial transfers in the form of European structural and cohesion funds. Today, they are unwilling to contribute anything to resolve the greatest refugee crisis facing Europe since World War II. Indeed, before the eyes of the entire world, the government of Hungary, an EU member state, has mistreated thousands of refugees. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán

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sees no reason to behave otherwise: the refugees are not a European problem, he insists; they are a German problem. Orbán is not alone in this view. Even Hungary’s Catholic bishops are following Orbán’s line … saying that Muslim migrants ‘want to take over,’ and that the Pope, who has called on every Catholic parish in Europe to take in a refugee family, ‘doesn’t know the situation.’ In Poland, a country of 40 million people, the government initially expressed a readiness to accept 2,000 refugees – but only Christians (Slovakia proposed a similar stipulation). Refugees are not an Eastern European problem, a Polish journalist told National Public Radio in the United States, because these countries did not participate in the decision to bomb Libya (neither did Germany). [Most of those who attempted to enter Hungary came from Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.] Have Eastern Europeans no sense of shame? For centuries, their ancestors emigrated in droves, seeking relief from material hardships and political persecution. And today their leaders’ heartless behavior and callous rhetoric play to popular sentiment. […] Not so long ago, in the immediate postwar years, Eastern European Jewish Holocaust survivors fled from the murderous anti-Semitism of their Polish, Hungarian, Slovak, or Romanian neighbors to the safety of displaced persons camps in, of all places, Germany. … Now Muslim refugees and survivors of other wars, having found no refuge in Eastern Europe, also are fleeing to safety among the Germans. In this case, history is not a metaphor. On the contrary, the root cause of the Eastern European attitudes now on grim display is to be found in World War II and its aftermath. Consider the Poles, who, deservedly proud of their society’s anti-Nazi resistance, actually killed more Jews than Germans during the war. Although Poland’s Catholics were cruelly victimised during the Nazi occupation, they could find little compassion for the fate of Nazism’s ultimate victims. … ‘During the [German] occupation [of Poland] there was not, literally, a single person who would not have heard the saying – “One thing Hitler has done correctly is to wipe out the Jews.” But one should not talk about this openly.’ Of course, there were Poles who helped Jews during the war. Indeed, the number of Polish ‘Righteous Among the Nations,’ recognised by Israel’s Yad Vashem for their wartime heroism, is the largest among all European countries (unsurprisingly, given that prewar Poland had Europe’s largest Jewish population by far). But these remarkable individuals typically acted on their own, against prevailing social norms. They were misfits who, long after the war had ended, insisted on keeping their wartime heroism a secret from their neighbors – afraid, it seems, that their own communities would otherwise shun, threaten, and ostracise them. All occupied European societies were complicit to some degree in the Nazi effort to destroy the Jews. Each made a different contribution, depending on countryspecific circumstances and conditions of German rule. But the Holocaust played out



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most gruesomely in Eastern Europe, owing to the sheer number of Jews in the region and the incomparable ruthlessness of the Nazi occupation regimes. When the war ended, Germany – because of the victors’ denazification policies and its responsibility for instigating and carrying out the Holocaust – had no choice but to ‘work through’ its murderous past. This was a long, difficult process; but German society, mindful of its historical misdeeds, has become capable of confronting moral and political challenges of the type posed by the influx of refugees today. And Chancellor Angela Merkel has set an example of leadership on migrants that puts all of Eastern Europe’s leaders to shame. Eastern Europe, by contrast, has yet to come to terms with its murderous past. Only when it does will its people be able to recognise their obligation to save those fleeing in the face of evil.36

If we have learned from our triangular investigation, it is how incredibly complicated and involved life in Europe has become since Muslims and Islam have arrived and settled there. Many more will probably wish to stay than to go back ‘home’. The situation of today will lead many to agree that it cannot be untangled, and that Europe will never return to its primeval, pristine self. Past means and ways on offer for disengaging the three peoples – and in fact for disengaging other peoples as well – range from a monstrous Nazi-style ‘final solution’, to a Yugoslav ‘ethnic cleansing’, to a South African ‘apartheid’ system of repression, to a southern American legal ‘segregation’ of the races. All of these were failures, setbacks to human progress, and at a great cost to human life. The other problem that Europe and the whole world face is political, social and religious extremism and unbending absolutism – blind orthodoxy, if you will. Our work here is a litany of the results of such non-live-and-let-live attitudes. If the majority on all sides of the triangle were to unite and marginalise the extreme points of the triangle, not by force but by goodwill, reason and patience, then in time the triangle would slowly but surely resolve itself into a circle. The world is a circle, a sphere. The Jews, Christians, Muslims and non-believers of Europe have before them a challenge, and someday they may be in a position to lay their success in living together peacefully and fruitfully before the rest of the world as an example of how things could and should be done.

