vrijdag 18 maart 2011

Antisemitism in Europe? Piers Morgan interviewing Bibi Netanyahu

MORGAN: Can I ask you about the suggestion, in parts of the media, that there is a growing tide of anti-Semitism in Europe. Do you believe that there is? And if so, why?

NETANYAHU: I think there is-first of all, I think there is a structural difference between the way that Europe views Israel, and America views Israel. The European view is informed by the importance of colonialism in Europe's past. So for Europeans we are, I don't know, we're like Belgiums in the Congo, or the French in Alger, or the British in India. You know, strange interlopers in somebody else's land. But in fact, we have been here for 4,000 years. This is our ancestral homeland. My name, Benjamin, my name sake, Benjamin the Son of Jacob, roamed these hills four millennia ago. There is a signet ring, in my office, found next to where the Western Wall is now, from the time of the Jewish kings, not that distant from King David. And there is a name written on it in Hebrew. The name is Netanyahu. That is my last name. So we have been around here. We're not foreigners. We're not the Belgiums in the Congo. And the Americans understand that instinctively because for America this is not a colonial past. This is the Promised Land. America was the new promised land, we are the original Promised Land.

But you ask me about anti-Semitism in Europe and I said, first of all, there is a difference in the way that Europeans view Israel and Americans view Israel. But there is also anti-Semitism in Europe. There is the new boiling anti-Semitism of radical Islam that sweeps Europe, as a whole. And there is a strange fusion-that is the only word I can use to describe it-a fusion with the anti-Semitism of the radical far, far left. And you know this is the strangest view you could possibly contemplate. Because the radical Muslims, you know, they stone women, they execute gays, they against any human rights. They are against feminism, against what have you. And the far left that is supposed to be for these things, they all unite on one thing, you know, bashing Israel state. And that is a terrible union and one that I think should be excoriated. It should be condemned. Because the last thing these people have in mind is peace-maybe a peace without Israel.

European 'new' antisemitism "is a strange fusion of radical Islam and the far left" says Netanyahu.

Read: Piers Morgan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – Full Transcript