Douglas Murray’s Warning to the Jewish Community

Douglas Murray has written a very nice column on the Paris attacks: “Paris attacks: Leaders in two minds while Europe burns.” He points to the “multiculturalism has failed” statements of Angela Merkel and David Cameron—and that, despite no progress on integrating Muslims, Europe is now doubling down on a failed experiment. He points out that even though terrorism is confined to only very few Muslims, it has substantial support in the British Muslim community—at least 27% in a BBC poll, “with another 10 per cent saying they didn’t know whether they were sympathetic to the attackers or refusing to answer the question.” He is very clear that this is a top-down revolution with ever decreasing popular support.

But, then, almost nothing about the grand schemes of Europe’s political elites has made sense for some time. All are good at talking about how they will tackle problems “over there”. Few if any have any idea what to do about our problems “over here”.

He predicts that

the European public will migrate further and further to the political Right. And in reaction to this the European political class will migrate further and further to the Left. You can already see it. In ­Sweden one liberal newspaper editor responded to the latest polling triumphs by the until-recently ­pariah Sweden Democrats party by saying that he would be happy to flood Sweden with Islamic State fighters to punish the Swedish electorate for voting for the Sweden Democrats. That isn’t such an unusual instinct.

Assuming that this editor is an ethnic Swede (although most media in Sweden in Jewish-owned), this proposal is the most extreme version of altruistic punishment against one’s own people that I have ever contemplated. (Altruistic punishment is punishment of violators of a moral norm at cost to oneself; proneness to altruistic punishment to uphold moral norms is a key aspect of Western egalitarian individualism, typified, e.g., by the Puritan moral fervor against slavery that advocated punishing White Southerners on behalf of the freedom of Africans; see here, p. 101ff).

It is the same instinct that made one female refugee aid worker and her colleagues hush up her recent rape at the hands of some recent arrivals. They feared that mentioning the rape might exacerbate anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe. This instinct fears that Europeans are far-right extremists just waiting to break out, and the sad irony that only by treating them in such a way for such a long time could anyone ever make them so.

This of course is the same sentiment that prevented authorities from reporting or prosecuting the industrial-scale rape of girls in Rotherham and elsewhere in the UK.

After pointing out that the reaction of elites to popular discontent is to advocate more repression and controls on freedom of speech, he notes that

The only good news is this suicidal part of our European mind, which has been the dominant part for several decades, is beginning to lose ground to the part of the brain that still has some ­survival instinct. Perhaps it will succeed in wrestling back our collective mind. Perhaps it will be too late.

But the line I want to draw attention to is this:

Already the European public is beginning to ask, “Who made our societies into this fire?” There will be many physical casualties to come. But the next political ­casualties should be the political class who fed us lies for years because they would not face up to some un­deniably bitter truths.

And there is a hint earlier in the article about who Murray thinks is a very important force in promoting mass immigration and multiculturalism:

In Malmo, ­Sweden — which once had a thriving Jewish community — just under 1000 Jews remain. Today, every day, about 1000 Muslim refugees arrive in Malmo. So every single day’s immigration of new immigrants dwarfs the remnants of a long-established community.

Rather than focus on the real victims — native Europeans, Murray attempts to get sympathy for his perspective by noting that Jews are victims, hoping perhaps to get the powerful Jewish community on the side of ending the invasion. This rather gratuitous sop to Jewish sensibilities seems out of place — Murray’s hostility to the invasion seems genuine, articulate, and motivated by his concern for the future of Europe, not the fate of European Jews.

But Murray wrote another article that makes it very clear that he thinks the Jewish community has had a very critically important role in the impending demise of Europe. Murray’s “The real refugee problem? Bigotry” appears in The Jewish Chronicle — the most important Jewish publication in the UK, and with a title like that one might supposes that it would be yet another moralistic piece censuring anyone who dares criticize flooding Europe with as many Middle Easterners and Africans as want to move there. But, despite the misnomer, it is a rather unique piece—nothing less than a warning from a self-described neoconservative, gay philo-Semite who is “enough of a friend and developed enough of an understanding of the Jewish community in this country to be allowed to issue a warning of sorts.”

