TEL AVIV – The attacks in Brussels demonstrate that Europe is shifting from being a free society to a fear society, the chairman of the Jewish Agency said.
In an interview with the Algemeiner, Natan Sharansky said the bombings in the Belgian capital were perpetrated by “a minority who does not believe in the values of democracy confronting a majority who has given up on demanding those values.”
Sharansky, speaking at a security and defense event in New York City hosted by the Gatestone Institute, said that the geography of “fear societies” is growing ever larger.
“When society is afraid to defend freedom, others step into the vacuum,” claimed the former Soviet Prisoner of Zion.
Addressing 2015’s record levels of aliyah (immigration to Israel) from Europe, Sharansky said the one of the catalysts behind the huge number of new immigrants was the rise in anti-Semitism and radical Islam.
“Since 1948, there has never been such aliyah from Western Europe,” he said.
He added that Jews in Europe are finding themselves without a natural cultural home and “while Jews have always been prominent among the builders of liberal societies, as soon as post-modernism and multiculturalism took over, Israel became the symbol of a remnant of colonialism.”
Sharansky dismissed the question of whether there is a future for Jews in Europe, insisting instead that the real question is “whether there is a future for Europe in Europe.”
The Jewish Agency head recently marked 30 years since his release from Soviet prisons, which allowed him to immigrate to Israel.
Tuesday’s terror attacks in Brussels, which killed 34 people and wounded another 230, comes on the heels of last week’s suicide bombing in Istanbul, in which four people were killed, including three Israelis. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for both attacks.