Newsflash. We know who the antisemites are and it ain’t LePen. This far right racist narrative is so tired and divorced from reality – the reality we see on the streets every day.
Nobody hates Jews more than Muslims. That is a problem for the Muslims to sort out for themselves. Just not in the West. I’m sure that with time, they will sort it out, but we in the West should not be involved and having large numbers of Muslims in the West does not help anyone.
The time has come for the West to find its backbone again.
How exactly does Islam solve its antisemitism? And, come to think of it, how does it solve the problem it has with agnostics and non-believers?
The Old and New Testaments in no way pretend to offer a complete system of goverment and legal code. From this gap spring interpretation, debate, and politics. Politics is the only means to resolve religious conflict outside of the confines of religion. This is the long Judeo-Christian heritage of man-made legal systems.
The Koran and Hadith on the other hand are a complete system of government and legal code. There is little left to interpret, let alone debate. Islam *is* politics so there is no way to manage religious conflict outside of the confines of Islam. The result, seen in every single Muslim majority state today, is at best marginalisation and restrained intolerance of non-believers.
Many expect Christianity’s 500 year process of reformation and moderation to be repeated by Islam. But that is to confuse cause and effect. Christianity’s reforming upheaval was motivated by a desire to return to the very basic life and teachings of Jesus and his small group worshipping inside the confines of and separate to the state. This gave rise to so many Christian interpretations in the European states that a political settlement was needed. Once you have a political settlement for Christian differences, it is easier to extend this accomodation equally to other groups.
An Islamic reformation and desire for traditionalism is going to have a very different result. Islam began as a state and was the state. Traditional Islam means a caliphate, a unified and dominant Ummah, and that sort of reformation is accommodating no one else except as the Koran permits: second class status and jizyah or death.
We probably are in fact in the midst of an Islamic reformation. Everywhere traditionalists are on the march. We see ever more brutal attempts at establishing caliphates in the Middle East, and further afield moderate Muslims are being sidelined by traditionalists in mosques from New York to London and Paris.
You make me sound like a Rose coloured glass wearing optimist Nell. Maybe I am because I have had the good fortune of knowing moderate Muslims over the years. It is these people and people like them that give me hope that they can make out of this join us or die mentality.
The woke aren’t any better either. Still, recent history has shown us that we can’t keep taking people into the West. We are living off borrowed time and money. If our system falters, then it will be back to might makes right, but everywhere
There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim any more than you can have an atheist catholic.
You are either Muslim or a non-believer. Those you class as moderate will soon fall into line when the wind blows the right way
Hatred of Jews well predates Islam, going back to Ptolemaic Egypt if not before.
Perhaps ‘we’ should ask why this is? For example is it anything to to do with people like the late Robert Maxwell, Bernie Madoff or only the other day, one Samuel Bankman-Fried Esq?
ps. As at 0846 GMT, 25.11.23. ONLY minus 50!
Surely YOU can do better than that? I was betting on minus 100 as a minimum!
No. We have a right to see and hear everyone’s opinion and the more obnoxious, not obscene, the more we need to know it’s out there. I do not need nor want a speech nanny. My nature ears can handle it.
Personally I have no idea why someone would base their view on Jews on the disproportionately low number of Jewish criminals you cite rather than say the disproportionately high number of Jewish Nobel Prize Winners, or even just the majority of non-famous, perfectly nice Jewish people (I’m one of them!).
I would have thought it was patently obvious that I am just asking a question.
Perhaps my version of human history over say the last two years is at variance to yours?
Even if you are right about the Jews you mention, could you not find any more positive examples? Einstein, Freud, Leonard Cohen, Yehudi Menuhin, not to mention that Jews have been awarded over 20% of Nobel prizes. Unless of course you are an anti-semite?
What on earth is WRONG with you? What has happened to your powers of comprehension?
I am simply stating that antisemitism well predates Islam, and want to know WHY?
To get the ball rolling I hypothesised that it may have something to do with financial scandals, but obviously expected someone to expand on this. What is so difficult about that?