Notes   1 Avi Shilon, ‘Who is assimilator?’ Haaretz (10 October 2013) (Hebrew).  2 Shlomo Avineri, ‘What’s so good in Berlin?’ Haaretz (25 October 2013) (Hebrew).  3 Paul Vallely, ‘Tariq Ramadan: “We Muslims need to get out of our intellectual and

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 4

 5  6  7  8

  9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19

Haunted presents

social ghettos”’, Independent (25 July 2005), www.independent.co.uk/news/people/ profiles/tariq-ramadan-we-muslims-need-to-get-out-of-our-intellectual-and-socialghettos-5346817.html (accessed 6 December 2015). Ibid.; Dina Abdel Magid, ‘Tariq Ramadan’s call for a moratorium – storm in a tea cup’, On Islam (18 April 2005), www.onislam.net/english/shariah/contempo​ rary-issues/critiques-and-thought/439960-tariq-ramadans-call-for-a-moratorium. html?Thought= (accessed 6 December 2015). Ibid. Ian Traynor, ‘Le Pen and Wilders forge plan to “wreck” EU from within’, Guardian (13 November 2013), www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/13/le-pen-wildersalliance-plan-wreck-eu. Luigi Achilli, ‘The smuggler: hero or felon?’ (Florence: European University Institute, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Migration Policy Centre, June 2015), No. 2015/10; Haaretz, ‘The refugee crisis’, (20 September 2015) (Hebrew). Rosario Valastro, President, Italian Red Cross, Sicily, quoted in Lizzy Davies, ‘Europe’s migrant influx: “We need help but we don’t know where from”’, Guardian (25 June 2014), www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/25/-sp-boat-migrants-risk-every​ thing-for-a-new-life-in-europe (accessed 6 December 2015). Matteo Renzi, Italian Prime Minister, quoted in ibid. Vivienne Walt, ‘Europe’s crisis of conscience’, TIME (11 May 2015), pp. 26–7, 28; for subscribers, http://time.com/3841706/europes-crisis-of-conscience/ (accessed 6 December 2015). Ibid., p. 28. Ibid., p. 26. Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s Prime Minister, interview, Public Radio MR1, ‘Hungary Orbán calls EU idea to distribute immigrants crazy’, Portfolio, Your Financial News (8 May 2015). Adi Drori-Avraham, ‘No haven of refuge’, Haaretz (21 December 2014); Francis I, ‘Visit of His Holiness Pope Francis to the European Parliament and to the Council of Europe: Address of Pope Francis to the European Parliament’, Strasbourg, France (25 November 2014), w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/novem​ ber/documents/papa-francesco_​20141125_​strasburgo-parlamento-europeo.html (accessed 6 December 2015). Drori-Avraham, ‘No haven of refuge’. Tara Brian and Frank Laczko (eds), Fatal Journey: Tracking Lives Lost During Migration (Geneva: International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2014), p. 11; Walt, ‘Europe’s crisis of conscience’. Tony Abbot, Australian Prime Minister, quoted in Walt, ‘Europe’s crisis of conscience’. Francis I, ‘Visit of His Holiness Pope Francis’. Bernard Lewis, ‘The 2007 Irving Kristol Lecture’, American Enterprise Institute Annual Dinner (7 March 2007), www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.25815/ pub_​detail.asp (accessed 6 December 2015).



