How Anti-Israel Zealotry Threatens Europe

Two recent developments show the extent to which the mainstreaming of rabid anti-Israel sentiment in Europe is harming Europe itself. One, a new exhibit glorifying Palestinian suicide bombers at one of France’s most famous museums, undermines France’s security. The other, a British union’s decision to effectively bar members from contact with another British workers’ group because the latter opposes boycotting Israel, undermines Britons’ civil liberties.

The exhibit at the Jeu de Paume Museum, which is funded by the French government, features 68 photos of Palestinian “martyrs” who “lost their lives fighting against the occupation.” For instance, there’s Osama Buchkar, who “committed a martyr mission in Netanya”–aka a 2002 suicide bombing in an open-air market that killed three people and wounded 59.

The danger here is that fame and glory are powerful motivators for terrorists. Indeed, one Israeli study based on interviews with failed suicide bombers (people caught before blowing themselves up) concluded that it was the leading motivator. But the Jeu de Paume is far more important to Frenchmen–even marginalized ones–than to Palestinians. Thus being lionized by one of France’s most famous cultural institutions is primarily an inducement to its own citizens.

Granted, the museum only intended this accolade for people who killed Israelis. But Islamic terrorists have proven remarkably impervious to the European view that killing Israelis and Jews (Islamists rarely distinguish between the two) is more acceptable than killing other people. Take, for instance, France’s own Mohammed Merah, who murdered three (non-Jewish) French soldiers in two separate attacks before going on a shooting spree at a Jewish day school in Toulouse. Thus by glorifying anti-Israel terrorism, France is inadvertently encouraging the homegrown variety.

But the decision by GMB, one of Britain’s largest unions, may be even more chilling: Last week, it voted to bar its chapters from visiting Israel on any trip organized by Trade Union Friends of Israel, a British group that supports cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian workers, or addressing any TUFI event. Nor was this just the decision of a few radical activists at the top. GMB’s leadership actually opposed the motion, but the union’s annual congress adopted it anyway.

Just consider how many different civil liberties this one resolution undermines: It restricts freedom of speech, as GMB members can no longer speak wherever they please. It limits freedom of association, since they can’t associate with TUFI. And perhaps above all, it constrains freedom of information: Union delegations can’t participate in trips to Israel that risk exposing them to information that might contradict GMB’s anti-Israel narrative. GMB chapters can still join trips organized by, say, the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign; they just can’t join trips organized by TUFI.

A GMB spokesman insisted that the ban didn’t apply to individuals, which appears to be technically true: A GMB chapter couldn’t send people on a TUFI trip, but an individual could theoretically join one on his own, as long as his chapter didn’t help in any way. Yet how many ordinary union members would risk doing so, knowing they would thereby incur the wrath of union leaders for flouting GMB’s ambition to “take a lead” in the anti-Israel boycott?

One has to wonder when Europeans will finally realize that their anti-Israel zealotry is exacting too high a price at home. Judging by the latest developments, it should have happened long ago.