And Hitler wanted to replace Christianity with Islam in Germany. The Nazis were nothing more than a bunch of extremely lucky criminals who were willing to use any methods necessary for their own ends.They were a death cult very much in the same style as every other death cult including Hamas.
Be careful Charles, you are slipping into this rubbish ideology of a crime is only a crime as long as the perpetrator is white.
wrong. Most English as a second language provision in London was organised by two Jewish ladies. The overwhelmingly Muslim recipients were aware of this. I ‘m Jewish – I taught students of this background for seven years and only heard one antisemitic remark in all that time.
Yes, Jihadis hate jews. They also hate other Muslims who don’t agree with them, women and gay people.
Jihadis and Islamists represent Islam as accurately as the Ku Klux Klan represent Christianity.
The Christian right hate jews as much as muslims – they just see the latter as their main rivals at the moment
Of the direct antisemitism I have experienced in the Uk, the greatest amount has come either from the whte working class English or religious christians who see me as a Christkiller
Any Jewish person who seriously believes Marine Le Pen is on ‘their side’ is thick as a brick.
I think you can fairly accuse Le Pen of political opportunism here, but still: the (far) right seems to be the wrong bogeyman to be focusing on here. Too many are still stuck in post-1945 narratives with their reliable and comforting galleries of heroes and villains. The world has moved on and there is a struggle to comprehend that the roles and battle lines have changed.
If anything, their Islamophobia has trumped their residual antisemitism.
I think it’s time to question this word ‘Islamophobia’. A phobia is an irrational fear of something. Faced with a horror show like the Bataclan theatre attack, what’s irrational?
Exactly, and this point cannot be overstated. “Islamophobia” is a propaganda term, nothing more, designed to protect Islam from scrutiny and criticism from secular societies. And it is very effective.
starkbreath
5 months ago
Good article, except for the use of the term ‘Islamophobic’. Were the Allies ‘Naziphobic’?
Bruno Lucy
5 months ago
« The largest Jewish community behind the US and Israel “
Well, this largest community is …….500 000 souls big when Muslims represent over 10 % of the 66 millions population. Twisting words and creating bias is a skill the author excels at…….I can count and this makes 6,6 millions as opposed to 500 000 ……..
Anti semitic reported events accounted until last week to 1500 + and 135 anti Muslim……not that it excuses them, equally revolting ……….the fact remains that you are a lot safer being a Muslim in France than a Jew.
Stand up comedians make all sort of jokes about Jews and Christians. One could debate how funny or not they are. Not one has the balls to crack one about Muslims. If that doesn’t speak volume, what does ?
I really love the way the author cooks the books.
I’m not sure what your objection is. The author is comparing the size of Jewish communities in different countries, not the Muslim population in France. Or am I missing something?
My point is I wouldn’t apply the word largest to 500 000 in the present circumstances. People’s minds are so wired that they compare. With this form of writing, you just sidestep comparisons. The author doesn’t ever bother giving these numbers……US, France, Germany….etc…..easy enough to find.
500 000 in a 66 millions country is a very small demographic…….you most probably have far more than 500 000 French citizens with Italian or polish ancestry. Unlike the US and thank God, they are just french and no one gives a hoot where they were coming from. That wasn’t the case for the first generation and integration did its work and it wasn’t easy for them.
For the Jews however…….they have been Jews since the middle age before being labelled french, no matter how loyally they have served the country or how many generations have lived in the country.
Does shazia Mirza’s joke about just getting her pilot’s licence count or is it too ironic?
Samuel Ross
5 months ago
‘Far leftists’ seem a rare breed. I see the term ‘far right’ used far more often. And yet, by definition, far from what? The right is far from the left and vice versa. Therefore, there must be equal numbers, or the Overton window will move to the right. Therefore, the ‘far left’ exists, perhaps in much larger numbers than indicated. It is not spoken of. Why? Because those who use the term ‘far right’ are themselves ‘far left’. Only from their perspective on the scale does the ‘far-right’ seem so.
