Make no mistake: this is incitement. The call to strike Jews is clear. We stand on the brink of new pogroms.
Fiamma Nirenstein
(JNS)
The atmosphere in Europe is rotten. You can smell it in the expulsions at the Polytechnic University of Turin, in the beatings of Jewish students in Pisa, in assaults on tourists, in the closures of sports and cultural spaces, in protests and strikes framed as being in “solidarity” with Gaza.
Meanwhile, the European Union sanctions Israel under the virtuous banner of “pacifism,” dressing up Hamas as the innocent “Palestinian people.”
The United Nations adds its familiar chorus of condemnations, brandishing once again its ugliest weapon—the accusation of “genocide,” the most poisonous word in the world.
Make no mistake: this is incitement. The call to strike Jews is clear. We stand on the brink of new pogroms.
The tragedy is compounded by the blindness of Europe’s elites, journalists, and academics. They march en masse, pretending innocence, while erasing history: 75 years of relentless jihad against Israel, the Second Intifada that followed the Oslo Accords, more than a thousand people murdered in buses and pizzerias, rejected peace overtures and the wave of terrorism unleashed after Israel withdrew from Gaza.
Two simple truths escape their cultivated minds. First, Hamas cannot be allowed to remain in power in Gaza; lives depend on it. Second, it cannot be defeated except by a war fought on the ground, against an enemy that hides among homes, children’s bedrooms and hospitals.
Only by separating the people from Hamas, only by expelling Hamas, can victory be achieved, as even the Arab League now admits. The cost is terrible: more than 900 Israeli soldiers killed, more than 6,000 wounded. But it is the only way.
And yet, “decent people” in Europe clamor to stop Israel. They prefer to see Hamas win. They amplify Hamas’s propaganda about hunger, hospitals and dead children, while ignoring that Hamas itself engineers this suffering. Israel, once again, is cast as the pariah, the eternal wandering Jew.
Old antisemitism reemerges in new clothes: blood libels, accusations of fascism against a government that is no more right-wing than Italy’s or many others in Europe. Slanders of colonialism, illegality, racism and occupation are hurled to deliver one basic message: Israel has no right to exist.
Instead, the world cheers for a Palestinian state—even if that means sharia rule, the oppression of women, homosexuals and children and the destruction of democracy. Even if it means massacres, rapes and kidnappings. None of this matters as long as it is not Israel.
In Israel, Arabs, Druze, Circassians and Bedouins have the same rights as Jews. That is the truth. Israelis fight not for jihad, but for survival. To deny this reality is not only tantamount to a moral suicide for Europe; it is physical as well.
Europe once vowed, “Never again.” Today it is sleepwalking toward “again.”
Image: Around 75 000 people march in Brussels, Belgium in solidarity with Gaza on Sept. 7, 2025. Photo by Thierry Monasse/Getty Images.
