'Never again is us': Europe failed in its promise to the Jews after WWII - interview

The basic commitment of Europe to Jews after WWII - which was 'Never Again'- has exploded, journalist and author Fiamma Nierenstein said in conversation with the Jerusalem Post.

Italian-Israeli Nirenstein, a former politician in Italy, is an expert on antisemitism at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and the Foreign Ministry's special advisor on combating antisemitism.

In conversation with the Post, she recounted a recent press trip to the Gaza border, where she met an IDF soldier whose grandfather was in Auschwitz, whose father fought in the Yom Kippur War, and who himself was now about to fight in Gaza.

"I am never again," the soldier told her.

Israel is the one actively fighting a "system of hate which wishes to destroy civilization and culture," Nirenstein said, making her realize that Jews and Israel "are the only ones with the right to say 'never again,' and mean it" 

One only needs to look at the crowds chanting for an end to democracy, for death to the Jews, for the destruction of Israel from the river to the sea, to see this failure, Nirenstein said.

She stressed that this happened much before the large wave of immigration from Islamic nations to Europe, bringing with it an anti-Western ideology.

The story of the denial of 'never again' began in the USSR, Nirenstein told the Post, which, with its harsh criticism of imperialism and capitalism, generated a self-hate in the West.

"This then became an instrument of power," she added. 

"The way the communist building enriched itself was through the establishment of the UN" which she said became the basis of much of the West's self-implosion. 

On November 10, 1975, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 3379, declaring Zionism "a form of racism and racial discrimination.”

The UN, as the seeming instrument of democracy, sought to label the Jewish democracy as a racist, colonialist, and imperialist force.

As a result of this, Nirenstein explained, the oppressors were labeled as the oppressed, and the oppressed as the oppressors. 

"On Thursday night we saw the aggression of young Muslims in Amsterdam [against Israelis], and the next day, blond youths wearing Keffiyehs were the ones protesting."

"These are the children of the West who think of themselves as the imperialist, racist, oppressors," Nirenstein said. As a way of absolving themselves of guilt, the self-hating Westerners commit a sort of "suicide."

Allying themselves with who they believe to be the oppressed and identifying themselves as the oppressors allows those in the West to feel they have atoned, she said.

"It is the same phenomenon we see in universities, by which Shakespeare is cancelled, Churchill is cancelled, the founders of America: cancelled," Nirenstein adds.

"Here is a huge movement of self-destruction of the West, and in the middle is antisemitism."

This has significant impacts for Israel, which "suffers a strategic blow from this situation," Nirenstein added.

With the hiding of modern antisemitism behind the guise of anti-Zionism, Israel has become demonized and delegitimized.

Setting this in context, Nirenstein referenced how, on 24 October 2023, the UN Secretary General stood up and said that it was "important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum."

Sec. Gen. Antonio Guterres then said "the Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation."

"That word 'occupation' legitimized antisemitism," Nirenstein told the Post.

"It forms an antisemitism that is almost unconscious," she added. By framing the Jewish presence in the land of Israel as an occupation, the UN - at the center of Western democracy - forged Jews into the oppressors, the colonialists, the imperialists, neglecting, as Nirenstein continued, the indigeneity of the Jewish people to the land.

"If [European states] don't want people attacking Jews in their countries, they must wash their mouths," she told the Post. 

Nirenstein spoke of the perniciousness of the denial of  Jewish indigeneity.

She used the example of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, in which the ancient city of Jericho, Hebron and Bethlehem (the birthplace of Jesus), among others are all listed under "State of Palestine" 

These areas listed are home to multiple Jewish sites. Hebron, for example, is one of the Four Holy Cities of Judaism, and home to the Cave of the Patriarchs, where Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah are buried. 

The UN's denial of these as Jewish sites, is a form of delegitimization, Nirenstein explained. She spoke of  Natan Sharansky's Three Ds test, which stands for delegitimization, demonization and double standards, all which are supposed to distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from antisemitism. Under this model, the UN is guilty on all three counts.

All this circles back to the Axis of Evil, Nirenstein said. 

"Whether it is Hezbollah shooting hundreds of rockets into Israel daily, the attack on Jews in Amsterdam, the war on Ukraine, it's all the Axis of Evil waking up and trying to put the last bomb in the building that is democratic society."

But for Nirenstein, there is hope. 

"When we win, and we will win, they will be frightened and they will step back."

After Israel's victory, there will be a return to the Abraham accords, at which point countries will flock back to Israel.

There will, of course, be an inevitable wave of Aliyah as well, Nirenstein added, as diaspora Jews realize the threat of antisemitism and desire the safe haven that is the Jewish state.

However, this does not preclude the need for the fight against antisemitism. 

"Aliyah isn't the solution for antisemitism," she said.

"We will fight antisemitism in the Diaspora, and Jews will choose to come here, but these happen in parallel."