Let me suggest people read an ongoing series in tabletmag.com,
"France’s Toxic Hate"
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/178958/frances-toxic-hate-1-nemmouch.
A recent post was about Mohamed Merah, perpetrator of the
massacre at a Jewish school in Toulouse in March, 2012. When Merah received
training from Islamists he at first objected to their orders; they had directed
him to kill everyone who offended Islam as they interpreted it — "The
gays, the homosexuals, the ones that kiss each other in public." But Merah
reasoned that if he did that he would be written off as "just another
crazy terrorist." So he decided, in order to be taken seriously, to "just
kill militaries [police, army] and Jews."
This is a fraught time for Jews like me. Though hardly the
first of such, it is unique in many ways. I oppose Israeli overkill in Gaza. I
have always opposed Israeli settlements on the West Bank, and argued for a
Palestinian state.
But Israel is not what concerns me here. To put it another
way, Israel is at once crucial and irrelevant. What concerns me is revitalized
anti-Semitism in the west. Some years ago I remarked to a friend that
anti-Semitism in Europe had been reduced to a trope — a memory, a marker, a
literary device built on potent negative space.
That's no longer the case. Anti-Semitism, the virulent kind,
has been reborn. And Israel cannot protect me. For Jews confronting anti-Semitism
Israel was once thought to be a possible answer. But Israel exists — and let me
make it plain that I subscribe completely to its right to exist.
But I don't live in Israel. Haven't chosen to and won't.
In a way, I exist in a pre-Zionist world, actually, a
post-Zionist world.
Anti-Semitism is reborn and it's unimaginable that Israel
can protect me.
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