"Gas the Jews"

On Sunday, an IDF reserves captain spoke in Holland, and before he even said a word three protesters threw shoes at him. The venue for the speech had to be changed because the original hotel received threats about hosting it, and decided in that typically European way that anyone who threatens free speech is far more important than free speech itself. But one detail in the story that got overlooked by most media reporting it:

According to Edelheit, "The Palestinian organizations learned of the change, and then a rush of emails pressured the second hotel as well. There was a protest of some 50 people outside the hotel screaming, 'Gas the Jews'."

This has become a fashionable statement among the "pro-Palestinian" crowd. Even as they insist that they are not anti-semitic, the number of times that this or similar phrases have popped up at protests is increasing. In Germany last month:

The mass anti-Israel demonstrations in Germany in January were largely organized and supported by Arab, Turkish and Palestinian groups. Left Party politicians in the Bundestag urged their members to attend the rallies, which turned into displays of Jew and Israel hatred, including calls to "gas the Jews," "Jews out of Germany," "Kill, kill Jews," and "Kill, kill Israelis."

Also in Holland:

A court in Utrecht convicted two men on Friday for chanting the slogan 'Gas the Jews' (Joden aan het gas).

The 30-year-old Ibrahim I. was sentenced to 30 hours of community service plus a suspended three-week prison sentence. The 25-year-old Mohamed B. was fined 400 euros.

In Sweden:

Police in Sweden are on heightened alert following a spike in anti-Semitic attacks around the country in the wake of Israel's campaign against Gaza-based Hamas militants. A wooden staircase at a Jewish center in Helsingborg in southern Sweden was set alight twice in three days in the past week in a blaze police suspect was caused by flammable liquid spread over the stairs, according to the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper.

In Denmark:

A Muslim saying, "We want to kill all the Jews, all the Jews should be slain, they have no right to exist!" (at 1:10); and chants of "Khaybar, Khaybar, ya Yahoud, jaish Muhammad sawfa yaoud” -- that is, “Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad will return.” That chant is a reference to a celebrated incident in the life of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, when he massacred a town full of Jewish farmers.

Mere Rhetoric has many more.

There is no question that the impetus for the less politically-correct versions of pure anti-semitism in Europe comes mostly from Muslims, but it is being not only tolerated but encouraged by the European Left. (Not that we haven't seen similar feelings in the far-Left on the other side of the Atlantic.) Certainly there have been few public calls from the European Left against Muslim anti-semitism - we have yet to see any articles from them saying "yeah, we passionately hate Zionism and Israel and consider the Jewish state to be uniquely evil in the annals of history, but calling for Jews to be gassed crosses the line." The self-described liberals cannot seem to find a problem with public calls for genocide.

Perhaps they feel that to criticize them would be an unacceptable threat to free speech. Similar to the free speech exercised by those who call up hotels to threaten them with violence for hosting, um, a speech.