We have the remarkable situation that the U.S., Canada, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, the Arab League, and the GCC, joined most recently by Argentina and the United Kingdom, all agree on the true nature of Hezbollah, yet the EU stands oddly apart.
As a European engaged around the clock with American Jews, I feel a sense of responsibility and urgency to share our experience. With every exhausting debate over what constitutes antisemitism, with every refusal to take into consideration antisemitism from the other side of the political divide, with every glance at the overwhelming amount of antisemitic hate speech online, and every time I see certain politicians in the U.S. fail to find the courage to speak out clearly and unequivocally and come up with a clear plan to combat this cancer, I get more nervous.
May 8th marks the 76th anniversary of the defeat of Germany and its unconditional surrender to the Allied forces. Fortunately, it came 988 years short of Hitler’s prediction of a thousand-year reign, but not soon enough for the tens of millions of victims of Nazism. As the child of two Holocaust survivors, one of whom spent childhood years in Berlin, the anniversary for me is a time for remembrance, reflection, and rededication.
By considering Hezbollah as a legitimate interlocutor in the process — engaging its representatives in Lebanon — France is perpetuating the problems. Unless Macron addresses the issue of Hezbollah, nothing will change.
Mireille Knoll’s murder haunts me. It is a painful reminder (as if we needed one) of the face of antisemitism in France today, where a helpless and sick 85-year-old Holocaust survivor can be killed in her apartment for one reason only: because she is Jewish.