Anti-Semitism: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Made The Right Call.

Over the weekend, the world heard of the terrorist attack which today, is regarded as Denmark’s most lethal terrorist attack in decades -killing a film director and a young Jewish man and left five police officers injured.

I am not interested in going into history -the longevity of anti-semitism. I am also not interested in the universality of the act or practice, if you may. I am as well not interested in the intensity, that is the particularly virulent manner of the act, and neither am i interested in the confusion as to why people hate the Jews. My goal here today, is regarding the worldwide condemnation of Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for all Jewish to leave Europe and return home.

As a foreigner living in another place other than yours, whenever anything happens, you’d expect your country’s leaders (either the President, Prime Minister or the Ambassador representing your country) to react, if possible, take you out of that country before it becomes too late for you. If they don’t, you’d feel hopelessly abandoned, if they do, you’d feel that your country cares for you and operates according to the dictates of civilization. The best your country’s leadership can do is to help you get out of the troubled country if you choose to leave. It is unlikely for them to go to war when there are no such threat. They’d simply urge you to leave the country, and they will provide the resources you would need. That’s what any sensible government of any country should do where the lives of its people are in danger.

Now, i have read various reports, some from members of the Jewish community in Denmark and some from leading Jewish advocates around the world, rebuffing Netanyahu’s call for Jews to leave Europe. The question is, why not? Why won’t he make the call? Should he have maintained silence while his people are targeted and slaughtered like sheep without a shepherd? I am sure that if European leaders have been able to bolster democracy in Europe, foreign nationals including Jews, would be able to live safely and without fear. So the problem does not lie with Netanyahu’s call to save his people, but with the inability of European leaders not just to keep the Jews safe, but also to make them FEEL safe. Their institutions are still vulnerable, their buildings are still penetrable, their markets (malls and other business places) are without security…all these make them feel unsafe and keep them in constant fear.

If various world leaders have come out to condemn the act, calling it cynic act of hatred and a psychotic rage on the innocent, what then do they expect Netanyahu to do or say?

It is simple, if your land cannot be seen as a land of hope but fear, then i see no reason people who feel unsafe in it should continue to remain in it.

Protect the Jews in Denmark or any other place, or encourage them to leave to their homes where they will feel safe.