There are two reasons for that: First, the far-left (Maoists, Stalinists, Trotskyites and the like) is in disrepute because since the collapse of the Soviet Union it is evident to nearly everyone that Hayek and vonMises were right — Communism is an unworkable economic system — and thus the totalitarian impulse is now expressed as fascism (in Mussolini’s sense, the union of corporate and state power, not in the sense of the contentless pejorative applied to anyone someone regards as objectionable and to his or her right politically) even when those practicing it call themselves “Communists”. Second, the term “far-right” is applied on the Continent anyone who has noticed that every fiqh of Islamic jurisprudence is deeply illiberal and concluded that Europe should have far less (or perhaps even no) immigration from the Muslim world.
Catherine Conroy
5 months ago
Marine Le Pen has spent the last 8 years actively distancing her party from the stain of antisemitism, I think she ought to be respected for this.
Islamophobia is alive and well in France and why should it not be? The events listed in the article are reason enough. Je suis toujours Charlie!
The historical section of the article is interesting but I’m not sure how much of it is relevant to the past 60 years. Currently living in Bulgaria, I found that while the country was aligned to the Axis powers, the government and ordinary citizens protected their Jewish population (although not in Bulgarian occupied Macedonia) and got away with not deporting any Jews after 1941. However, the rhetoric these days is not in favour of Israel and there is a strong strand of antisemitism among ordinary Bulgarians.
I agree with everything you’ve written but the last sentence. I am Bulgarian and, frankly, I have never noticed any anti-Israel, let alone anti-Semitic sentiments in Bulgaria. Clearly, we both rely on anecdotal evidence and there will hardly ever be any statistics on that matter, but for me it is striking that our impressions differ so much.
Jonathan Nash
5 months ago
The history of wealthy Jews in France, and their strange insider/outsider status, is fascinating. “The Hare with amber eyes” is a personal memoir of the Ephrussi family; and of course there is Swann.
Although a lot of new populist right leaders are very pro-Israel I am always wary of Jewish activists embracing the likes of Tommy Robinson, Marine Le-Pen or Geert Wilders.
Caradog Wiliams
5 months ago
France has a long and difficult history of anti-semitism and the article has done well to bring in a balanced view. Anti-semitism has been used as a political tool to allow unscrupulous people to get votes and Drumont, he of the popular book, was one of them. This idea of using the idea for cheap votes will continue.
One thing missing is the power of the Catholic Church. All the way up to the beginning of WW2, the Church in Rome fanned the flames, even up to Pius X1, going into the war years – Pius XII, who was the war pope often gets blamed but it was too late for him to do anything. Between the wars, the Church was upset that the world was getting too liberal and looked for somebody to blame. The popes tried to make their language more acceptable by using two terms, anti-Judaism and antisemitism, the one being good and the other not good but the papal newspaper Civiltà Cattolica, attacked the Jews in almost every issue and every article was okayed by the pope’s personal secretary before publication.
Today we have a similar game of playing with names – we have antisemitism and anti-zionism and today we have political parties using these terms to get votes. I can at least see and understand the attitude of muslims in France – why shouldn’t they have the right to a view on the situation?
I read the latest issue of Civiltà Cattolica and it carried a very neutral article about the ‘war’ over in Israel, very neutral – almost too neutral.
‘Why shouldn’t they have a right to a view?’ Surely the point is the vantage point. They shouldn’t have a right to such a view within any Western society.
Newsflash. We know who the antisemites are and it ain’t LePen. This far right racist narrative is so tired and divorced from reality – the reality we see on the streets every day.
Nobody hates Jews more than Muslims. That is a problem for the Muslims to sort out for themselves. Just not in the West. I’m sure that with time, they will sort it out, but we in the West should not be involved and having large numbers of Muslims in the West does not help anyone.
The time has come for the West to find its backbone again.
