‘Never again’ a fainter hope

The ugly hate words “Jodenjacht” (“Jew hunt”) and “Kanker Joden” (“Cancer Jews”) are proliferating on social media following Friday’s despicable anti-Semitic violence in Amsterdam. It is inevitable, sadly, that Israel’s National Security Council has warned Jews about the dangers of travelling overseas, especially to Europe. Not only sporting and cultural events should be avoided, the council warned, but “Israelis travelling abroad should also avoid identifying as such”, especially in countries with large migrant populations from countries opposed to Israel.

Following further anti-Semitic violence in Amsterdam on Monday, and police action to forestall similar rioting against Jews in Antwerp in Belgium, as well as in France and Britain, Israel’s National Security Council warning must be heeded. That does not make it less horrifying, eight decades after Europe, at the conclusion of World War II, pledged “never again”.

Events suggest, however, that the trend of the early 1930s is repeating itself. How else to explain references to “Jew hunt”, “Cancer Jews” and tweets celebrating the targeting of “Cancer Jews” by allegedly placing a bomb on a tram in Amsterdam? Ahead of a UEFA Nations League football match in Paris between France and Israel on Friday morning (AEDT), French authorities will mobilise 4000 gendarmes to deal with expected anti-Semitic violence.

As prominent British commentator Douglas Murray wrote on Monday, over the past quarter-century immigration policy, and its impact, has grown worse across western Europe, where young Muslims have become more alienated from societies into which they were expected to assimilate and which are looking “unbelievably weak’’.