The United States should take the massive pro-Hamas demonstrations in Europe as a warning.
By Mónika Palotai and Kristóf György Veres, JNS
Western Europe has an existential problem, and the United States should learn from it. Self-destructive and careless migration policies have created parallel societies in Western Europe. Some members of one of these societies completely repudiate European culture and values. Without decades of unfettered mass migration from Third World countries, we would not be seeing the glorification of Hamas’s Oct. 7 genocidal attacks on Israel across Europe. These outbursts of imported tribalism, which are severe symptoms of failures of integration, cannot be ignored. America should take note: Immigration without assimilation is cultural suicide for the West.
The horror wreaked upon innocent civilians in Israel by Hamas’s multi-pronged assault on Oct. 7 shocked the Western world. Western politicians instantaneously condemned the attack while simultaneously affirming Israel’s right to self-defense.
However, as landmarks like the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Chainbridge in Budapest and the White House in Washington, D.C., were illuminated in the colors of the Israeli flag, Western European capitals were desecrated by antisemitic tribalistic chants, the vandalization of Jewish institutions and shameless rallies parading antisemitic symbols to celebrate the killing of innocent people.
On Oct. 7, Berlin police posted pictures on social media showing people celebrating the attacks on Israel by passing out pastries. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was forced to pledge £3 million ($3.66 million) in additional funding to safeguard Jewish schools and synagogues as antisemitic violence spiked 400% in the days following the Hamas attack. At a protest organized in Brighton by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a Palestinian woman said that Hamas’s brutal slaughter of civilians was “inspiring” and “beautiful.” She was applauded by the crowd. In Spain and Portugal, synagogues were vandalized and defaced.
Calls for global “protests” by ex-Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on Oct. 13 unleashed another wave of mass rallies in Europe and a series of antisemitic incidents. London witnessed thousands marching to the openly genocidal slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Criminalizing pro-Hamas rallies in France didn’t stop “demonstrators” from taking to the streets of the French capital, where they were met with tear gas and water cannons.
The German police dispersed a banned pro-Hamas rally in Berlin where some apartments and business were marked with the Stars of David—a grim reminder of the 1933 Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses. No wonder German Chancellor Olaf Scholz felt obliged to highlight Germany’s historic responsibility to crack down on antisemitic protests and incidents. Jewish schools in Amsterdam were shuttered on Oct. 13 to protect students and teachers from possible antisemitic attacks.
The East-West divide within Europe was immediately recognizable in the initial societal reactions to the shocking attack by Hamas. Unlike in Paris, the police forces in Budapest and Warsaw did not have to deal with illegal rallies or antisemitic attacks on Jews. There were none. Not after the initial attack by Hamas or on Oct. 13 following the calls for global “protest” by Mashaal.
After the first pictures surfaced depicting the massacred Israeli men, women and children, Budapest saw its largest civilian-organized pro-Israel rally in decades as thousands marched in solidarity with Israel.
What sets Hungary apart from France, Germany, the United Kingdom or the rest of Western Europe? The answer is mass migration, or more accurately the lack of it. Hungary and Poland have resisted the Western European model of mass migration from countries outside of Europe for decades. Guest workers, liberal family reunification laws and, from 2014 onwards, a tidal wave of asylum-seekers from the Middle East and North Africa led to a situation in which a significant portion of society in Western Europe refuses to share one of the most important tenets of European culture: the sanctity of human life. Those who adhere to European cultural and moral standards do not take to the streets in a tribalistic celebration of their identity to glorify the systematic abduction and murder of women and children. As French President Emmanuel Macron said: “Those who confuse the Palestinian cause with the justification of terrorism are making a moral, political and strategic mistake.”
Europe might be finally waking up to its grim reality. Scholz recently stated that unlimited immigration leads to “problematic parallel structures.” He stressed that stricter immigration policies are justifiable to keep society together and to “ensure that our body politic continues to function.” Amid the massive outburst of tribalism as a result of failures of integration, Scholz’s bold solution is “We must finally deport on a large scale. … We have to deport people more often and faster.”
The war in Israel is a clarifying moment for Western Europe. Washington should take note of the ominous events unfolding on the European continent. America needs to learn from Western Europe’s decades-in-the-making case study of reckless immigration policies and virtually nonexistent cultural assimilation, especially now that there is a bipartisan understanding of the fact that the U.S. immigration system is broken.