The problem with the migration crisis is that the politicians are trying to follow public opinion, but the public do not know what we want. Do we want to be unprecedentedly generous or unprecedentedly fearful? Are the incomers like 1930s German Jews or are they just 21st-century economic migrants? Most of us think they are a bit of both and so our thoughts fluctuate. This makes the debate not only fractious but prone to dangerous swings.

In the summer, when the tragic photo came out of a young Syrian boy washed up on the shores of Turkey, some vocal Europeans had a spasm of ”let them in.” Others said, ”be careful”. But the heart overruled the head. And can do again. The next turn of the wheel was always going to be when the migrants were associated not with humanitarian warmth but terrorist atrocities. Now they are.

How, then, could a migration of millions of Muslim men (in the main) from not only the Middle East but sub-Saharan Africa, have any negative effect on Jews? The first aspect is obvious: among those populations there will be many who bring the hatreds and suspicions of Jews that are inculcated in their homelands and faith. In time, this will lead to more attacks like that on the Jewish school in Toulouse (2012), the Jewish Museum in Brussels (2014) or the Jewish food-market in Paris (2015). But here, wider public sympathy will go to the victims of these attacks rather than their perpetrators.

Yet another theme has bubbled up which it genuinely shocks me to discover. For many Jewish groups and Jewish leaders have been taking a conspicuous lead in welcoming refugees.

It’s no secret that we at TOO have also noticed this rather unsurprising trend (see here, here, and here) (as well as the  central Jewish role in promoting non-White immigration throughout the West [US, Australia, UK, Sweden]). Murray’s link is to an article in The Jewish Chronicle by Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis (also singled out by Tobias Langdon on TOO) that contains the usual high-flown moralistic prose that is so typical of Jewish activists in the diaspora in the West and absolutely missing in any discussion of Israel’s responsibility for taking in refugees and migrants. For example:

Right now, tens of thousands of people are knocking on Europe’s door. It is a clarion call, and one that requires an unquestioningly compassionate response. We need to recognise that the vulnerable men, women and children whose lives have been devastated by war and persecution are not mere statistics in a news report — they are real people. This is the paradigm shift in mindset that I have called for in the media, and I welcome our government’s recognition of the moral imperative to act.

Since Mirvis is the Chief Rabbi of Britain, his words are something of an official pronouncement of the organized Jewish community. Murray continues:

Some initiatives – such as that to save Christian children in the Middle East who are being ”cleansed” from the region – are hugely admirable and widely appreciated. But it is specific and needed. Other initiatives and statements from Jewish leaders and groups appear to be welcoming any and all refugees and equating the plight of 1930s Jews with all 21st-century migrants. This is not just a misreading of history but an incorrect application of history. It also sets up a dangerous linkage between Jews who are already in Europe and an increasingly unpopular, current European migration policy.

There have indeed been a deluge of articles comparing the current situation to Jewish refugees in the 1930s (itself an indication of Jewish power in the media). I discussed the topic recently, the bottom line being that

once again, the experience of Jews prior to and during World War II is being used as a touchstone for how Europeans should act now. The actions of Europeans should be motivated by guilt over what happened ~80 years ago, and that guilt should trump any concern with the effects of immigration on social cohesion, unemployment, crime, and welfare costs — not to mention the ethnic genetic interests of Europeans.

Murray provides several egregious examples of Jewish special pleading on immigration, including Simon Schama who was brilliantly skewered recently by TOO‘s Andrew Joyce. Obviously, Schama’s very overt Jewish pleading has struck a chord. Murray notes

During an episode of Question Time last month, the historian Simon Schama made a somewhat haughty and personal attack on my Spectator colleague Rod Liddle. [I have to point out a typo here; Murray obviously forgot to include quotes around ‘historian’; see Andrew Joyce’s recent article on Schama] Specifically, he chided Rod (who was urging wariness of letting into the country anybody who wants to come here) for allegedly turning his ”suburban face” away from the troubles of the world. This was a little rich, and I said in print that it is all very well for Professor Schama to swan into Britain and tell us to take millions of migrants because he can always head back to his well-off (and distinctly white) neighbourhood in the US.

