The European question

It is now time to address the "European question." I have many other things I'd like to blog about, but the need to solve the European problem is eating away at me. Let's check out the latest European crack moves:

European Idiocy #1 -- Chris Patten, the EU point-man on external affairs, is one of the leading idiocrats (my alternative to idiotarians) dominating the European bureaucracy. In a brilliantly shallow editorial in the Washington Post today, Dictator-Wannabe Patten responds to George Will's column in the Post last week which suggested -- and this is a real shocker -- anti-Semitism in Europe! Patten's arguments are not only moronic, but they have a distinct Old World flavor which mixes traditional anti-Semitism, modern anti-Zionism, and good old European arrogance. This man is an embarassment to Britain.

Afterward (after WWII), British servicemen continued to do what they believed to be their duty, fulfilling the United Nations mandate in Palestine, where many were killed by terrorists who were not Palestinian.

From 1939 until 1948, the British Mandate in Palestine was a chaotic anti-Jewish mess. The Brits refused to allow Holocaust refugees to escape to the shores of Palestine, interring them in displaced persons' camps in Cyprus. In 1947, the violence was getting so out of hand because of British colonial incompetence that the matter was handed over to the UN, which elected to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Arabs refused, and the British refused to enforce partition, thereby doing the exact opposite of what Patten claims. In fact, the British trained the Jordanian army, armed the Palestinian and Egyptian Arabs, and gave tanks to the Iraqis. As for the cheap shot of "terrorists who were not Palestinian," may I remind Mr. Patten that the Irgun's bombing of the King David Hotel was not a terrorist act, as the KDH was a military headquarters. (Not to mention Israel warned in advance, something Hamas tends not to do.) Is this the same Patten who wanted everyone to kick Irish ass when he was a Tory in Britain during the Northern Ireland conflict?

Any attack on a synagogue is outrageous. But there have also been many attacks on the symbols and followers of Islam.

Hmm, Chris. Must've missed those. Parisian mosques torched? Nope. London Halal butchers shot at? I think not. Jews walk around the streets of Antwerp and start randomly destroying Muslim shops? Sorry. Desecration of holy sites in Bethlehem and Nablus? Didn't happen, Chris. In fact, none of this happened, largely because we don't pride ourselves on who can kill the most Muslims. This is an outright lie on the part of Patten, and he should apologise. (Not bloody likely to happen.)

Anyway, what should we conclude about Europe from this pustulation? When a couple of years back there was an outbreak of arson attacks against African American churches in the United States, should we have leaped to the conclusion that the Ku Klux Klan was heading for the White House?

Want to go concludin'? Do you remember after those attacks, when President Clinton went to each one and sat in on services? Do you remember when every organization in the United States condemned the attacks in the strongest terms without making pathetic excuses of an "angered white street" or spoke of the "white churches being bombed?" Most Americans feel downright shamed about our treatment of African-Americans, and we've tried to reconcile it. Two thousand years of mistreatment doesn't seem to warrant equality in Europe. What a crappy, crappy analogy. We're sorry, and we're trying to show it. Remember our fund-raising and solidarity? In Europe, anti-Semitism has been met by lovely turnouts for rightist candidates (as opposed to last election, where Pat Buchanan failed to show) and cries of "Death to Israel!" Wow.

European Idiocy #2 -- Europe likes to cry for the Palestinians. In fact, it's now a favorite European pastime, after bitching incessantly about American hegemkony and being ungrateful for about everything. Between the calls for "Right of Return" and "Israel, free the poor Palestinians in the Church of the Nativity," there's a lot of air. Italy, along with the rest of Europe and the Arab world, refuses to take these guys in. This reeks of hypcorisy. This odorific display of European word-weakness should be framed for generations to come. Can anyone say "spineless anti-Jew a-holes?"

European Idiocy #3 -- Rod Dreher of the National Review Online says that Dutch gay rightist Pim Fortuyn was killed because he represented an unpopular opinion. I have to agree. From what I know of the late Fortuyn, he was a libertarian who was anti-immigration and anti-socialist; probably a European George W. Bush. He was a social liberal, and his main concern was the future of the Dutch Republic. The fact is that in Europe non-socialism is unpopular:

The fact that that anodyne opinion — that freedom of speech is an acceptable part of democratic society — is enough to get a man killed in today's Europe should shock the conscience of the continent.

Too early to say if that led to Fortuyn's assassination. But it must be kept in mind. Fortuyn was no Le Pen or Ze'evi.

European Idiocy #4 -- Andrew Sullivan's "A Tale of Two Allies" in the Sunday Times of London. Sullivan compares America's relationship with both France and Israel and how they're different. He quotes the now-legendary Saturday Night Live commercial about why we should get back to hating the French.

Well, that's all on Idiocy Watch tonight. Tomorrow I return to the domestic front for some nice constitutional banter.