Hectic times: Europe and its Muslim minorities

The present encounter between Europe and Muslim immigration reflects a clear relevance to the “Triangle,” that is, the tripartite relationship between Europeans, Muslim immigrants, and the spectre of the Jewish experience in Europe. Observers on both sides of the divide have described contemporary cultural anxieties as the Continent’s “new Jewish problem” and are ominously suggesting another Holocaust cannot be ruled out. Immigration is often portrayed as a heavy yoke on European society, culture and economy. Yet, one third of Europe’s economic output is the product of immigrants. Immigration makes a positive contribution to the Continent’s high standards of education and professional skills. Nevertheless, prejudice, discrimination, Islamophobia and Europhobia are emotive issues. Islam is considered a problem, indeed a threat to the European (“white”) race, culture, civilization and the Christian religion, all of which are perceived as under attack. Yet, as the Muslim presence in Europe expands and mosques proliferate, Christians are seizing the opportunity to seek reciprocity in Muslim lands, i.e., freedom to worship and build churches, and improvement of conditions that will stem the exodus of native Christians.

Conclusion: brighter European–Muslim–Jewish futures?

The present shape of Europe’s “triangle” of Christians, Jews and Muslims is in flux, and its future shape is difficult to predict. Over the past twenty years fewer Muslims feel discontented and alienated in their receiving countries. The adjustment of the Jews and their theology to the sovereignty and jurisprudence of Europe does not accord with the Muslim experience. The so-called “silent Holocaust” raises the rate of Jewish inter-marriage and assimilation exponentially. Meanwhile, Islamophobia helps Muslim migrants to remain culturally and religiously segregated as required by Islam. As for the Europeans, especially in the wealthy north, their passive and even impotent Christianity and politically correct approach to their minorities invites active, energetic Muslim agenda to flourish. Yet, Muslims residing in Europe see the positive facets of Western culture: free enterprise, education, political tolerance, human rights, etc. Their views of Jews are less hostile than among Muslims in the sending countries. The attitudes of the three sides of Europe’s demography suggest that exposure to each other leads to improved understanding, common interests, mutual values and positive civic activity. And regarding the very recent influx, the past serves as a warning, as if it tells us: do not repeat me.

In the same boat: European opposition, Muslim migrants, impact on Jews

European laws and policies directed against Muslims and Islamic religious tenets directly affect the Jewish population in many common denominator issues that unite Jews and Muslims in surprising, contradictory, complex and convoluted ways. The Jews stand between Muslim immigrants and Europe’s attempt to assimilate them. Various European attempts to ban Muslim dress codes, mainly women’s, are made to look discriminatory because Jews, especially the ultra-Orthodox, who also wear conspicuous clothing, are not singled out. The use of fines on women’s headscarves and burqas in Holland and Belgium recall historical taxes levied on Jews. Judaism and Islam share similar methods of animal slaughter that contravene EU laws. In the struggle against restrictions on male circumcision, Muslims leave the battle to the Jewish community, because given recent European history, Jewish arguments and demands are more likely to be heard. Accusations that Muslims control the EU as the Jews control the world link the two groups into one. Wider issues such as the building of mosques, de-Christianizing Europe (banning Christmas trees in public, etc.), and racism and bigotry make cooperation between Muslim migrants and European Jews possible and are even set to further develop, despite the controversies and conflicts between them.

A triangle in crisis: violence, aggression, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic phenomena

Muslims in Europe are often the source of enmity against Jews and Israel. Recent events in the Middle East such as Israel’s winter 2008/09 “Cast Lead” Operation in Hamas-controlled Gaza and the Egyptian army’s 2013 overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood regime, as well as internecine Muslim wars in North Africa and the Middle East have caused backlashes against European Jews. Though studies show that the majority of Europe’s Muslim community members are primarily concerned with daily family life rather than issues abroad, extremist elements, often European born, perpetrated the 7/7 London Transport (2005) bombings, the 2012 shooting deaths at the Jewish school in Toulouse, France, the brutal anti-Semitic 2006 Ilan Halimi murder and the 2015 Charlie Hebdo killings both in Paris, and 2016 Brussels massacres. Britain’s Muslim community exported the two suicide bombers who attacked Tel Aviv’s Mike’s Place Bar (2003). Muslim anti-Jewish attitudes and acts are often the product of religious training by imported imams; anti-establishment, anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist education; and social and ethnic issues that include police brutality, crime and imprisonment, and low self-esteem and self-worth in an alien environment.

