Ariel Sharon has, apparently, failed to bring peace to the Israelis. On the contrary, he has exposed them to even greater insecurity. His policies have also dealt a serious blow to the Jewish state’s economy reversing its economic growth rate.
Internationally, his oppression of the Palestinians behind the façade of fighting terror has made several of his old allies skeptical of his claims.
His brutal handling of the Palestinian issue has also turned the self-styled “oasis of democracy” to an unscrupulous occupation force violating every norm of human rights and international law. His inhuman style of repression has invited the displeasure of even his staunch supporters in Europe. Israel’s image as a state surrounded by hostile countries is gradually being replaced by the image of a country that threatens the security and stability of all its neighbors.
This changing attitude across Europe has encouraged several people to brave charges of anti-Semitism to condemn the Israeli savageries in the West Bank and Gaza.
In Switzerland, where the law allows prosecuting anyone charged with war crimes anywhere in the world, the youth wing of the ruling party has demanded the authorities initiate action against the Israeli premier for committing war crimes against the Palestinian people.
More than 20,000 youths attended a recent function in Greece organized by one of the top Greek singers, Theodor Achis, in support of the Palestinian children being killed by the Israeli Army. Worried and infuriated by such swing in the moods of the people, the Israeli ambassador in Greek demanded the singer to arrange another program to support the Israeli children, but Theodor did not listen to the demand. In Amsterdam, the wife of the European Central Bank’s chief hoisted recently a Palestinian flag at the top of her house to sympathize with the Palestinians. In London there have been demonstrations condemning the policies of the butcher Sharon. Several English newspapers now, unlike in the past, carry articles condemning the Zionist savageries in Palestine with no fear of anti-Semitic accusations.
The London-based Economist recently attributed the pro-Palestinian shift in the European attitude to Israel’s unfair aggression and excesses against the Palestinians. The magazine also posed a disturbing question – has the anti-Semitism come back to Europe again?
An unabashedly pro-Israeli American columnist Charles Krauthammer has also noted the perceptible change in the European attitude toward Israel. The European sympathy for the Jews, in the first place, was not because of any love for them but because of the haunting memories of the Holocaust that have been weighing down on the European conscience ever since World War II. But the present Israeli acts have released the Europeans from the burden of guilt feeling and given them an opportunity to vent their feelings against the oppressions including that in Palestine, the writer noted.
Being apprehensive of the slow but growing change in Europe, the Zionist organizations in the US have made some swift moves to counter it particularly by raising the bogey of anti-Semitism against those who dare criticize Israel. But this weapon does not seem to work so effectively as in the past. The Europeans now justly feel that the past suffering of a people does not justify their suppression of other weak people.
The reason for the strong European support for Israel was the Jewish suffering under the Nazi occupiers and rulers. The same reason now makes the Palestinians the object of European sympathy. I hope that Europeans will soon realize that there is no justification to continuing their anti-Semitism laws in light of the deceptions practiced by the Zionists in the past.
