RUTHIE BLUM: WE SHOULD ACT ACCORDINGLY
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=9983
On Monday, the Israeli Counterterrorism Bureau issued strong travel warnings for Israelis and Jews planning trips abroad, particularly to Western Europe, over the upcoming holidays. Such advisories for Israelis are not new. Whenever there is a flare-up of some kind involving terrorism against Jews, the government tells the public to be especially cautious. But this week’s admonitions point to a specific, clear and present danger.
Several factors are coming into play to make Israeli authorities sound the alert. The recently paused war in Gaza is one. In spite of its defensive nature, Operation Protective Edge was (and still is) portrayed by the international media as an act of Israeli aggression. Demonstrations were held at Israeli embassies and consulates across the world, while openly anti-Semitic incidents have been on a steady rise.
Meanwhile, the virulently anti-Israel Professor William Schabas was appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council to head the “inquiry” into “the widespread, systematic and gross violations of international human rights and fundamental freedoms arising from the Israeli military operations in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
The “Schabas Inquiry” — which Canadian MP Professor Irwin Cotler attacked last week in an op-ed in The Jerusalem Post, for “not only presuppose[ing] Israeli criminality … but mak[ing] no reference at all to Hamas’ spectrum of war crimes and crimes against humanity” — is no small matter in this context, as it provides anti-Israel protesters all over the world with a hefty stamp of approval.
It is therefore not surprising that Israel Prize laureate, actress Lea Koenig, in Holland this week for the “Spot on Israeli Theater” festival, was verbally assaulted by Dutch activists storming the premises and shouting anti-Israel epithets and pro-Gaza slogans. Though the hecklers were removed and Koenig’s hosts profusely apologized, the incident is indicative of the overall menacing atmosphere pervading Europe.
Another factor that has Israeli officials jumpy is the explosion on the scene of Islamic State terrorists in Iraq and Syria. Due to their preferred method of annihilating “infidels” — televised decapitation — they have upstaged the rest of the Islamist barbarians in the region, including Hamas. (It is thus that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a point of declaring that “ISIS is Hamas and Hamas is ISIS.” He needed to explain to all those Israel-bashers in the West, horrified by the beheadings of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British aid worker David Haines, that this is the kind of threat Israel faces from Gaza and elsewhere along and within its borders.)
To make matters worse, the many hundreds of European-born Muslim radicals who have gone to Iraq and Syria as ISIS recruits and trainees are returning to their home countries to spread their ideology and sharpen their knives on the necks of “infidels” they encounter on the streets of France and Britain. The example cited in the Israeli advisory is the May 24 terrorist attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, in which four people were killed, two of them Israelis. It emerged that the shootings were carried out by a French Muslim, Medhi Nemmouche, who had just returned from Syria, where he took part in the ISIS abduction and torture of Foley and Sotloff.
Then there’s the heightened threat emanating from Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah. Though anti-ISIS for their own political reasons, they are also on the prowl for vacationing Jews and Israelis to abduct and murder. After all, global jihad may have its share of internecine strife, but the goal to slaughter Jews, Christians and impure Muslims on the way to establishing an Islamic caliphate remains intact.
As Israelis tend to be afflicted with a combination of claustrophobia and wanderlust, airlines count on lots of business during the period between Rosh Hashana and the end of Sukkot.
This is not only because it is a chunk of time when schools are mostly out (on the heels of a two-month summer vacation) and many places of employment function at half-mast; but it is also ideal in terms of the weather: no longer warm, but not yet at the subzero temperatures of winter. And since autumn is foreign to Israelis, there is something enticing about taking a trip outside of the country at the end of September and beginning of October to experience it.
It remains to be seen, then, whether the Counterterrorism Bureau warnings will be heeded by a majority of travelers. Having only recently been released from Hamas’ oppressive hold on the public through incessant rocket fire — forcing Israelis to spend July and August in bomb shelters, rather than at the beach — the need to get away is widespread.
Though foreign tourism to Israel came virtually to a halt this summer as a result of Islamist aggression against the Jewish state, Israelis seem to harbor fewer fears about dangers abroad. This is partly out of habit; living with terrorism at home makes venturing outside less daunting.
But it is also a function of never experiencing old-style anti-Semitism — the kind that has boldly come out of the closet in Europe again, thanks to Islamic propaganda against Israel backed by the U.N. In this respect, Israelis are naive.
It is one thing to be brave, or even fatalistic, when weighing risks about where terrorism will strike. It is quite another to be so foolish as to believe that Europe is as safe for Jews these days as Israel. Ask any French Jew who immigrated to Israel at the height of the missile-and-mortar showers, and he will tell you that it is nothing compared to what is going on in France.
It was not merely the Iron Dome system that kept Israeli casualties at a minimum during the war in Gaza. More importantly, it was the fact that though Hamas posed a physical threat, Israel itself did not constitute a hostile environment. Sadly, this cannot be said of Europe today, which is why we Israeli Jews should consider ourselves forewarned and act accordingly.
Ruthie Blum is the author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring.'”
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