In Ireland, taking the name of Israel means becoming a war criminal. A popular Dublin restaurant, The Exchequer, no longer stocks Israeli goods. In the Irish town of Kinvara, retailers, restaurants and pharmacies operate a boycott of Israeli goods. The leading Irish supermarket chain SuperValu removed the Israeli carrots from its shelves. And I have mentioned just a few examples of the new Irish anti-Semitism.

“Europe easily “forgot” that the Israelis are Jews. And endangered Jews.”

It is the same everywhere in Europe: Israel is disappearing from European shelves. Practically and symbolically. The material cancellation of Israeli goods from Europe’s shelves anticipates Israel’s physical suppression.

The French city of Lille suspended its partnership with the holy Jewish city of Safed in north of Israel. Meanwhile, activists entered a supermarket in Paris and threw Israeli goods on the floor.

A London coffee shop hung a sign reading, “No Israeli products here” and Macy’s Corporation removed the Sodastream products.

The Spanish municipality of Villanueva de Duero banned Eden Springs water from its buildings.

The Dutch supermarket chains Aldi and Jumbo are instructing Israeli suppliers to refrain from sending goods produced “in the settlements”.

It is not BDS which is winning. It is Europe’s pavidity which is turning against the Jews.

Meanwhile, Jews are raped in Europe’s houses and on its streets. A French Jewish girl was raped last week by an Arab gang in Créteil, where one fourth of the population is Jewish. It was the latest terror attack on the world’s third largest Jewish community by French Muslims. But instead of dealing with this Nazi-like phenomenon, the French authorities are playing with rhetoric and grand words.

Anti-Semitism is driving the Jews away from France. 7,000 French Jews will land this year in Israel. It is a very positive phenomenon, since the European democracies are not willing nor able to defend their endangered Jews. And Jews belong in Eretz Israel, not in Paris arondissments.

Israel’s points of view, Israeli reasoning, are disappearing from Europe’s frontpage newspapers. Every war is getting worse. Europe’s diplomatic echelons, political officials, intellectuals, writers, journalists, heads of churches and labor unions, are all asking Israel to commit suicide, to become a Jewish ghetto in an Arab sea relying on the guarantees of secularism, democracy and respect for minorities that is offered by the PLO, the Iranian mullahs and the Syrian generals.

Under a thirst for oil, demagoguery and cowardly solidarity with the Third World governments, the European civilized countries accept that Israel is being pushed to the margins of the international consortium. A scandal that the European phalanges of the “progressives” accept in silence and complacency.

There is something shameful in the speed with which Europe, which expelled all the Jews and almost choked off its holy seed, now turns against Israel.

There is something perverse in the way that Europe has discovered with joy that the former Jewish victims, in the pursuit of their collective salvation, had to struggle with other peoples and kill them to defend themselves. The Jews have become less innocent to them.

Too quickly in Europe and in the West the mood has turned over, so perhaps it betrayed a conscious or unconscious desire to shake off past wrongs. Europe easily “forgot” that the Israelis are Jews. And endangered Jews.

In Europe today there is a kind of anxiety focused on how to get rid of Israel. What else can explain the barbaric joy showed by these people who go to the supermarket at the corner, grab the Israeli goods off the shelves and burn them on the ground?

Giulio Meotti

The writer, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book “A New Shoah”, that researched the personal stories of Israel’s terror victims, published by Encounter. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary. He has just published a book about the Vatican and Israel titled “J’Accuse: the Vatican Against Israel” published by Mantua Books.

Italian Journalist Giulio Meotti