[VOA]

With 27 million Muslims in Continental Europe, this is no suprise.

It's probably a suprise that it took so long for the radicals among that number to
understand that the morally-compromised socialists (and sons/daughters of the Nazis/Vichy)
would probably hardly lift a finger if they went after their common target.

[financeprof]

Kristallnacht, c. 2002.

[samtheman]

I can't understand why any Jewish person would live in Europe. I can understand Israel --- there's a reason to risk your life there if you're Jewish --- but to risk it to live with a bunch of Euroweenies? I don't get it.

My personal opinion is that the best place on earth for Jews --- all the Jews --- would be right here in the USA. But I understand if they don't want to leave Israel, even if it means living in a perpetual war. Which is what it means.

[Vomit]

(FYI: I'm Flemish and saw the images all over our national press)

The Antwerp Jewish community has a rather ambivalent stance on the presence of Muslim immigrants. On the one hand it fears (rightly) a Jihad, yet it continues to oppose the Flemish Bloc, which is the one single political party that has the guts to oppose the liberal multiculturalist agenda (and is vilified by the other parties with the usual "nazi" and "fascist" epithets for doing that).

At one occasion a Flemish Bloc senator doubted the correctness of the 6Meg figure of Holocaust victims. The Flemish consitution doesn't contain the equivalent of the First Amendment, and "holocaust denial" is a criminal offence since 1995, "thanks" to Jewish lobbying. This event probably shaped the fear of the Jewish community to embrace the Flemish Bloc as an ally against Islam immigration.

IMHO this is a foolish stance. Even if the Holocaust law (which I also abhor, since it criminalizes free speech) is a bargaining chip which the Jewish community might need to pay, it would be a very small price to pay for real safety from Muslim terrorism and attacks. I think the source (Jewsweek) is also biased against the Flemish Bloc as the writer expressly supports multiculturalism and uses the "neo-Fascist" slander. There are other voices. Today I read an article by Prof. Dr. Henri Rosenberg in "Faxkrant 't Scheldt" (fax-newsletter) stating

"Jews who until now opposed the Flemish Bloc, because that's what they were supposed to, are much less negative and the step to pro-Bloc becomes increasingly small. Support for the Bloc becomes discussable in Jewish circles, and is effectively discussed"

[Gritty]

Police estimated that a noisy crowd of about 3,000 people, almost all of whom were Moroccan Arabs, listened to harangues for about two hours... Toward the end of this rally speakers wearing masks called for Jihad against the Jews.

Why don't they do the smart thing and deport these troublemakers back to their own countries, just like we do her in ..., uh..., never mind!

[NH Liberty]

"The Flemish Bloc oppose immigrants from a right-wing, conservative, neo-Fascist perspective. "

Oxymoron. How can one be a "conservative" and a "fascist" at the same time? More typical deliberateness in changing the true meaning of words.

From Mirriam-Webster's On-line Dictionary:

Main Entry: fas·cism Pronunciation: 'fa-"shi-z&m also 'fa-"si- Function: noun Etymology: Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis bundle & fasces fasces Date: 1921 1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition 2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control - fas·cist /-shist also -sist/ noun or adjective, often capitalized - fas·cis·tic /fa-'shis-tik also -'sis-/ adjective, often capitalized - fas·cis·ti·cal·ly /-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb, often capitalized

[dougherty]

Police estimated that a noisy crowd of about 3,000 people, almost all of whom were Moroccan Arabs,

These people act like animals no matter where they live. If they still identify themselves so strongly with their Arab brethren, what the hell are they doing in Europe? They should be thrown out ASAP.

[vance]

Moroccans are on the bottom of Belgian society as an ethnic group and as a social class. The Algerian Arabs in France occupy a similar position in French society. This mix of low educational achievement, high unemployment resulting in poverty, early exposure to criminality and violence, isolation from other kinds of people, and a high average of young people and adolescents – it all works to produce an explosive situation. The Arabs become marginal to a society they feel rejects them. They in turn reject the norms of that society.

This explains much. Anti-Semites tend to be uneducated oafs.

[Southern Federalist]

I don't know anything about the Flemish Bloc; I could not find its political platform with Google, and its homepage is all in Flemish. However, this article, about a government official in Flanders attending an Old Nazis Reunion, suggests to me that the Jews of Belgium are not just stupid to be cautious about Flemish nationalism, even if they are mistaken.

The significance of the story is that the Volksunie, the party of the government official in question, is the party from which the Flemish Bloc split off - in other words, it has the less, shall we say, emphatic views of the two.

Added to the Holocaust denial incident, I would not be running to embrace Flemish nationalism either, if I were a Jew in Belgium. Holocause denial is so stupid that one should assume that it is never innocent; it is invariably a front for anti-Semitism.

For that matter, an a priori distrust of European ethnic nationalism would not really be foolish on the part of European Jews either.

Of course, it's also the case that Jews have plenty of enemies on the Left who may be more dangerous collaborators with Muslim bloodlust. I'm not writing this to attack the Flemish Bloc, or Belgian nationalism, or anything of the sort, only to suggest that Belgian Jews may not be as dumb as some posters seem to think in not embracing either without a lot of thought.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

The Flemish Bloc oppose immigrants from a right-wing, conservative, neo-Fascist perspective. Hostility to immigrant groups, and especially to Arabs, is a theme with infinite variations from country to country; another interesting one is the Dutch political party called Livable Netherlands. It's leader, Pim Fortuyn, is an openly gay man who wants to limit Moslems in Holland because their religious leaders publicly refer to homosexuals as "pigs". They are hostile to the liberal Dutch way of life that Fortuyn wants to preserve. Is Fortuyn a rightist or a leftist? Immigration and its accompanying social problems confuse political boundaries.

This guy is a leetle confused.  Fascism (and gays, for that matter) are leftists.  OTOH, maybe for Europe, that is right wing...

[Stand Watch Listen]

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