Mark Steyn has one of the best editorials on the Eurocrat’s attitude towards
Israel that I’ve seen in quite a while. He gets the European’s lack of resolve towards
the Middle East exactly right. A sample:
Meanwhile, what have we learned from this last extraordinary month?
Not much about the Middle East, but quite a lot about Europe. What happens when
Palestinian civilians strap on plastic explosives and head for Israeli pizza parlours?
Europe says Israeli checkpoints for Palestinians are "humiliating".
Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances permit themselves to be used as
transportation for bombs and explosives – and Europe attacks Israel for refusing
them free movement.
Mr. Steyn also has one possible explanation for these attitudes – an
explanation which could very well be the reason for the European’s reactions
to world events:
This is not virulently anti-Jew, just the familiar European urge
to appease. France has nearly five million Muslims. If, from one million
Palestinians, Hamas and co can recruit enough to blow up a couple of dozen
Israelis every 48 hours, how many recruits could they find in France from an
unassimilated population five times the size?
The Europeans are scared of their Muslim populations, scared
of what perceived slight might turn them from shooting up kosher butchers to
shooting up targets of more, shall we say, concern to the general population.
When the war with Iraq starts, we’ll find out. No wonder Paris and Brussels are
as keen to postpone it as Baghdad and Riyadh. The "whole world" is
agreed that if anybody has to be blown up it might as well be the Israelis. Ah,
those Jew troublemakers: why won’t they just lie there and take it?
Well… because they know what’s at stake. They won’t allow another six
million to die at the hands of a murderous idology. Neither should we.
