European Religious Animosity Against Israel
The Religious Hatred of Jews by Ireland, Spain, and Norway.
For Israelis and Jews, it was shocking to see Ireland, Spain, and Norway eagerly announce their recognition of a Palestinian state in the shadow of the horrendous events of 7th October 2023 in which two thousand Israelis were raped, killed, some burnt to death, tortured, and taken hostage to a fate yet unknown.
These countries seem totally unconcerned that Arabs living under the Palestinian Authority have been celebrating Hamas, overwhelmingly supporting Hamas for years, and have, themselves, been constantly attacking and killing Jews in the thousands.
And yet, even as Israel is attempting to eradicate the last vestiges of a militarized jihadi terror organization, one that represents the hearts and minds of Palestinians, these three countries declared their willingness to grant them official statehood, knowing their ultimate ambition is for a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea.”
In other words, a world without Israel.
What would drive these three apparently different European countries to unite in favor of such an entity against the current concerns of a beleaguered Jewish state?
Could religion be playing a part in their national antipathy toward Israel?
Ireland is 70% Catholic and 3% Muslim. Spain is a Catholic country with over 5% Muslim population. Both religions bear a horrendous history against Jews.
In Catholic Spain, Jews were expelled. Those that remained and refused to convert to Catholicism were tortured and burnt to death in the infamous Spanish Inquisition. Echoes of this appeared in the horrors of 7/10 where Jews were tortured and burnt to death. The major difference was that the Palestinian murderers had no intention to convert Jews as the Spaniards did during their centuries-old Inquisitions.
The Spanish Catholic pursuit of Jews went global and lasted from 1478 to 1834. Jews were pursued to the Caribbean and into South America. Many Jews fled to north Africa while others fled to the Holy Land to escape the lethal Spanish Jew haters.
Ireland is a 70% Catholic country with a growing Muslim population. Both religions hate Jews, and Ireland has earned a reputation of being the most anti-Israel country in Europe.
There are some that compare the IRA with Hamas. In their terror war against the British, the IRA killed Lord Mountbatten and a near successful attempt to kill British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.
The IRA threat was eliminated by a realization that it could not win by terror leading to a political solution, resulting in the Good Friday Agreement.
Palestinians, on the other hand openly admit that any agreement they sign with Israel is but a way station to their ultimate goal in the staged destruction of the Jewish state.
Deception has always been a strategy employed by Islamists, particularly practiced by the Palestinians.
This was made abundantly clear when Norway invited Yasser Arafat to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Since then, Norway has not only failed to admit is that Arafat killed more Israelis after they gave him this peace prize than he had murdered before, but they also now want to crown statehood on an unrepentant Palestinian movement.
As for Norway, it was once a Catholic country which converted to Lutheranism. It is now a national Lutheran country.
The Nazis adopted Lutheranism, as did Norway.
The Lutheran Church reflects the antisemitism of its founder Martin Luther who, in his formative years, sympathized with the suffering of European Jews but, later, came to despise them when they refused to convert to Christianity.
Luther became an outspoken antisemite in his statements and writings. He called for the persecution of Jews. His feelings are reflected in his infamous statement,
“What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews.”
The seven principles of Luther’s antisemitism called to set fire to synagogues and Jewish schools. Second, Jewish houses should be razed and destroyed. Echoes of 7/10.
His instructions ended with the call, “let us emulate the common sense of other nations such as France, Spain, Bohemia, etc., and eject them (the Jews) forever from the country.”
Echoes of the Palestinian call for a country “from the River to the Sea.”
This seems to be the attitude of a Norwegian government that made zero pre-condition as to the borders of the Palestinian they unilaterally endorsed.
Although the Lutheran Church in Norway stated that in 2016 it denounced Luther’s anti-Jewish writings, a stigma remains.
Norway’s record against Israel in the United Nations is appalling. Since 2015, in 155 resolutions, Norway voted against Israel 122 times, it abstained 31 times, and has never voted once for Israel.
Norway has always held a one-dimensional view of Israel and the Palestinians. And it has always been anti-Israel.
Hanne Nabintu Herland, a historian of religion, bestselling author, accused Norway of being “the most antisemitic country in the West” and attacked the government in Oslo for its “biased support for only the Palestinian views,” and that “Anti-Israelism is antisemitism’s new face in Europe.”
Neither Ireland, Norway, nor Spain made any pre-conditions before declaring their recognition of a Palestinian state. Not a Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist. Nor to renounce terrorism and a war against Jews.
Let’s not pretend that Hamas are not Palestinians. Both in Gaza and those living under the unpopular antisemitic Palestinian Authority, the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs support Hamas in body and in spirit.
It is a public that has been educated and religiously indoctrinated to a world without Israel, a world without Jews.
This is the ideology that once drove Catholics and Lutherans.
One needs to question if the avid support for Palestinians by Spain, Ireland, and Norway, goes deeper than a shared political support.
Perhaps, at the heart if it, there resides a religious bias against the Jew.
Barry Shaw,
Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.
Author of ‘Fighting Hamas, BDS & Antisemitism.’
