Is it not remarkable how, when the Israeli Prime Minister said Jews living in Europe should move to Israel, he was not attacked as being anti-semitic in the way everyone else who wishes the Jews well and advises precisely the same thing is?
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has invited Jews from France and the rest of Europe to immigrate to the state of Israel, referring to what he sees as a “rising tide of anti-Semitism” there. The statement comes in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
“To all the Jews of France, all the Jews of Europe, I would like to say that Israel is not just the place in whose direction you pray, the state of Israel is your home,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a televised statement on Saturday, referencing the Jewish tradition of facing Jerusalem when praying.
Netanyahu called on lawmakers to alter the existing immigration laws to make it easier for Jews to permanently move to Israel.
So, what do we conclude from this, that Benjamin Netanyahu hates the Jews? I note that absolutely none of my previous critics have remarked upon the fact that I was absolutely correct to have warned the Jews of the changing mood in Europe, and to have urged them leave Europe and emigrate to their homeland. Had the Jews in Paris done so sooner, they would not have been murdered by Muslims as they were in Granada and eventually in every Muslim-controlled city in Spain and the Maghreb.
Reports from the period describe that, after an initial 7-month grace period, the Almohads killed or forcefully converted Jewish communities in each new city they conquered until “there was no Jew left from Silves to Mahdia”
A man cannot have two masters, and the French Prime Minister Valls (who is a Spaniard) was absolutely incorrect to claim that France requires Jews any more than it requires Spaniards, Germans, Russians, or Turks. France without Jews is France. It is the Israeli Prime Minister who is correct. Israel is their home. The various nations of Europe are not, and it is time for everyone to stop pretending that they are. The diversity concept is dead. It has failed, and failed spectacularly.
It is not necessary to love or hate anyone to recognize that a group of people whose foremost concern is “is it good for the Jews” is never going to be entirely acceptable to those whose primary concern is “is it good for the French”. That is straightforward logic, it is simple set theory, and in a time of rising nationalism around the world, from the Islamic State to Germany, non-nationals everywhere would do well to either a) fully convert or b) return to their home nations.
Especially when one of the historical lessons of al-Andalus is that when Muslim and Western cultures clash, the Jews tend to end up as collateral damage. For the European Jews, emigrating to America instead of Israel looks rather like the Medieval Jews fleeing from the Almohads to what eventually became the Spanish Inquisition. And given the economic trend of the last 60 years, I very much doubt it will take another 345 years for Americans to begin doubting the loyalties of the USA’s Jewish residents, as the Spanish Christians eventually came to do.
NB: When considering these large-scale movement of people, try to recall that the significant changes tend to take decades, even centuries, to play out, even though the obvious turning points can often be identified at specific moments in time. As Guy Gavriel Kay’s novel shows, we often tend to look at certain sections of history while ignoring the relevant sections that immediately preceded or followed it, and thereby reach erroneous conclusions.