Once again becoming a Europe we'd hoped we were done with

Two disturbing pieces today - one by Noah Rothman at Hot Air and one by Michel Gurfinkiel at PJ Media - that indicate that continent's disturbing turn against Jews.

Rothman reports on a policy of moral equivalence in Britain the motivations for which ought to be the subject of deep inquiry:

Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, and Skills and Liberal Democrat MP Vince Cable announced this week that the United Kingdom would suspend the export licenses of 12 British firms which send Israel arms like radar systems, aircraft, and tanks if any new hostilities in Gaza restart.

The Huffington Post U.K. reported that the British left is incensed by how “weak” this move is against Israel. Presumably, they would prefer that the government retroactively suspend arms trade to Israel and request that Israel send back any arms which they have acquired from British firms.

Fellow Lib Dem and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg recently expressed his support for an anti-Israel arms embargo saying that the Jewish state had “overstepped the mark” in its prosecution of the conflict with Hamas in Gaza.

Here is a brief review of the extensive lengths to which the IDF goes to avoid civilian casualties – rule of engagement to which neither the British nor the American armed forces would agree to be bound.

Hostilities have resumed on several occasions in Gaza after reports indicated that Hamas militants violated the terms of a number of temporary ceasefire agreements. On August 8, Hamas rocket fire into Israel shattered a tense peace. Another 72-hour cease fire which went into effect on August 1 lasted just 90 minutes before Hamas militants killed three IDF soldiers who were clearing and dismantling a tunnel network (as per the terms of that ceasefire).

None of this matter much, however, when your position is not logical but guided by emotion and reflex. And the reflex in Europe, it seems, is to lurch toward the abhorrent anti-Semitism which characterized the mid-20th Century.

If there was ever a sound argument against the necessity of a free and viable Jewish state, Europe is refuting it on a daily basis.

Gurfinkiel examines the view that the publisher of a prominent French journal takes toward Jews deciding to leave Europe:

These words were written by Christophe Barbier, the publisher and leading editorialist of France’s flagship left-of-center magazine, L’Express:

How will Jews who fear an antisemitic upsurge in France and opt to leave behind them those other Jews who cannot or do not want to go away clean themselves from an accusation of cowardice?

French Jews have been subjected to unprecedented violence and intimidation for weeks. Many of them are losing heart and considering emigrating, or are actually emigrating — by the thousands — to Israel or other places, including North America and Australia. Still, in the eyes and under the pen of the country’s leading journalist, they should be reviled as “deserters.”In fact, Barbier goes even further. He blames French Jews for many more sins beyond emigration: indulging in self-defense, “bunkerization,” support for the Benjamin Netanyahu government in Israel, and, last but not least, an alleged growing sympathy for Marine Le Pen and the far Right. French Jews, as he sees it, are becoming a threat to France as a nation and as a republic.
He warns them: “If they think that it is problematic to be Jewish while French, they vindicate those who say that it is problematic to be French while Jewish.”Then there is the headline under which he runs his piece: ”Les Nouveaux Baal Zebud” (New Baal Zebuds). That Barbier orL’Express are unsure about the spelling of Baal-Zebuth (or Beelzebuth) is one thing (in the editorial proper, the correct, biblical orthography is restored). That they rhetorically and yet blatantly associate French Jews with Canaanite gods — described in the Hebrew Bible as sanguinary and deceptive, and widely identified in the Christian and post-Christian tradition and culture with the Devil himself — is another.

Who needs a jihadist takeover when ostensible Westerners are willing to carry out the same agenda?