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20 FOX News, ‘Serbia arrests “Butcher of Bosnia” Ratko Mladic for alleged war crimes’ (26 May 2011), www.foxnews.com/world/2011/05/26/serbia-arrests-man-believ​ ed-ratko-mladic/ (accessed 21 September 2015). 21 Alexandra Stiglmayer, Marion Faber, Cynthia Enloe and Roy Gutman, The Mass Rape: The War against Women in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), pp. 85–6, 198. 22 British Council, ‘Our Shared Europe is the British Council’s response to some of the major cultural challenges facing our continent today’, www.oursharedeurope. org/ (accessed 6 December 2015); Ehasan Masood, the British Council, ‘Our Shared Europe: Swapping treasures, sharing losses, celebrating futures’ (London: The British Council, 2008, Executive Summary), p. 8, www.oursharedeurope.org/documents/ OSE_​report.pdf (accessed 6 December 2015). 23 Colin Shindler, ‘The European Left and its trouble with Jews’, New York Times Sunday Review (27 October 2012), www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/opinion/sunday/ europes-trouble-with-jews.html?_​r=0 (accessed 6 December 2015). 24 Sara Silvestri, ‘Does Islam challenge European identity’, in L. Faltin and M. Wright (eds), The Religious Roots of Contemporary European Identity (London: Continuum, 2007), p. 26. 25 Jehangir Malik, ‘Somalia famine: Our agency is able to deliver aid’, Guardian (29 July 2011), www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/jul/​29/​ somalia-famine-islamic-relief-response (accessed 6 December 2015). Jehangir Malik is UK director of Islamic Relief. Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) is an international organisation, founded in 1984, that aims to ameliorate the suffering of the world’s poorest people. See also Yasir Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Centre of Islamic Studies, in association with the Universities of Exeter and Westminster, January 2012), p. 108, www.cis.cam.ac.uk/reports/ post/10-contextualising-islam-in-britain-ii (accessed 6 December 2015). 26 Yigal Bin-Nun, ‘The Arabs saved Europe’, Haaretz (15 November 2013) (Hebrew). 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Suleiman, Contextualising Islam in Britain II. 30 European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), Muslims in the European Union: Discrimination and Islamophobia, EUMC, 2006, p. 10. 31 Andrew Kohut, The Pew Global Attitude Project, ‘Islam and the West: Searching for common ground’, Testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 18 July 2006. 32 Jan T. Gross, ‘Eastern Europe’s crisis of shame’, Project Syndicate (13 September 2015), www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/eastern-europe-refugee-crisis-xen​ ophobia-by-jan-gross-2015-09. 33 Yedioth Aharonoth (18 September 2015) (Hebrew, author’s translation). 34 Mina Rozen, ‘The bells toll for Europe’, Haaretz (25 September 2015) (Hebrew). Rozen is professor of Jewish history at the University of Haifa. 35 Steven Erlanger, ‘Hitler’s willing executioners: An account of the wartime massacre

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of Polish Jews by their neighbors’, New York Times (8 April 2001), www.nytimes.com/ books/01/04/08/reviews/010408.08erlangt.html. 36 Gross, ‘Eastern Europe’s crisis of shame’.

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Index 7/7 (7 July 2005), attack on London transport system 226, 228, 253 9/11 (11 September 2001) 73, 83, 106, 108, 111, 207, 226 Abdullah (king, Saudi Arabia) 17 Abecassis, Aliette 256n.1 Abtan, Benjamin 157n.23 Abu Imran see Belkacem, Fuad Afghanistan 44n.112, 124, 152, 200, 204, 206, 223, 228, 243, 245, 247, 272 Agirre, Xabier 73 Ajami, Fuad 65–8 Akesson, Jimmie 184 Alam, Shahid 258n.30 Algeria 3, 217, 246 alienation 12, 48, 80, 84, 95–6, 154, 187, 200, 203, 247, 248 of Muslims in state education 79, 209, 212 Aliot, Louis 99–100 Allport, Gordon 55 al-Qaeda 14, 201, 229, 247 Alwani, Taha Jaber al- 170 Amsterdam 81, 96, 264n.140 Anelka, Nicholas (Abdul Salam Bilal) 172, 193n.17 anti-Jewish attacks and riots 53, 85, 202, 249 anti-Semitism, anti-Semites 1, 52–5, 97, 200, 204, 219, 271 and Arab solidarity 205 blaming Jews for 69 and cyberspace 54 disguised as anti-Israel/anti-Zionist 216–20 and Palestine 86 unifying factor in Europe 96 and the ‘Yusuf/Joseph’ model 190, 191 Antwerp 219 Arabic, demand to recognise as official 241 Ashcroft, John 11

assimilation 29, 65, 70, 75, 242, 269, 270 Astal, Yunis al 44n.113 Athens 42n.86, 96 Atzmon, Gilad 93, 94 Avineri, Shlomo 146–7, 269 A-Zahar, Mahmud 27 badge, yellow and green 59–60, 128 Baghdadi, Abu Bakr al- 201 bans on religious-related garb 60–1, 117, 124–33 Barcelona: Raval neighbourhood 72–3 Bargisi, Amr 205, 257n.28 Bat Ye’or see Littman, Giselle Bayezid II (sultan) 74 Bayrou, François 141 Belgium 28, 54 Belkacem, Fuad (alias Abu Imran) 142, 253 Ben Bag Bag (rabbi) 194n.34 Benedict XVI (pope) 16, 33 Berlin 45n.128, 78, 118, 269 Bernheim, Gilles 121 Bernstein, Richard 116 Beth Din Rabbinical Court 142–3, 163n.107 Bethlehem 19 Bildt, Carl 150 Bin Laden, Osama 14, 207 Bin-Nun, Yigal 61–2, 277–8 Birmingham 53, 88, 145 Operation Trojan Horse 215–16 black campaign for civil rights in America 150–1 Bodemann, Michal 157n.28 Bohlen, Celestine 141 Bohmer, Maria 118 Bonn, Muslim demands on youth in 241 Bosnia 77, 276 Boswell, Christina 7 Boukai, David 109n.69 Boutaris, Yiannis 156n.3 Bouyeri, Muhammad 53



