Huffington Post: The Real Threat Is the European Right

On Tuesday, The Huffington Post attempted to spin Islamic radicalism in Europe as a secondary threat to both Europeans and Jews. The primary threat? As their headline put it, “Far-Right Parties On The Rise Across Europe.”

Beneath the blaring banner, “A SPECTER IS HAUNTING EUROPE” – a direct quote from Marx’s The Communist Manifesto, which referred to communism as that specter – the Post placed a picture of Marine Le Pen, the head of the Front National party in France. The headlines beneath the picture then spelled out the horrors of this specter:

Virulently Anti-Semitic And Anti-Muslim…Troubling Echoes of Fascist Past… Paris Attacks Boost Nationalists…More Than 50 Anti-Muslim Incidents In France Over Past Week…Firebombs, Pig Heads Thrown Into Mosques…Record Turnout At Dresden Anti-Muslim Rally…European Jews Feel Most Endangered Since WWII…

This is perverse. Radical Muslims murder 12 people at Charlie Hebdo and go on to murder four Jews at a kosher supermarket — and the great threat is Marine Le Pen?

Of course it is. That’s because according to the Post and the rest of the left, any problem with the Muslim world is truly a problem with the West – and, more specifically, anyone who could plausibly be labeled “right-wing” in the West.

But for Jews in Europe — and for the victims of Charlie Hebdo — the problem isn’t right-wing parties. Lumping together European Jews and European Muslims in some sort of common class of victimhood at the hands of right-wingers is utterly incoherent — and morally sickening to boot, given that the most vicious enemies of the Jews in Europe are radical Muslims in Europe.

In Europe, Muslims attack Jews. They do so as European left-wingers yawn.

Politically, the threat to Jews in Europe springs from the left-wing parties that have routinely taken anti-Jewish measures while tolerating massively increased anti-Semitic Muslim immigration. Physically, the threat springs from radicalized Muslims who have participated in routine anti-Jewish violence throughout Europe, as tolerated by the political left.

France was home to the most anti-Jewish incidents of any country in Europe in 2013. A full 40 percent of all crimes in France were directed towards Jews, according to IBTimes.com. According to the Jewish Community Protection Service, Jews experienced well over 423 anti-Semitic acts in 2014. The vast majority of those acts were perpetrated by Muslims.

The same is true in Sweden, where Jews are fleeing from Muslim areas like Malmo; Sweden now has 400,000 Muslims, and its most common countries of origin for immigrants are Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Syria. The same is true in Great Britain. And in Germany.

Those radicalized Muslim populations are encouraged by an increasing climate of anti-Semitism driven largely by the political left, which despises Israel and prefers to see it as the cause of global conflict. That is why rising rates of anti-Jewish attacks accompanying Israeli military action have been shrugged off by government officials — including President Jimmy Carter last night on The Daily Show — as a natural consequent of the supposed brutality of the Jewish State. That is why French President Francois Hollande attempted to stop Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from marching in Paris in solidarity with free speech and against terrorism, even though he welcomed with open arms government officials from the UAE, Jordan, and Turkey.

That is also why Marine Le Pen’s party has gained significant steam with – yes, you guessed it – Jewish voters in France (in 2012, 13.5 percent of Jews voted for the Front National; meanwhile, 93 percent of French Muslims voted for Hollande). That’s why Geert Wilders’ Dutch Party of Freedom and Britain’s Independent Party have made significant inroads with Jews. In short, no matter what Jews worry about in Europe – and there’s a lot to worry about – nationalist parties are a secondary worry to Islamic encroachment backed by leftist political correctness.

But what about the threat to Muslims in Europe? Simply put, the Huffington Post’s great misdirect from the global threat of radical Islam to the supposedly serious threat of a fascist upsurge in Europe is illogical at best.

First off, the Huffington Post is wildly dishonest. Some of those parties the Huffington Post labels right-wing are not even right-wing; some of those Huffington Post labels right-wing actually back left-wing economic policies. Huffington Post links to a piece in Foreign Policy magazine focusing specifically on the two ugliest fascistic parties in Europe – Jobbik in Hungary (which rejects capitalism) and Golden Dawn in Greece (which opposes austerity measures) – and calls them right-wing. That’s a lie.

Second, the Huffington Post suggests a wild Nazi-esque targeting of innocent Muslims in Europe, particularly citing a report from the Central Council of Muslims in France that there have been “21 reports of shooting at Islamic buildings and the throwing of some form of grenades, and 33 threats” in the last week. Each of those incidents should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law; anyone who participated in such activities is evil. Yet somehow, the Huffington Post seems unfazed by the fact that all of those attacks took place during the presidency of leftist Francois Hollande. And the Huffington Post’s breathless coverage seems odd in the face of their complete failure to cover routine Muslim violence against Jews for well over a decade in France.

It is imperative for the European left to suggest that Jews and Muslims suffer from some sort of common peril. That’s because if Europeans begin to see Muslims less as victims than as perpetrators, they might actually begin to take the threat of radical Islam seriously. So, instead, the Huffington Post and others will work to convince Europeans that lurking deep within them are Nazis, indiscriminate killers who threaten Muslims, just like their grandparents did the Jews. But in truth, the real Nazis in Europe are currently living inside the radical Muslim community, emboldened by the quislings of the left.

Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the new book, The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration (Threshold Editions, June 10, 2014). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org. Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.