According to Wikipedia, Schama lives in Briarcliff Manor, NY, an affluent suburb of New York City that seems in no danger of importing Syrian migrants or any other poor people of color — but of course, Schama thinks it’s evil for Rod Liddle to want to live in a White suburb in the UK. And of course, if POC are ever imported into Briarcliff Manor, Schama would be welcome to join his co-ethnics in the Jewish state, but Liddle would not. Murray is surprisingly frank in discussing the reactions to his piece on Schama:

When the piece went viral, the replies included an element that was new and seized on an aspect of Schama that never occurred to me. ”One law for the Jews, another for the rest of us” was the nub of it. Well, Schama is a distinguished public figure and can say and think what he likes. Nobody else needs to feel responsible for him.

In other words, in the newspaper comments sections, people are noticing that prominent Jews (and the organized Jewish community) are endorsing policies that they would have no intention of applying to Israel. The moralizing admonitions and the deep empathy that Schama was feigning in the Question Time program (see Andrew Joyce’s article) are intended for the consumption of the goyim and certainly do not reflect any real sense of moral principle.

A couple of weeks later, the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, got into a row with his country’s most successful son. At a time when Orban was under huge pressure from his electorate not to let thousands of migrants into the country, he upbraided George Soros for being behind the many ”open borders” NGOs which were putting pressure on Hungary. In reply, Soros confirmed that, yes, whereas Orban thought migrants the problem and borders the solution, Soros did indeed think borders the problem and migrants the solution.

Great to call attention to Soros being Jewish — and entirely in sync with the organized Jewish community on immigration and refugee policy. Again, commenters focused on the double standard whereby Jews advocate multiculturalism and immigration for Europe, but have Israel as an avowedly Jewish state to fall back on:

In reporting this exchange, the same theme emerged. ”It’s all very well for the Jews. They have Israel where only Jews can go and all the time they’re destroying our own religious and racial identity in Europe.”

But the most amazing inclusion was Murray’s comment on the notorious video by Barbara Lerner-Spectre:

And another theme started to come up which I never thought I’d hear in my lifetime: ”Ah – the rootless, cosmopolitan Jew.” Searching online I find that this is indeed becoming a theme. A video watched hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube excerpts an interview with a Jewish academic in Sweden who explains that Europe ”has not yet learned how to be multicultural.”

She goes on: ”Europe is not going to be the monolithic societies that they once were in the last century. Jews are going to be at the centre of that. It’s a huge transformation for Europe to make. They are now going into a multicultural mode, and Jews will be resented because of our leading role.”

Amazingly, Spectre goes on to state that “But without that leading role and without that transformation, Europe will not survive.” Spectre’s comment is an example of the  age-old Jewish self-concept of a “Light Unto the Nations”: Jews saving Europe by leading it to multiculturalism. One wonders why she thinks Europe could not survive as a set of monocultural societies like it always has. Israel and many other societies function quite well with a recognized dominant culture and people, and, as repeatedly emphasized here, multicultural societies have a host of costs and no visible benefits. The better question, of course,  is whether Europe can survive multiculturalism. By definition, it can’t. One has the feeling that Murray feels the same.

Spectre’s video and  the clip of Spectre in the viral video”With Open Gates: The Forced Collective Suicide of European Nations” are getting quite a bit of attention these days. and not only from Murray. The ADL also notes that Spectre appeared in “With Open Gates” (formerly featured at TOO and available in our video archive). The ADL notes that

the video ends with a clip of the founder of a Jew­ish cul­tural insti­tute in Swe­den, who claims that Jews sup­port efforts to pro­mote mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism in Europe. This seg­ment of the video gives fuel to anti-Semites who blame Jews for non-white immi­gra­tion to Europe. The state­ment that accom­pa­nied the post­ing of the video on YouTube blames “Zion­ist inter­est” for destroy­ing Europe “from the inside.”