Bradford 34, 63, 88 Breivik, Anders 89–90, 92, 93, 94, 113n.123 Britain 9, 87–8, 279 anti-Semitic incidents in 261n.77 and Christmas 140 and disparate religious schools 214–15 migrants in work-force 9, 10–11 multiculturalism in 64–5, 142, 143 and Muslim immigrants’ education 8 Muslim solidarity 228 police and Muslims 233–4 Broder, Henryk 68 Brussels 234 attack at Jewish Museum 200 Christmas 2012 140, 141–2 Budapest 96 Bulgaria 5, 117 burqa 124, 148, 196n.70 Butt, Hassan 263n.128 Cage, Sam 5 Calderoli, Roberto 50–1 Caldwell, Christopher 156n.7 Calmy-Rey, Micheline 150 Cameron, Fraser 204 Cannes 131 Cantle, Ted 62, 104n.9 Carr, Matt 156n.7 Cesari, Jocelyne 11 Chennouf, Abel 246 Chirac, Jacques 231 Christianity 140–2, 144–5, 275 Christians, Middle Eastern 20–4, 43n.92, 123 Christmas 140–2, 144–5 Ciechanover, Aaron 74 circumcision 119, 121,140, 272 cities, Europe: Muslim populations 53 citizenship tests 116 Clinton, Hillary 186 colonialism 62, 66, 69–70, 71, 81, 83–4, 195, 200, 207, 268 conspiracy theory: Breivik attack 93–4 Copenhagen 96, 225–6 Copts see Egypt Corbin, Theresa 158n.34 Córdoba cathedral, Muslims and the 13–16 Corsica 131 Coulibaly, Amedi 201 crime 230, 233 Croatia 117 Czech Republic 125–6, 280

Index

323

Daley, Suzanne 3 De Paolis, Velasio 16 demography, immigration and 6 Denham, John 87–8 Denmark 89, 102 Jewish children as security risk in 219 Dewinter, Filip 99, 102, 113n.125, 253 dhimmis 207, 258n.34 Diam’s (Diamant; Melanie Georgiades) 173–4 Diaspora Jews, Israel and 216–19, 248–52 Dina de-Malchuta Dina see Jews: recognition of foreign law discrimination 1, 11, 128 against Christians 16, 160n.62 against Muslims 1–2, 30, 80, 127 racial 10, 28 D’Orsi, Angelo 218, 260n.67, 260n.72 Dresden: rally against Muslim immigrants 38n.18 Dyer, Clare 142–3 education and immigrants 7–8, 208–16 Muslim curriculum demands 80–1 Muslim–Jewish peer programme 84 religious classes in 80 Egypt: Copts in 20, 21 Eigald, Erik 54 Eisenhower, Dwight 83 Elfersy, Daphna 49 Elliott, Michael 223–4 English Defence League 25, 44n.112, 87, 102 Erdogan, Reçep Tayyip 91, 217 Esperson, Soren 225 ‘Eurabia’ 89 Europe 2–3, 28, 78, 133 ageing population 3–4 anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim attitudes 3 and colonial guilt 69–70 complaints against Muslim migrants 73 disrespect for Muslim customs 117–18 and halal meat 134 Islam and secular 32, 33, 35 Jews perceived as Western agency 217–18 lack of immigration policy 272–5 society 6, 73, 76, 126, 224 Europhobia 1, 208 Fallaci, Oriana 13, 136 Faruqi, Ismail al- 186, 197n.76 Fernandez, Demetrio (Bishop) 15

324

Index

Fillon, François 135 Finkielkraut, Alan 36n.1, 70, 154–5 Finland 137 Fiqh al-Aqalliyat see Muslims: living as minorities Fishman, Shammai 179 Fofana, Youssouf 220, 222 France, French 201, 233 alienation in 200 anti-Jewish terrorism in 221–3 anti-Semitism in 200, 202, 220–3 bans on Muslim clothing 60, 61, 128, 130–3 colonial heritage 81, 83, 84 de facto Millet system 241 Holocaust role 230–1 Jewish population of 161n.75 jihadists 200 and Muslims 232, 234–5, 236–7, 247 North African origin of immigrants 247–8 potential Muslim terrorist profile 225 prohibitive laws 60–1, 271 religious dress in public places 101 secularity of (laïcité) 124, 128, 141, 232 symmetry between immigrants and Islam 3 work-force 4 Francis I (pope) 76, 273–4 Friedman, Thomas 17 Gala, Antonio 218, 260n.72 ‘Gang des Barbares’ (Barbarians Gang) 220 Ganley, Elaine 22 Gans, Evelien 52 Gaza war (2014) 203–4, 218, 248 Germany 5, 121, 128, 200, 240, 281 asylum seekers in 2 guilt feelings 78 immigrants contributing to states 7–8, 9 Jews in pre-WWII 74, 77 Turks encountering police in 233 work-force in 4 Ghazali, al- 175 Gilliot, Claude 177 Global Commission on International Migration 7 Goldberg, David 157n.16 Goldberg, Jeffrey 82–3, 192n.4 Goodman, Andrew 151 Goodwin, Matthew 96–7 Graf, Bettina 180 Greece 4, 43n.86, 54, 272, 273 Griffin, Nick 103 Gross, Jan T. 281–2

