Saturday, July 16, 2005

Europe does not feel like home

I find it incredible how little coverage these type of incidents get (via Free Thoughts).
The incidents are now so common that they rarely make it into the local press, though last weekend it was reported that the Maccabee sports centre on the outskirts of Antwerp had been vandalised for the fourth time this year. A group of Moroccan teenagers tore up the furniture and daubed swastikas on the walls.
[...]
Antwerp is not alone. The Anderlecht Synagogue in Brussels was attacked with Molotov cocktails last month; another in Charleroi was sprayed with gunfire; Jewish bookshops, butchers, and, above all, cemeteries are routinely vandalised - just statistics among the 2,000 anti-Semitic incidents reported since September 11, an average of 18 a day, with attacks on France's 700,000 strong Jewish community topping the list.
Incredibly the attitude is so entrenched that this (via FT) seems like a good idea to the Belgian government.
Although a new report states that some Palestinian Authority textbooks feature descriptions of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" as being an "integral part" of Zionist history that was approved in "a confidential resolution of the First Zionist Congress," the Belgian government says it is continuing to fund production of the textbooks and does not consider them offensive.
"We do not find [the textbooks] anti-Semitic in any way," said a spokesman from the Belgian government press office, speaking to The Jerusalem Post by telephone. "We have a screening process that goes through and reads the books. There has been some controversy about it in the past, but we have had people look into it."
And you want to lecture the US and Israel? Have you no shame?

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