Last week, the European Union's Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia released the results of a study, the headline findings of which will cause anyone with even the slightest understanding of world events to wonder why the E.U. even bothers having a "Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia."
The report's summary concluded that while acts of anti-Jewish violence and anti-Semitism in general are on the rise in Europe, the perpetrators are mostly ... Nazis.
More specifically, neo-Nazis - young skinheads from the "extreme right." The kind of low-brained scum, who are rightfully regarded as inconsequential punks here in the United States, are apparently the masterminds behind "progressive" Europe's recent and startling acceleration of anti-Semitic violence.
This, frankly, is in direct and flagrant contradiction of the facts reported not only by police, but also by the E.U.'s own findings. Despite what the headline and summary say, the data found in the body of the report tells a different story. In France alone, the report noted that of the 193 reported violent attacks against Jewish people, property, and places of worship, most were "ascribed to youth from neighborhoods sensitive to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, principally of North African descent." Meanwhile, the neo-fascists ranked a measly 9 percent. Similarly, the report noted that the heavy anti-Jewish violence in Belgium was due to a "spillover" from the Palestinian intifadah.
So Jewish leaders were understandably outraged when a summary of the report sent to the European Parliament concluded, "The largest group of the perpetrators of anti-Semitic activities appears to be young, disaffected white Europeans," and giving little more than lip service to the "North African" violators.
Interestingly enough, the E.U. late last year caught some flack for suppressing a report by German academics, one that concluded that the wave of anti-Jewish racism in Europe was largely owed to gangs of angry young Arabs. And according to Victor Weitzel, one of the authors of the study released this month, said that the E.U. had actively done everything it could to downplay any allegations of involvement by youth of North African descent.
So the E.U. has been reduced to playing apologist for Muslim extremists, and one of the largest legislative bodies in the world is conjuring up images of phantom neo-Nazis because they don't want to deal with the imminent reality of the thugs on their doorstep, merely because those thugs happen to be Arabic.
It's interesting, albeit morbid, to wonder why. Is it the endless white, Western guilt? Is it the cowardly appeasement? Is it from a well-intentioned fear that citizens won't be able to distinguish between the peaceful mainstream Muslims and the radical ones prone to vandalism and even terrorism?
Whatever the reason, it remains that sticking one's head in the sand is rarely a good idea, but when the safety of innocents is at risk daily, the stakes are just too high. A society's criminal element must be dealt with, regardless of whether that element is drawn from a pool of Muslims, Mormons or Mennonites.
Europe may be facing another of its greatest challenges, and the E.U. is gloriously failing to rise up and meet it. And strangely, with all this talk of Nazis, the E.U. is missing out on the one important historical lesson Europe SHOULD be remembering: The bad guys usually come for the Jews first.
Eric Spratling is a public relations senior. Reach him at eric.spratling@asu.edu. Read his blog online at asuwebdevil.com.