Gueant, Claude 135 Guillou, Jan 86–7, 109n.74 Hajdenberg, Henri 261n.90 Halal Food Council of Europe (HFCE) 134 Haleva, Ishak 218 Halimi, Ilan, kidnapping of 220–3, 242 Hamas 25, 217 Hanif, Asif Muhammad 224 Hefets, Iris 119–20, 122–3 Heine, Heinrich 34 Helbo (rabbi) 254 Helsingborg 219 Hershco, Tsilla 247 Heschel, Abraham Joshua 150–2 hijab 124, 125–6, 129, 130, 173–4, 178, 179, 241, 242, 275 Hirsi Ali, Ayaan 51, 53, 147–50 Hollande, François 59, 230 Holocaust 59, 81–2, 120, 230, 280 denial 81–3, 97, 101, 113, 133, 160n.69, 271 and European–Muslim relations 60, 270 as reason for immigrants in Europe 63–4, 68 Hovermann, Andreas 3, 28 Hozny (Dutch rapper) 238 Hungary 4, 58n.34, 97, 102, 199, 204, 280, 281–2 Hurd, Dale 253 Hussein, Omar Abdel Hamid el- 225–6, 262n.108 Ibn al-Arabi 177 Ibn-Ziaten, Imad 78, 245 Ibn-Ziaten, Latifa 78, 107n.44, 226, 245–6 Iceland 137 identity 80, 96 hyphenated 230, 243 separate ethnic 118 young Muslims’ 209, 210 immigrants diversity among 25–6 identification signs for 59–60 Muslim 103 in European prisons 234 and the police 233 unemployment among 73, 232 and welfare systems 6, 10, 73, 128, 237 immigration 6, 277–9 benefits from 7, 9, 171 and education 7–8



integration 65–6, 75, 78, 79, 200, 237 227, 242, 269 International Labour Organization (ILO) 7 International Organization for Migration 274 internet sites and growth of far-Right 88–9 Islamic radicalisation and 225 intolerance 120 Iran, Christians in 21, 23 Iraq, Iraqis 2, 21 Islam 50–1, 133, 168–9 and aggression 206–7 aim of converting Europe to 253–4 conversion to 25, 30, 35, 152, 158n.34, 172–4, 200, 201, 207, 215, 223–4 criticism of 87 dialogue with 149–50 enemies of 242, 245 Europeans’ attitude to 11, 49, 199–200 fear of 100 law for living as minorities 179, 191, 268 preservation of religious practice 170, 268 radicalisation 65–9, 212, 225 rejection of political 148–9 and terrorism 242–8 and van Gogh, T. 51–2 view of homosexuality 203 whole world being a mosque 187 Islamic State in Syria and the Levant (ISIL) 200 Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS; Daesh) 83, 200, 204 Islamisation 25, 43n.92, 86–7, 100, 102, 180, 189, 242, 252, 253 Islamophobia 1, 11, 96, 117, 189, 208, 270 call against 60 Ismo (Ismail Houllich) 238 Israel 70 Christians in 23–4 de-legitimisation 82, 202, 203, 216 demands to boycott 93, 94, 204, 205 Jewish terrorism 219 perceived as haven for Jews 86, 155 status of European Jews and 168 and war in Gaza (2014) 218 Israeli, Raphael 219–20 Israelophobia 203 Italy 50–1, 128, 272, 273 Jacobs, Binyomin 138 Jacobs, Jill 267n.186 Jacobson, Howard 68