East meets the West: Fiqh al-Aqalliyat (Muslim jurisprudence on minorities); Dina de-Malchuta Dina (the law of the kingdom is the law); Dar al-Islam (abode of Islam); Dar al-Harb (abode of war)

For 2000 years Jews have lived in exile as viable Jewish minority communities by recognizing the “law of the kingdom” (Dina de Malchuta) as their law alongside a system of rabbinic rulings (Responsa) whenever the demands of Jewish law (Halachah) and state laws contradict one another. Historically Muslims, however, have rarely experienced life among non-Muslims until relatively recently. Only since the post-World War II period have Muslims voluntarily chosen to leave the Dar al-Islam (the Abode of Islam) and live in the West or Dar al-Harb (the Abode of War) for economic, political and educational reasons. Mass migration has caused Muslim philosophers and theologians both in Muslim lands and abroad to adapt Sharia law to the new reality – Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat (the jurisprudence on minorities). The need to preserve the rules of the Muslim religion and to protect the unity of the Muslim nation (ummah) are critical given that one third of Muslims presently live as minorities in non-Muslim countries. Jewish legal precedents elaborated in this chapter point to similarities but also to differences between Jews and Muslims who encounter life as minorities within a Christian majority.

Haunted presents: the Holocaust as a yardstick

In Europe today the Holocaust (1933–45) has become a “hot potato” in the complex perceptions and relations between the Muslim and European communities. The attitudes of Muslim migrants to the Holocaust are contradictory, drawing on its lesson as a warning of their future, while simultaneously denying or distorting its historical factuality. As for Christian Europe, its present-day guilty conscience reacts to the atrocities committed against the Jews by demonstrating politically correct behaviour and excessive tolerance to Muslims reaching its shores. Socially, Muslim migrants remind themselves not to believe that Europeans will ever fully accept them however much they assimilate into European culture. Politically, the rapidly expanding European far-Right substitutes the Koran for The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and describes Muslim migrants as “the new enemy from within.” Muslims counter-claim the Arabs paid for Europe’s Holocaust atrocities with Israel’s establishment and the Palestinian’s disentitlement. In a bizarre twist to the Triangle, European right-wingers (previously Holocaust deniers and deeply anti-Jewish) are now courting Israel to gain legitimacy for their nationalist view of a shared threat in the form of Islamic world domination.

European realities: aspects of the ‘triangular’ relations between Europeans, Muslims and Jews

Gordon Allport, the founder of modern prejudice research, observed, “People who reject one out-group will tend to reject other out-groups.” In a country-by-country overview this chapter surveys the mutual views and practices of Europeans and Muslim immigrants and the relevance of Jewish European history in their encounters. In the Netherlands, where Muslims are 5.5 percent of the population and live in “Muslim ghettos,” Dutch liberalism and tolerance rankles Islamic conservative sensitivities. The Dutch minority government with the support of the far-right Party of Freedom (PVV) and its controversial leader Geert Wilders, who compares the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, has passed some of the toughest restrictions against immigrants in Europe, including a ban on the women’s burqa and dual citizenship. A “Pig Day” in Bologna, Italy, protested the planned construction of a mosque. In Sweden once anti-Semitic skinheads and racists moved on to targeting Muslims, while young Muslims torch synagogues and attack Jews in reaction to Israeli ME policies. The internet with its far-reaching potential to recruit new supporters to causes of all extremist persuasions and to spread hate propaganda has become a fast-growing EU-wide trend and favoured “free-for-all tool” for many individuals, groups and political parties.