Tel-Chai Nation

Mark Steyn's written about the situation today for Jews in many places in Europe (Hat tip: Betsy's Page):

Even if you put to one side the public school in Denmark that says it can no longer take Jewish children because of the security situation, and the five children of the chief rabbi of Amsterdam who've decided to emigrate, and the Swedish Jews fleeing the most famously tolerant nation in Europe because of its pervasive anti-Semitism; even if you put all that to the side and consider only the situation in France... No, wait, forget the Villiers-le-Bel schoolgirl brutally beaten by a gang jeering, "Jews must die"; and the Paris disc-jockey who had his throat slit, his eyes gouged out, and his face ripped off by a neighbor who crowed, "I have killed my Jew"; and the young Frenchman tortured to death over three weeks, while his family listened via phone to his howls of agony as his captors chanted from the Koran... No, put all that to one side, too, and consider only the city of Toulouse. In recent years, in this one city, a synagogue has been firebombed, another set alight when two burning cars were driven into it, a third burgled and "Dirty Jews" scrawled on the ark housing the Torah, a kosher butcher's strafed with gunfire, a Jewish sports association attacked with Molotov cocktails...

Here's Toulouse rabbi Jonathan Guez speaking to the Jewish news agency JTA in 2009: "Guez said Jews would now be 'more discreet' about displaying their religion publicly and careful about avoiding troubled neighborhoods. ... The synagogue will be heavily secured with cameras and patrol units for the first time."

This is what it means to be a Jew living in one of the most beautiful parts of France in the 21st century.

With the national election taking place tomorrow, one can only wonder if Sarkozy will end up voted out of office. Given some of his own pathetically incompetent statements, and that he may not have taken proper steps until now to curb these kind of violent horrors, if he's ousted, we may not be able to feel surprised. When you do things like say that Israel should "make concessions" (or even stupid cracks about Israel's own politicians on the side) that can indirectly influence the Islamofascists who won't even vote for a specific incumbent regardless, and at the same time turn off even those who'd voted for him/her in the first place. In which case, Sarkozy will have only himself to blame if he fails and Francois Hollande takes over.

Labels: anti-semitism, Europe, France, islam, Netherlands, Scandanavia