Index

325

Jambon, Jan 60 Jedwabne 281 Jews, Jewish 121, 269 civilisations 166 communities 2, 219 conduct of European 250 demand for security 240 differentiation between Zionists and 238 fate in World War II 2 integration into European society 75, 76–7 and measures against Muslims 119, 120, 134 –Muslim relations 82, 153 and Muslims in common interest struggles 123, 137, 154, 271 Nobel Prize winners 74 ‘ostrich policy’ of 119 and Palestinian land 70 perception in European culture 1 recognition of foreign law 123, 168, 169, 191, 270 as responsible for their calamities 68–9 seeking peace of city 169 separateness of 68, 77, 189 targets of rapper music 235, 238 Toynbee, A., on 70–1, 81, 189, 255 van Gogh,T., and 52 Jihadists 25, 78, 86, 173, 200, 201, 226, 243 rationalisation behind mentality of 229 Jikeli, Günther 91 jilbab 124 Jordan, Christians in 22–3 Judaisation of Europe 86, 189 Judaism 68, 102, 269 averse to proselytisation 168, 254–5, 269 and kosher slaughter 118, 119, 133, 136–40 Muslims ignoring link to 82, 143 see also slaughter, halal and kosher Justin, Eric 94–5, 205–6 Kahn-Harris, Keith 66 Karman, Karen-Lise Johansen 179 Karpf, Anne 102–3 Kaya, Ayhan 208 King, Martin Luther 152 kippah/yarmulke 124, 128 Kishtainy, Khalid 11, 40n.57 Kolat, Kenan 168 Konikov, Zvi 181 Koran 87, 174–80 and penalties 142, 213, 253–4, 270 Kouachi, Cherif 200, 201

326

Index

Kouachi, Said 200, 201 Kramer, Ingo 38n.18 Kulish, Nicholas 3 Kupper, Beate 3, 28 language restrictions 118 Latvia 5, 137 Lau, Israel Meir (rabbi) 157n.17 Lauder, Ronald 192n.4 Lebanon, Christians in 22 leftists 54, 69, 95, 199, 201–3, 216 Lewis, Bernard 35, 78, 95, 275 life expectancy, European 4 Lithuania: emigration from 5 Littman, Gisele (Bat Ye’or) 43n.92, 89 London 88 and anti-Semitic acts 219 campaign for Sharia law 241 Jewish Shomrim 153, 165n.32 and Rigby attack 152–3, 180n.130 Lund 52 Lyman, Rick 103 Majedi, Azar 257n.18 Malik, Jehangir 285n.25 Malik, Kenan 105n.10 Malmö 28, 53–5, 58n.35, 81 Malta 273 Manningham-Buller, Eliza 24 Maroni, Roberto 129 Maroto, Javier 73 Marseilles 108n.52 Marx, Karl 189 Masseik 128 Massliah, Carol 113n.128 Mawlawi, Faisal al- 190 M’bala M’bala, Dieudonné 173 M’diq 246 Meleagrou-Hitchens, Alexander 25 Merah, Abdelkader 247 Merah, Muhamad 78, 200, 226, 246–7 Merkel, Angela 38n.18, 116, 121, 168, 192n.4, 240, 283 Merkel, Reinhard 121 ‘Midi-Pyrenees’ shootings (2012) 245–6 migrants, Muslim 2, 13, 32–3, 79, 200 anti-Jewish attitudes 205 attitude to Holocaust 59 criticism of 117 demands to adapt 117 and Europe’s past with the Jews 63–4, 68

and European welfare system 10, 73 Francophobia in France among 70 and integration of 65–6, 74–8, 82, 100, 142, 170, 172, 182, 183, 200, 237, 242 Jews facilitating way for 122 and law-enforcement encounters 233–5 loyalty to country 77, 268 neighbourhoods 205 numbers in Europe 2, 86 reactions to European Jews 70 replacing Jews in Europe 72, 74 and role of European state 24 threat perceptions from 24–5 migrants, Turkish and gaps with Turks in Turkey 75–6 and Germany’s ‘option model’ 167 Mike’s Place see Tel Aviv Millet system, demand for 85, 241–2 Mladic´, Ratko 276 Modood, Tariq 243 Monsonego, Miriam 246 Montauban 246 Morsi, Mohammad 22, 91, 217 Mosley, Oswald 88, 110n.80 mosques and minarets 117, 134 Mossad, the 90–4 Moussa, Amr 14 Moussaoui, Mohammed 135, 259n.57 Mubarak, Hosni 21, 205 Mughal, Mohsin 266n.160 Muhammad (the prophet) 21, 24, 26, 34, 49, 68, 89, 176, 184, 186, 188, 207, 211, 228, 241, 255 drawings of 19, 50, 89, 234, 253 video play, anti 34, 66 multiculturalism 49, 62, 89, 145, 275 British 64–5, 142, 143 far Right and 102 ‘politically correct’ 61 Muslim (term) meaning 276 nationalism 200 term synonymous with immigrant 3 Muslim countries, non-Muslims in 16–20 Muslim North London Community Centre 153 Muslims 28–30 and adopting foreign norms 185, 186, 191 anti-American 207 anti-Israel 207, 216–17 and anti-Israel leftists circles 202–3 anti-Jewish hostility 207