As usual, the ADL does not bother to refute the charge that Jews are blameworthy on this issue. Far easier (and still quite effective) to call people who believe such things “anti-Semites.”

Murray continues, noting that awareness of the role of Jews in promoting immigration and multiculturalism “remains a minority opinion for now.” But he is hinting that it could become a majority opinion quite easily, which I believe it could with effective media such as the “With Open Gates” video. The problem, as usual, is the very tight controls on the above ground media, which continues to promote multiculturalism and avoid discussions of Jewish influence — not to mention the legal and social penalties for expressing dissent from the prevailing zeitgeist. Nevertheless, as the comments referred to by Murray attest, the word is getting out. And that would be bad for the Jews:

But here comes the bigger problem. Only seven per cent of Britons surveyed in a recent poll said they wanted immigration into Britain to increase. It is impossible to say what direction Europe is going to go in the near future, and we are all going to have to be on our guard and spend time countering bigotries and hatreds that could spill out in any direction. But the open-heartedness of so many Jews must also be countered by more vocal and visible even-headedness. In particular, this constitutes a careful warning that it could yet be a problem for European Jews if their leaders and visible figures get ahead of (and are seen to be the progenitors of) a mass movement of peoples that looks likely in the near future to go unimaginably sour, thus bearing out my pessimistic Jewish friend’s worst fears.

“Unimaginably sour.” There is indeed a disaster looming, a disaster that is being welcomed and promoted by prominent Jews, by Jews influential in the media, and by the organized Jewish community — with no countervailing voices of any stature[1] — despite its lack of popularity with most Europeans. By definition, elites have power, but they also bear responsibility when things go unimaginably sour. It is only fair and just that Jews, as a prominent component of elites throughout the West, be called to account for their share of responsibility.

Two final points: Those wishing to deny an analogy between the current situation and the 1930s point out that refugee Jews did not commit acts of terror. Nevertheless, the emigre Jews of the 1930s had a very large influence on British culture. Despite having no feelings for or ties to traditional British culture, they supplanted “a culture with significant popular support in favor of an international culture with no concept of beauty.” One can make a similar point about Jewish immigration to the West since the late nineteenth century — that in general Jews have been the backbone of the left which has had transformative effects on the cultures of the West in the direction of anti-nationalism, the displacing of White elites, pro-immigration, and pro-multiculturalism. Indeed, the effects of Jewish immigration have been far more devastating to the traditional cultures of the West than the hordes of Asians and Africans now entering Europe because, in the end, these latter would never have occurred without the encouragement of our new elites, among whom Jews hold a very prominent place.

Finally, I recall reading that during the 1930s prominent Americans warned Jews about the consequences of making alliances with Black Americans because of the potential fallout among Whites. There was no change in policy, and during the 1950s and 1960s it is commonly agreed that Jewish organizations played an indispensable role in the Civil Rights movement. This is yet another illustration of Jewish aggressiveness. Transforming the ethnic balance and displacing currently dominant populations are incredibly aggressive policies that obviously compromise the legitimate interests of traditional White majorities. Murray is quite right that Jews may be held to account for its, but I rather doubt that his warning will be heeded. And one can be sure, that if it happens, Jewish self-conceptions will focus on Jewish powerlessness, on irrational goyim, and on morally superior Jews.


[1] Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of German Jews, seems to have changed his mind after initially stating that Germany could not refuse any refugees because of its National Socialist past. The Jerusalem Post reports that Schuster now says that there should be a quota on refugees. His concerns seem to be mainly about the safety of Jews.

“Many refugees are fleeing the terror of the Islamic State and want to live in peace and freedom, but at the same time they come from cultures in which hate towards Jews and intolerance are fixed components,” he said. “Don’t only think about the Jews, think about equal rights for women and the treatment of homosexuals.”

Given that the risks to the Jewish community and the illiberal values of the invaders were well known at the time Schuster made his original statement, it is quite possible that, as Douglas Murray warns, Schuster is afraid that continued Jewish endorsement of an unlimited number of refugees could come back to haunt them when the political winds change, as they inevitably will. The Jerusalem Post article goes on to describe discontent within Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party.

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