By Gilad Atzmon
Along the second half of the 20th century many Jewish intellectuals, activists and artists positioned themselves at the forefront of Western advocacy of immigration and multiculturalism. Occasionally we were also expected to believe that immigration, tolerance, pluralism and multiculturalism are intrinsic to Jewish culture and thought.
But as the West became gradually aware of the scale of Israeli racism and intolerance towards migrant communities, more than just a few intellectuals were courageous enough to point at a clear discrepancy between the progressive ideas Jews claim to represent and what their Jewish State happens to be. There aren’t many countries that are more anti-immigration than Israel. The Jewish State is also very selective when it comes to multiculturalism. Israel happily integrated humus and falafel into its cuisine. It even let a few juicy Arab swear words into its emerging Hebraic dialect but it has been far less enthusiastic about Palestinian mourning their own plight and the Nakba in particular.
However, Jewish passion for immigration is clearly fading away these days. It is not a secret that mass immigration of Muslims and Arabs made many Western Jews feel uncomfortable to say the least. In recent years we have been monitoring rapid surge of Jewish involvement in anti-immigration political and intellectual activity. Some so-called ‘progressive’ Jews fight the veil in the name of ‘feminism,’ others insist on eradicating Islamic symbolic identifiers in the name of ‘secularism.’ I guess that even Jewish ‘progressive tolerance’ has its limits, especially when it comes to Muslims. However, Zionists are actually slightly more consistent in that regard: they openly ally themselves with ultra-nationalist groups such as the hawkish EDL. Anti-Islam positions are often promoted by Hasbara, interventionist and neocon outlets such as Harry’s Place. The xenophobic message is also disseminated via literature, academia and general media. Here in Britain, journalist celebrity Melanie Phillips published her notorious Londonistan.
Jewish past support of pro-immigration and multiculturalism is easy to explain.
For the obvious reasons, many Jews prefer to live in multi-ethnic and fragmented societies, being one minority amongst many. Identity politics, pro-immigration and multiculturalism are there to dismantle the cohesive national and patriotic bond in favor of a manifold complex structure consisting of a fragile and dynamic exchange between a manifold of minority groups.
Jews are often threatened by the possibility that indigenous lower-middle and working classes may follow their nationalistic and patriotic inclinations and turn against them. In that regard, a radical demographic boost of the working class with a varied mixture of foreign ethnicities is regarded by progressive Jews as a necessary preventative measure against anti-semitism.
But here is an interesting development. Last week Spiegel published an intriguing interview with Alain Finkielkraut, a French so-called philosopher and also a Jew and son of immigrants. Finkielkraut is no longer threatened by ‘the lower middle classes.’ Quite the opposite, he actually pretends to be their ally and he even makes himself their ambassador: “the French that one no longer dares to call Français de souche (ethnic French) are already moving out of the Parisian suburbs and farther into the countryside. They have experienced that in some neighborhoods they are the minority in their own country. They are not afraid of the others, but rather of becoming the others themselves.” In other words, the ethnic French are now “otherized” together with the Jews by a tidal wave of Islamic tsunami.
It doesn’t take Finkielkraut long before he points directly at the ‘enemy within.’ “Many Muslims in Europe are re-Islamizing themselves. A woman who wears the veil effectively announces that a relationship with a non-Muslim is out of the question for her.” I guess that Finkielkraut finds it unacceptable that Muslims do not buy into the Mendelsohnian Jewish ‘assimilation’ paradigm — be a Goy in the street and a Jew in your dwelling — the façade of pretending to blend into the masses, yet adhering to tribal and exclusive supremacy in clandestine fashion. Muslims, so it seems, are not collectively buying into this duplicity mode. Seemingly, they are not shy of their love for Allah. They are actually proud of their symbolic identifiers. These facts alone indeed have managed to challenge the notion of left and progressive tolerance. And it isn’t exactly a secret — the Left has failed in this tolerance test.
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Wednesday, December 25, 2013 at 9:02AM 
St James’s Church welcomes you to Bethlehem Unwrapped 