Index

and anti-Semitism among 54, 201, 271 attitude to the West 25–8, 207–8 being witness to God’s greatness 188 characteristics attributed to 184 criticism and protest against European state 252–3 and democracy 184, 185, 189–90 distinctions from non-Muslims 242 European communities 28, 204, 206 French anti-Jewish prejudice among 202 and anti-Semitism 100 compared to WWII persecution of French Jews 60–1 and extremism 214 and Islamic green badge 59–60, 128 and ‘new Jews’ label 2 growth rate 31–3, 45n.131 harassed by Christians 127 harassing Christians 118 hatred of Israel 180 –Hindu riots 258n.31 idea of spreading Islam 168 immigrants’ education 214 alienation in elementary 209 extremism and 210, 212 and homophobia 212 negative view taught in 210 private versus state 209–12 seminars for imams 213 style of 209 textbooks for 213 influencing their surroundings 188 interactions with non-Muslims 166–7 –Jewish relations 82, 153 linkage to crime 184 living as minorities 166, 169–72, 177–80, 187–8, 191, 268 living in non-Sharia governed country 29 mass migration to Europe (2015–16) 277–9 Nazi-style rhetoric against 86 new Jews of Europe 2, 122 non-integration of 66, 68, 86, 87, 126 and ‘Other’ 211 perceived as threat in Europe 30, 85 perceived as victims 207 perception of the West 25–8, 187–8, 207, 210, 227–8, 279 petitions re dress code 131 preservation of identity 191 prohibitions imposed on 119

327

radical 21, 69, 128, 201 refugees and asylum seekers 2, 60, 127, 177, 200, 255, 268, 270, 272–4, 280, 281 religious demands 139, 275 returning expatriates 169 sense of community 208 serving in European militaries 243–5, 247 solidarity with global places and events 208 support for Muslim leaders by 190 and terrorists 188 in US and European military 230, 265n.157 violence by 69 National Front Party 97, 99–100, 108n.52, 120 nationalism 96 Nazareth 19, 23 Nemmouche, Mehdi 201 Netherlands, the 10, 28, 89, 128 attitude to Muslims 51 and Muslim migrants 48–9 and Muslim prison inmates 234 Muslims in army of 244 and profaning God 49–50 ritual slaughter in137 ‘new Jewish problem’, Muslim minorities in Europe and 2 Nice 131 Nicolson, Sir Harold 69, 106n.23 niqab 124 Norway 89, 93–4, 102, 137 Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe 130 Okamura, Tomio 50 Olsson, Susanne 29, 171 Operation Mare Nostrum 273 Operation Triton 273 Orbán, Viktor 273, 281–2 Oslo 85, 89 ‘other’, the 84, 90, 140, 146, 154, 211, 280 the Jew as 2, 61 Muslims as 133 Our Shared Europe 276 Ozdemir, Mahinur 77–8 Palestine 26, 70, 86, 93, 169, 203 Palestinian–Israeli conflict 203–4, 248 Diaspora Jews as targets in 217 Parekh, Bhikhu 10, 185 Paris 200, 201, 219 Patran, Ioana 5

328

Pedersen, Eskil 93 PEGIDA 38n.18 Pew Global Attitude Project (2006) 1, 278 Pillay, Navi 150 Pipes, Daniel 35, 186 Platform for Liberal Jews in Switzerland 147 Platret, Gilles 141 Poirier, Agnes 60 Poland 5, 136–7, 139, 280, 282 police and Muslims 233–5 Policy Studies Institute 10, 39n.48 political correctness 61, 64, 96, 100, 101 in European-Muslim relations 216, 270 pork soup (‘identity soup’) 115 Prasquier, Richard 100 prejudice 1, 3, 30–1, 53, 60, 69, 96, 136, 202 Primor, Adar 98–9 protests 34, 78, 115, 277 against Muslim immigrants 38n.18 anti-Jewish 204, 249 Protocols of the Elders of Zion, The 95, 112n.107 Qaradawi, Yusuf al- 25, 26, 170, 178, 180 quenelle, making the 172–3, 193n.17 racism 1, 10, 11, 54, 69, 96, 115, 154, 184, 206, 237, 248, 249 Radovan Karadžic´ 276 Ramadan, Tariq 79, 179, 186–91, 210–12, 226, 270 Ramon, Ilan 181 Raoult 141 rap music, Muslim performers of 235–42 reciprocity, religious 1, 13–17 Reepalu, Ilmar 55 Reid, Richard 223–4 religious hatred, laws against 50 Responsa literature, Jewish 180–2 retirees in Europe 3–5 Ribéry, Franck (Bilal Yusuf Mohammed) 173 Rich, Dave 113n.138 Rigby, Lee 152–3 Right and rightists, European 30–1, 88, 96 anti-Arab and anti-Muslim 97, 98 anti-immigrant prejudice 96 and anti-Semitism 98, 100, 201 far 25, 44n.112, 53, 54, 88, 95, 96, 101–2, 115, 120, 144, 184, 202 and Israel 97–9 and Wuppertal’s City Defence 242 Robinson, Tommy 102

