Monday, April 05, 2004

Eurabia?

Front page magazine has an article by Bat Ye'or reacting to an assertion by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia that "the largest group of the perpetrators of antisemitic activities appears to be young, disaffected white Europeans." Her counter assertion is that the rise in antisemitism is the result of a "Euro-Arab war for the delegitimization and destruction of Israel."

It is a somewhat unevenly written piece. The first half reads like a typical conspiracy theory: heavy on accusations and assertions and light on references or verifiable facts. But later, she does give some fairly accurate descriptions of actual European behavior. One excellent point she makes is:

    "Europe spoke incessantly for the 'legitimate inalienable rights of the Palestinians.' This phrase, borrowed from Arab League declarations, is repeated in every few lines of European statements mimicking their Arab models. We would seek in vain the definition of the rights of Kurds, Berbers, Copts or any other pre-Islamic indigenous inhabitants of the Middle East, including Jews- these peoples are never mentioned."


I must confess that I am ambivalent. While I am inclined to trust Bat Ye'or more than either the UN or the EU, I don't feel that I have been given enough solid facts and argument in this particular case.

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