Robin Williams’ Answer to Why Antisemitism Is Exploding in Amsterdam

The late Robin Williams tells the story about his European television interview: “I was once on a German talk show, and this woman say’s ‘Mr. Williams, why do you think there is not so much comedy in Germany?’ And I said, ‘Did you ever think you killed all the funny people?’” The line—painfully accurate— is considered one of Williams’ most brutally honest. In it, he exposes European cluelessness. You simply cannot round up all the Jewish comics during the Holocaust, murder them, and expect to retain much intellectual wit.

The avalanche of antisemitic hatred we witnessed over the last week in Amsterdam is by no means isolated to the Netherlands but a tinderbox exploding around the globe. European leaders are as clueless as Robin Williams’ interviewer about why this is happening. Has it ever occurred to them that you simply cannot round up all the moral people whose book is the foundation of Western law and values and murder them (the majority of the 75-80 thousand Jews of Amsterdam, for example, were deported and murdered during the Holocaust), burn their holy books, ransack and burn their synagogues, and eventually replace those synagogues with mosques, many of which promulgate radical Islamist militancy bent on destroying what is left of Judeo-Christian values in Europe and expect to create peaceful and law-abiding countries?

Now, it would seem that the clueless European intelligentsia is asking the kind of question Williams’ interviewer asked him: “Why do you think there is not so much acceptance of Jews in Europe?” The answer is that over the last several decades, leaders of Europe have cast themselves—insanely, I think—on the altar of multiculturalism without restraint and, in the name of diversity, with no thought or plan to protect the religious and moral values of their countries, opened their gates wide to radical jihadists whose mission is the destruction of those Western values that both Jews and Christians cherish. Now, throughout Europe, as Christianity fades into the dust of history—having submitted to radical Islamization— and as Jews flee because of rising Antisemitism, hundreds of churches and synagogues are being converted into mosques—many of them centers of radical Islamism.

When I saw the pictures of Muslim youth brainwashed in Jihadism terrorizing and assaulting Jews in the streets of Amsterdam last week, my thoughts raced back to 2006 when I read the book Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within by Melania Phillips. In her book, Melania argues that because of the liberal mindbending willingness to fall on the sword of multiculturalism, London is “the epicenter of Islamic militancy in Europe” and Britain “is currently locked into such a spiral of decadence, self-loathing and sentimentality that it is incapable of seeing that it is setting itself up for cultural immolation.”

Ethnic diversity is a beautiful thing, but should Western democracies flood their cities with radicalized groups that loathe the values of their host countries? Phillips would say no. Multiculturalism, says Phillips, “has become the driving force of British life, ruthlessly policed by a state-financed army of local and national bureaucrats enforcing a doctrine of state-mandated virtue to promote racial, ethnic, and cultural difference and stamp out majority values.” British nationhood is being destroyed says Phillips, by “mass immigration, multiculturalism and the onslaught mounted by secular nihilists against the country’s Judeo-Christian values.” Melania—prophetically, I think—concludes that ”the emergence of Londonistan should be of the most significant concern to the free world.”

Yet, the free world mostly rejected Melania Phillips’s argument in her book Londonistan, published 18 years ago in 2006. Since then, radical Islamism has continued to flood Western democracies. In America, for example, we are seeing the red and green alliance—the marriage of Marxism and Palestinian nationalism—dominate our universities. In mainline Christian denominations and on many woke Evangelical college campuses, the new doctrine of Chrislamismarxianity is now the acceptable norm. This religion embraces Christianity, radical Islamism, and Marxism while at the same time promoting the false theology that the church has replaced Jews and national Israel is no longer God’s light of revelation to the nations. The left-leaning churches of Europe embraced the same theology, and the few that remain open proclaim from their pulpits, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Globalize the Intifada.”

In her blog last week in Substack about the pogrom in Amsterdam, Melanie Phillips says, “The Netherlands is hardly alone in hosting a seething frenzy of Jew-hatred. Antisemitic attacks have been rising in Europe and America for years and are now running at epidemic levels. In Britain, antisemitism has become normalized. The media led by the BBC continues to pump out inflammatory demonization of Israel based on lies and distortions straight from the psychotic Palestinian playbook. Politicians parrot it. The universities label this murderous propaganda ‘scholarship’ and ‘education’ and turn a blind eye to the intimidation of Jewish students on campus.

This is by no means a threat only to Jews. For decades, a blind eye has been turned to Islamist incitement in the West and against the West. In Britain, undercover recordings have revealed that imams are radicalizing Muslims by spreading hatred and calls to jihad against Christians and others, as well as calling for the genocide of the Jews. Yet nothing is ever said about this. Any criticism of the Muslim world is denounced as ‘Islamophobia.’ Immigration policies are admitting into the country large numbers of people from countries where the majority hate Jews, Christians, and other ‘infidels’ and want to kill them. Anyone who questions this as simply insane — as I did as long ago as 2006 — is denounced as ‘Islamophobic.’ The political and administrative class — including the intelligence service — refuses to acknowledge that violence in the name of Islam has anything to do with the religion of Islam. Yes, many Muslims have nothing to do with extremism and pose no threat to anyone. But has anyone yet heard any institutional denunciation of the Amsterdam pogrom as a stain upon Islam that must be addressed and uttered from within the Islamic world?”

I hope a few sensible minds remain in the free world, not given over to naivety inspired by unhinged insanity. It is far past time, but perhaps it’s not too late to give a similar answer to the kind of question the interviewer posed to Robin Williams: “Why do you think there is not so much appreciation for Judeo-Christian values in Western democracies?” you ask. Did you ever think you killed all the moral people?