If we look at the current political situation in Europe though, we see that such a scenario is not as unlikely as it may seem.
In this programme, Dr Efriam Zuroff, director of the Simon Wisenthal Centre and a historian comments: “If the leader of the Labour Party says he is friends with Hamas, then something is very seriously wrong.”
And yet it is not just the Labour party which shows signs of anti-semitism. Britain and many European countries sell arms to just about every Arab state, which is something that Dr Zuroff finds hard to justify. Meanwhile, the U.S. has made moves to appease Iraq. “Iraq can attack Israel if it wants to, so Israel is very sensitive to U.S. attempts to appease Iraq. Every single Israeli, Jewish or not, and 20% of the Jewish population are not Jewish, face the same threat. A nation which has been the victims of the worst genocide in human history cannot take this lightly.”
However, Dr Zuroff explains that the situation with the British Labour party, the publication of Mein Kampf in Germany and other events in Europe do not worry him greatly, as there are a lot of good things going on as well: “We have holocaust education in most countries in Europe today.” But Dr Zuroff sees that the main danger being from the migration to Europe of millions of refugees who have been bought up on extreme anti Semitic beliefs. “If these people obtain the vote, they will find politicians who will want to curry their favour… This is the real fear and the real threat. In some countries, like Iran, you have governmentally approved holocaust denial. All the ideas of the modern world have not penetrated these areas.”
Jews, Dr Zuroff continued, “don't really count for much in terms of voting, there are not enough of them in Western Europe. The question is do you equate what is happening in the Middle East with the Jews living in Europe?”