How exactly does Islam solve its antisemitism? And, come to think of it, how does it solve the problem it has with agnostics and non-believers?
The Old and New Testaments in no way pretend to offer a complete system of goverment and legal code. From this gap spring interpretation, debate, and politics. Politics is the only means to resolve religious conflict outside of the confines of religion. This is the long Judeo-Christian heritage of man-made legal systems.
The Koran and Hadith on the other hand are a complete system of government and legal code. There is little left to interpret, let alone debate. Islam *is* politics so there is no way to manage religious conflict outside of the confines of Islam. The result, seen in every single Muslim majority state today, is at best marginalisation and restrained intolerance of non-believers.
Many expect Christianity’s 500 year process of reformation and moderation to be repeated by Islam. But that is to confuse cause and effect. Christianity’s reforming upheaval was motivated by a desire to return to the very basic life and teachings of Jesus and his small group worshipping inside the confines of and separate to the state. This gave rise to so many Christian interpretations in the European states that a political settlement was needed. Once you have a political settlement for Christian differences, it is easier to extend this accomodation equally to other groups.
An Islamic reformation and desire for traditionalism is going to have a very different result. Islam began as a state and was the state. Traditional Islam means a caliphate, a unified and dominant Ummah, and that sort of reformation is accommodating no one else except as the Koran permits: second class status and jizyah or death.
We probably are in fact in the midst of an Islamic reformation. Everywhere traditionalists are on the march. We see ever more brutal attempts at establishing caliphates in the Middle East, and further afield moderate Muslims are being sidelined by traditionalists in mosques from New York to London and Paris.
You make me sound like a Rose coloured glass wearing optimist Nell. Maybe I am because I have had the good fortune of knowing moderate Muslims over the years. It is these people and people like them that give me hope that they can make out of this join us or die mentality.
The woke aren’t any better either. Still, recent history has shown us that we can’t keep taking people into the West. We are living off borrowed time and money. If our system falters, then it will be back to might makes right, but everywhere
There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim any more than you can have an atheist catholic.
You are either Muslim or a non-believer. Those you class as moderate will soon fall into line when the wind blows the right way
Hatred of Jews well predates Islam, going back to Ptolemaic Egypt if not before.
Perhaps ‘we’ should ask why this is? For example is it anything to to do with people like the late Robert Maxwell, Bernie Madoff or only the other day, one Samuel Bankman-Fried Esq?
ps. As at 0846 GMT, 25.11.23. ONLY minus 50!
Surely YOU can do better than that? I was betting on minus 100 as a minimum!
The kind of comment that is unworthy of Unherd. I suggest the moderators need to to do their job.
Explain yourself please.
Come on ROCKY MARTIANO at least live up, to your preposterous pseudonym.
No. We have a right to see and hear everyone’s opinion and the more obnoxious, not obscene, the more we need to know it’s out there. I do not need nor want a speech nanny. My nature ears can handle it.
Personally I have no idea why someone would base their view on Jews on the disproportionately low number of Jewish criminals you cite rather than say the disproportionately high number of Jewish Nobel Prize Winners, or even just the majority of non-famous, perfectly nice Jewish people (I’m one of them!).
I would have thought it was patently obvious that I am just asking a question.
Perhaps my version of human history over say the last two years is at variance to yours?
Even if you are right about the Jews you mention, could you not find any more positive examples? Einstein, Freud, Leonard Cohen, Yehudi Menuhin, not to mention that Jews have been awarded over 20% of Nobel prizes. Unless of course you are an anti-semite?
What on earth is WRONG with you? What has happened to your powers of comprehension?
I am simply stating that antisemitism well predates Islam, and want to know WHY?
To get the ball rolling I hypothesised that it may have something to do with financial scandals, but obviously expected someone to expand on this. What is so difficult about that?
He is an anti semite
Islam doesn’t seem to have a centralised authority so I am wondering what is the mechanism for any change / reform ?
The Ottoman Caliphate was abolished in 1924 and since then the whole thing has gone rogue.