Index

Rodriguez, SebastianVillar 72–4 Romania 5, 58, 117, 280 Rose, Fleming 156n.8 Rose, Norman 69 Rotherham 233–4 Rotterdam 244 Roy, Olivier 236–7 Rushdie, Salman 34, 184 Salafi sect, Salafists 21–2, 89, 215–16 Salameh, Ali Hassan 92 Sandler, Aryeh 246 Sandler, Gabriel 246 Sandler, Jonathan 246 Sands, Kristin 175, 177 Sarkozy, Nicolas 60, 131, 141, 235, 246 Sarrazin, Thilo 30, 45n.128 school curriculum 78–84 Schwerner, Michael 151 Scotland 234 secularism 242, 275 infringement of 125 migrants’ integration and assimilation 183 and restrictions on veiling 128 Sharia law 142, 144, 179, 253 Sharia4Belgium 142, 253 Sharif, Omar Khan 224 Shindler, Colin 203 Sidney, Jeremy Louis 201 Silvestri, Sara 29, 276–7 Sisi, Abdel Fattah el- 180 Sivan, Emanuel 229, 278 skin colour 1, 28, 77 Skovgaard-Petersen, Jakob 180 slaughter, halal and kosher 134–40, 272 Slovakia 5, 117, 280 Smith, Craig S. 221 Sodano, Angelo (cardinal) 19 Soei, Aydin 225 Solidarité des Française (SDF) 15 Spain 4, 8, 14, 73, 74, 88, 199, 279 Spielhaus, Riem 28 Stalsett, Gunnar 257n.15 Strache, Heinz-Christian 99, 102, 113n.125 Sweden 3, 82, 89, 137, 150 anti-Semitism in 52–3 Muslim women in 127 Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities 147 Switzerland 137 ban on mosque minarets 117, 146–50 Syria, Syrians 2, 20, 23, 272



Tadros, Samuel 205, 257n.38 Tamimi, Azzam 243 Tantawi, Muhammad Sayyid 179 Taylor, Matthew 96, 196n.63 Teitelbaum, Aaron 250–1 Tel Aviv, attack on Mike’s Place in 224 terrorism 223–9 anti-Semitism and 220–3 and European converts to Islam 224 see also 9/11; 7/7 terrorists, behaviour of 226 Thessaloniki 85 Thorning-Schmidt, Helle 225 tolerance 61, 63, 65, 79, 118, 219, 231, 232, 279 Tossavainen, Mikael 153–4, 191 Toulouse 219 attack on Ozar Hatora School 200, 203, 229–32, 242, 246–7 Toynbee, Arnold 70–2, 81, 255 Toynbee, Philip 59 triumphalism 35, 275 Truffaut, François 34 Tunander, Ola 93 Turkey, Christians in 21 Tusk, Donald 136 Umar ibn al-Khattab (caliph) 175 Utoya: Breivik attack in 89 Utrecht 128 Valls, Manuel 131, 201 van Gogh, Theo 48, 51–2, 66 Vatican 169 and Middle East Christians 20

Index

329

on Islam 33–4 relations with Islam 16–17, 23 Verdonk, Rita (‘Iron Rita’) 118 Villeneuve-Loubet 131, 132 violence, Muslim use of 69 Vitoria: mayor criticizing migrants 73, 106n.32 Walker, Peter 96, 196n.73 Wallenberg, Raoul 54 Walt, Vivienne 173, 273 Weber, Max 34 ‘white’ as the ‘other’ 154 meeting non-white 62–3, 212 and non-white 64–5 referring to Europeans 1, 2, 59, 64, 69, 81, 85, 131, 142, 240, 249 Wilders, Geert 49, 98, 102, 113n.123, 113n.125, 196n.63, 238–9, 264n.140, 272 Williams, Rowan 142 Winter, Susanne 241 women’s rights 125, 146 work-force 3–4, 5, 13 Wuppertal, ‘Sharia Police’ in 241–2 Yair, Gad 250, 251–2 Young, Joseph Louis (aka Yusuf Ali) 197n.76 Zanoun, Louisa 231–2, 233, 263n.119 Zawahiri, Ayman al- 14 Zeebrugge 134 Zeman, Milos 65 Zick, Andreas 3, 28 Zionist–Jewish Diaspora controversy 250