{Written by Ari Lieberman and originally posted to the Frontpage Magazine website}
This past week, a Swedish court found two “Palestinians” and a Syrian guilty of attempting to set fire to Sweden’s second largest synagogue through use of petrol bombs. The terrorist attack occurred on December 9, 2017 in the city of Gothenburg, and though no one was hurt, some 20 people present in the synagogue at the time of the attack were briefly forced to seek shelter in the synagogue’s cellar.
Two of the perpetrators received two years in prison for their respective roles in the hate crime while a third was sentenced to one year and three months. The punishment meted out by the court represents a travesty of justice and is nothing short of farcical. In the United States, a similar crime would have resulted in far greater punishment.
Under the New York Penal Law for example, this form of arson would have generated a term of between 5 to 25 years. In other words, had these criminals committed the crime in New York, their minimum sentence would have been more than double than what was handed down by the Swedish court. The meek and utterly pathetic Swedish sentence demonstrates a persistent unwillingness on the part of Sweden’s political and judicial echelons to address the growing problem of anti-Semitic hate crimes committed by Sweden’s migrant population.
But Sweden is not unique in this regard. All over “enlightened Europe,” Islamic antisemitism and concomitant violence is on the rise and European courts have routinely treated such cases with dismissive nonchalance.
In Germany, a Berlin court convicted a 19-year-old Syrian migrant of “insult and grievous bodily harm” for his role in an anti-Semitic assault, and sentenced him to four weeks detention. But because he had already been detained pending the trial, the court credited him with time served and thus permitted him to walk free.
The incident, which was captured on video, occurred on April 17. An Israeli Arab embarked upon a social experiment to determine if publicly wearing a Kippah in Berlin’s streets would invite anti-Semitic attacks. Sure enough, the 19-year-old migrant, accompanied by his thuggish friends, took the bait. It appears that the Kippah was enough provoke the migrant to spiral into an unhinged, violent rage. He removed his belt and began swinging violently at the victim, while screaming “Yahudi,” Arabic for “Jew.”
Video of the attack went viral prompting the Syrian to turn himself in. The court treated him as a juvenile absurdly claiming that he lacked maturity. Courts often factor the defendant’s level of remorse and acceptance of responsibility to determine the severity of the punishment. In the instant case, the defendant offered excuses but little by way of remorse. He claimed he was high on drugs and also claimed that he was provoked, a fact contradicted by the video (unless one considers wearing a kippah a provocation).
The court also required the defendant to visit a museum on the Holocaust; as if a single visit will reverse 19 years of brainwashing and ingrained antisemitism. To add insult to injury, the court ordered that the defendant be given one year of support services, which likely includes assistance in finding an apartment and an apprenticeship. So instead of being punished and deported for his antisemitism and violence, the defendant is rewarded, courtesy of the German taxpayer.
Sigmount Koenigsberg, a leader of Berlin’s Jewish community rightly termed the sentence “an absolute joke,” and added, “…the man is laughing himself silly.” That’s an understatement.
In December, a Kaffiyeh-clad, 29-year-old Syrian asylum seeker carrying a Palestinian flag smashed the storefront window of a Jewish owned restaurant in Amsterdam. This occurred in full view of two policemen who did nothing to intervene. The man then entered the restaurant, and exited shortly thereafter with an Israeli flag, which he promptly threw to the ground. At that point, the police tackled and arrested him.
To the dismay of the Dutch-Jewish community, the man was only charged with simple vandalism without aggravating circumstances. The owner of the restaurant, which had been hit with a spate of anti-Semitic attacks, recently stated that he would have to shutter his doors for good if law enforcement failed to provide security.
On April 3, 2017 Sarah Halimi, a retired medical doctor and mother of three was attacked in her Paris apartment by her 28-year-old Muslim neighbor. She was brutally beaten over a period of time and then thrown off her balcony to her death. The man was heard shouting Allahuakbar and other Quranic verses during the savage attack.
To the shock and horror of many, French authorities initially labeled the crime an ordinary homicide, ignoring the anti-Semitic component. The murder occurred at a sensitive moment just prior to national elections and many believe that French officials did not want to provide anti-immigrant parties with additional anti-immigrant ammunition. After an intensive campaign mounted by community leaders, a judge overturned the authorities’ earlier refusal to treat the murder as a bias crime.
These four examples reflect the tip of the iceberg. Western Europe is refusing to come to terms with the fact that it has a serious Islamist inspired antisemitism problem. The migrants who are leaving Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere are not leaving their conflicts behind. On the contrary, they are bringing age-old ethnic and tribal hatreds with them. Among Mideast migrants in particular, there is a near 100 percent prevalence in anti-Semitic attitudes.
Some have argued that Western Europe is already lost and its drift into the abyss is irreversible. I do not know if that assessment is accurate but what I do know for certain is that history has proven time and again that a society that treats its Jewish citizenry poorly is a diseased society that is destined to fail. One needn’t look further than the Muslim Mideast, with its numerous failed states, to confirm this stark reality.