The sword.
You said what I was thinking only expressed it far more eloquently
Antisemitism is far far older than Islam, so perhaps we should be discussing the reasons for that?
I made an earlier more detailed comment along these lines but it seems regrettably/inexplicably to have been CENSORED.
POSTED AT. 14.47 GMT.
“Nobody hates Jews more than Muslims”
That is only a very recent phenomenon or have you perhaps forgotten Europe’s record and in particular that of the self-styled ‘master race’?
And Hitler wanted to replace Christianity with Islam in Germany. The Nazis were nothing more than a bunch of extremely lucky criminals who were willing to use any methods necessary for their own ends.They were a death cult very much in the same style as every other death cult including Hamas.
Be careful Charles, you are slipping into this rubbish ideology of a crime is only a crime as long as the perpetrator is white.
wrong. Most English as a second language provision in London was organised by two Jewish ladies. The overwhelmingly Muslim recipients were aware of this. I ‘m Jewish – I taught students of this background for seven years and only heard one antisemitic remark in all that time.
Yes, Jihadis hate jews. They also hate other Muslims who don’t agree with them, women and gay people.
Jihadis and Islamists represent Islam as accurately as the Ku Klux Klan represent Christianity.
The Christian right hate jews as much as muslims – they just see the latter as their main rivals at the moment
Of the direct antisemitism I have experienced in the Uk, the greatest amount has come either from the whte working class English or religious christians who see me as a Christkiller
Any Jewish person who seriously believes Marine Le Pen is on ‘their side’ is thick as a brick.
I think you can fairly accuse Le Pen of political opportunism here, but still: the (far) right seems to be the wrong bogeyman to be focusing on here. Too many are still stuck in post-1945 narratives with their reliable and comforting galleries of heroes and villains. The world has moved on and there is a struggle to comprehend that the roles and battle lines have changed.
So LePen is damned if she shows her support and damned if she doesn’t.
Quite, Melanchon is a socialist.
I think it’s time to question this word ‘Islamophobia’. A phobia is an irrational fear of something. Faced with a horror show like the Bataclan theatre attack, what’s irrational?
Exactly, and this point cannot be overstated. “Islamophobia” is a propaganda term, nothing more, designed to protect Islam from scrutiny and criticism from secular societies. And it is very effective.
Good article, except for the use of the term ‘Islamophobic’. Were the Allies ‘Naziphobic’?
« The largest Jewish community behind the US and Israel “
Well, this largest community is …….500 000 souls big when Muslims represent over 10 % of the 66 millions population. Twisting words and creating bias is a skill the author excels at…….I can count and this makes 6,6 millions as opposed to 500 000 ……..
Anti semitic reported events accounted until last week to 1500 + and 135 anti Muslim……not that it excuses them, equally revolting ……….the fact remains that you are a lot safer being a Muslim in France than a Jew.
Stand up comedians make all sort of jokes about Jews and Christians. One could debate how funny or not they are. Not one has the balls to crack one about Muslims. If that doesn’t speak volume, what does ?
I really love the way the author cooks the books.
I’m not sure what your objection is. The author is comparing the size of Jewish communities in different countries, not the Muslim population in France. Or am I missing something?
My point is I wouldn’t apply the word largest to 500 000 in the present circumstances. People’s minds are so wired that they compare. With this form of writing, you just sidestep comparisons. The author doesn’t ever bother giving these numbers……US, France, Germany….etc…..easy enough to find.
500 000 in a 66 millions country is a very small demographic…….you most probably have far more than 500 000 French citizens with Italian or polish ancestry. Unlike the US and thank God, they are just french and no one gives a hoot where they were coming from. That wasn’t the case for the first generation and integration did its work and it wasn’t easy for them.
For the Jews however…….they have been Jews since the middle age before being labelled french, no matter how loyally they have served the country or how many generations have lived in the country.
Does shazia Mirza’s joke about just getting her pilot’s licence count or is it too ironic?
