Rita Panahi: Anti-semitism passing cancer of hatred to a new generation
IN Europe, the hatred of Jews — often presented as anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist sentiment — is terrorising a new generation, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
Don't miss out on the headlines from Rita Panahi. Followed categories will be added to My News.
ANTI-Semitism in all its vile, virulent forms is on the rise. In Europe the hatred of Jews, often presented as anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist sentiment, is terrorising a new generation.
France is among a number of countries that has seen a shocking rise in attacks against Jewish businesses and individuals in the past decade. One such attack in recent days saw an elderly Holocaust survivor slaughtered in her own home.
ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACKS ON THE JEWISH COMMUNITY CAN’T BE IGNORED
Mireille Knoll escaped the Vel d’Hiv roundup of French Jews in 1942 that saw 13,000 of her countrymen, including thousands of children, sent to their deaths at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
But the wheelchair-bound 85-year-old could not escape an anti-Semitic neighbour that repeatedly stabbed her and then burnt her body in late March.
Authorities have charged two men, a neighbour and his friend, with murder with an anti-Semitic motive.
The suspects have not been named but both are reportedly in their twenties with lengthy criminal histories. One has told investigators that the other screamed “Allahu Akbar” during the killing, according to reports in the New York Times and French publication Le Monde.
Knoll’s sadistic murder occurred on the same day that France suffered an Islamist attack at the hands of known extremist, Radouane Lakdim. In that Islamic State-inspired attack, a 25-year-old Moroccan-born French citizen killed four people and injured another 16 before being shot by police in a supermarket in Trèbes.
One of those killed was Lt-Col Arnaud Beltrame, who heroically swapped places with a female hostage during the Islamist’s reign of terror.
French President Emmanuel Macron attended the funeral of both Knoll and Beltrame and drew a link between the two sets of crimes, which he labelled as examples of “barbaric obscurantism with the only goal of eliminating our liberties and our solidarities”.
The murder of Knoll occurred in the same area where another grisly anti-Semitic murder took place last April.
In that instance, it was clear that the torture and murder of 65-year-old Orthodox Jew Sarah Halimi was religiously motivated and yet French authorities steadfastly refused to acknowledge that fact for months.
The man accused of the retired doctor and schoolteacher’s murder screamed “Allahu Akbar” and recited Koranic verses before throwing her battered body off a balcony. Only after a global outcry, persistent pressure from Jewish groups and the intervention of Macron did the brutal murder eventually become classified as anti-Semitic by a French judge on February 28.
This time around there has been no obfuscation, with Macron labelling Knoll’s killing as the assassination of “an innocent and vulnerable woman because she was Jewish and in doing so profaned our sacred values and our history”.
Violent attacks against Jew are all too common in France. One in 10 French Jews has suffered a physical assault, according to a 2016 Ipsos survey. Three in four Jews surveyed in a 2013 EU poll said that they no longer displayed signs of their religion such as a kippah or Star of David because they feared an attack.
It’s no surprise that the rise in anti-Semitism has coincided with an increase in France’s Muslim population.
“If you are a practising Jew and visible, if you wear a kippah (skullcap) and live in not such a nice neighbourhood, then it is nearly impossible not to be confronted on an everyday basis with anti-Semitism,” said the Europe director of the American Jewish Committee, Simone Rodan-Benzaquen.
In the UK, the Labour party is mired in its own anti-Semitic crisis with multiple self-inflicted controversies. For more than 18 months the party has been investigating dozens of its members for alleged anti-Semitism.
On the weekend, Christine Shawcroft quit Labour’s national executive committee amid allegations that she defended a council candidate accused of Holocaust denial.
Last week, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn apologised to the Jewish community for the party’s anti-Semitic malaise.
“I recognise that anti-Semitism has surfaced within the Labour Party and has too often been dismissed as simply a matter of a few bad apples,” Corbyn wrote.
“This has caused pain and hurt to Jewish members of our party and to the wider Jewish community in Britain. I am sincerely sorry for the pain which has been caused, and pledge to redouble my efforts to bring this anxiety to an end.”
It’s a little rich for Corbyn to play the role of the unifier when he is personally connected with a host of malicious anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers. He has had long-term associations with individuals and groups who are virulently anti-Jewish and anti-Israel.
Corbyn has in the past invited members of terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah to speak in the British parliament and referred to these most determined and deadly Jew haters as “friends”.
Under his leadership, a worrying number of Labour councillors have disgraced themselves by making blatantly hateful comments about Jews.
Activist group Labour Against anti-Semitism claimed last month that anti-Semitism was becoming “institutionalised” in Labour and “immediate and decisive” action was needed to overcome the issue.
It is clear that Corbyn is not the man to rid Labour of the malignant cancer of anti-Semitism.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist
Human cost of pandemic goes much further than virus
Whether you are pro or anti-lockdown the grim, unintended consequences of the fixation on coronavirus are undeniable, as other diseases — including cancer and heart disease — go unchecked, and despair from joblessness, poverty and financial stress rises, writes Rita Panahi.
Will buck really stop with Dan after disastrous decisions?
While Daniel Andrews repeats the “we’re all in this together” mantra, the reality is only the private sector is making huge financial sacrifices as he refuses to face up to scrutiny over the hotel quarantine fiasco and contact tracing chaos, writes Rita Panahi.