‘Far leftists’ seem a rare breed. I see the term ‘far right’ used far more often. And yet, by definition, far from what? The right is far from the left and vice versa. Therefore, there must be equal numbers, or the Overton window will move to the right. Therefore, the ‘far left’ exists, perhaps in much larger numbers than indicated. It is not spoken of. Why? Because those who use the term ‘far right’ are themselves ‘far left’. Only from their perspective on the scale does the ‘far-right’ seem so.
There are two reasons for that: First, the far-left (Maoists, Stalinists, Trotskyites and the like) is in disrepute because since the collapse of the Soviet Union it is evident to nearly everyone that Hayek and vonMises were right — Communism is an unworkable economic system — and thus the totalitarian impulse is now expressed as fascism (in Mussolini’s sense, the union of corporate and state power, not in the sense of the contentless pejorative applied to anyone someone regards as objectionable and to his or her right politically) even when those practicing it call themselves “Communists”. Second, the term “far-right” is applied on the Continent anyone who has noticed that every fiqh of Islamic jurisprudence is deeply illiberal and concluded that Europe should have far less (or perhaps even no) immigration from the Muslim world.
Marine Le Pen has spent the last 8 years actively distancing her party from the stain of antisemitism, I think she ought to be respected for this.
Islamophobia is alive and well in France and why should it not be? The events listed in the article are reason enough. Je suis toujours Charlie!
The historical section of the article is interesting but I’m not sure how much of it is relevant to the past 60 years. Currently living in Bulgaria, I found that while the country was aligned to the Axis powers, the government and ordinary citizens protected their Jewish population (although not in Bulgarian occupied Macedonia) and got away with not deporting any Jews after 1941. However, the rhetoric these days is not in favour of Israel and there is a strong strand of antisemitism among ordinary Bulgarians.
I agree with everything you’ve written but the last sentence. I am Bulgarian and, frankly, I have never noticed any anti-Israel, let alone anti-Semitic sentiments in Bulgaria. Clearly, we both rely on anecdotal evidence and there will hardly ever be any statistics on that matter, but for me it is striking that our impressions differ so much.
The history of wealthy Jews in France, and their strange insider/outsider status, is fascinating. “The Hare with amber eyes” is a personal memoir of the Ephrussi family; and of course there is Swann.
Islam wants to rule the world,
Like America does?
Although a lot of new populist right leaders are very pro-Israel I am always wary of Jewish activists embracing the likes of Tommy Robinson, Marine Le-Pen or Geert Wilders.
France has a long and difficult history of anti-semitism and the article has done well to bring in a balanced view. Anti-semitism has been used as a political tool to allow unscrupulous people to get votes and Drumont, he of the popular book, was one of them. This idea of using the idea for cheap votes will continue.
One thing missing is the power of the Catholic Church. All the way up to the beginning of WW2, the Church in Rome fanned the flames, even up to Pius X1, going into the war years – Pius XII, who was the war pope often gets blamed but it was too late for him to do anything. Between the wars, the Church was upset that the world was getting too liberal and looked for somebody to blame. The popes tried to make their language more acceptable by using two terms, anti-Judaism and antisemitism, the one being good and the other not good but the papal newspaper Civiltà Cattolica, attacked the Jews in almost every issue and every article was okayed by the pope’s personal secretary before publication.
Today we have a similar game of playing with names – we have antisemitism and anti-zionism and today we have political parties using these terms to get votes. I can at least see and understand the attitude of muslims in France – why shouldn’t they have the right to a view on the situation?
I read the latest issue of Civiltà Cattolica and it carried a very neutral article about the ‘war’ over in Israel, very neutral – almost too neutral.
‘Why shouldn’t they have a right to a view?’ Surely the point is the vantage point. They shouldn’t have a right to such a view within any Western society.
“the attitude of muslims in France – why shouldn’t they have the right to a view on the situation?”
it’d be grand if that view didn’t almost always consist in murdering Jews or blowing up places
Excellent point, Caradog. Thank you.