Highlighting: “October 7, Antisemitism and the War on the West” by Dr. Fiamma Nirenstein. Introduction by Dr. Dan Diker. Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. 2024. 151 Pages. ISBN: 978-965-218-174-9.

A number of books and articles have been written about the October 7 brutal and savage massacre—the murder, rape, torture, slaughtering of babies, pillaging and kidnapping of 1,200 Israelis and foreign residents by Hamas and its supporters. What is often missed in these analyses is that this assault on the Jews is also an existential threat to the West, with its free liberal democratic society that fosters independence, individual expression, women’s rights and freedom of religion.

In this latest of her 20 books, Dr. Fiamma Nirenstein, a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs and an expert on the Middle East conflict, terrorism and antisemitism, examines the danger Jews and the West confront in a very reasoned, concise and comprehensive manner. She reveals how the Oslo Accords and the Two-State Solution are part of the attempt to undermine Israel.

“Our existence is vital for the West,” she said. “Our death is the objective of any enemy of the West. We must fight together a battle that is not obvious to everyone: one against antisemitism… Never before have Jews and the West been so connected in the task of defending the democratic world’s aspiration to “human rights,” and to “the rights of all people.”

As a former member of the Italian Parliament (2008-2013), where she served as vice president of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Chamber of Deputies, and the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, as well as the chair of the Committee for the Inquiry into Antisemitism, Nirenstein has the experience and background to expose the extent of the peril we face in great detail and with laser sharp insight.

A Worldwide War

Israel is engaged in a worldwide war against a vast array of organizations seeking her demise. Attempts to dehumanize her through delegitimization continue unabated. From debates in universities and among left-wing European movements, academics, church associations, unions, segments of the Western media, human rights groups, entertainers, a number of liberal and some Arab and Third World countries, Israel’s right to exist remains a frequent subject of dispute and is often under attack.

Jews are portrayed as colonialists, imperialists and white supremacists murders, especially of children. British journalist Melanie Philips correctly diagnosed the problem when she said, “Israel inspires an obsessional hatred of a type and scale that is directed at no other country.” For Jews, who are the canary in the coal mine, life in Italy, France, Belgium, England and elsewhere has changed dramatically. The notion of being able to coexist with other religious minorities has been shattered, Nirenstein asserted.

“Violence surrounds Jews,” she said, “and prejudices flood the newspapers, even the most honored by the public, as well as the talk shows in Denmark, Belgium, France, Holland, Spain, Ireland, Norway and Sweden.”

Nirenstein quoted the chief rabbi of the Paris synagogue, Moshe Sebbag, who declared that France is now lost for Jews: “I advise all young people to go to Israel or a safer country,” he told the Jerusalem Post.

Boycott, Divestment And Sanctions (BDS)

Equally disconcerting is the academic boycott of Israel, which coincides with physical threats, intimidation and the inability of Jews to speak openly in public venues. Jews are not welcome.

This ideology exists throughout much of the academic community. Even though this distorted image of Israel might be espoused by a relatively limited number of students and staff, these individuals “dominate the campus culture.” They are joined by Jewish journalists, filmmakers, progressive rabbinical leaders and musicians.

The prominence of Israelis in the BDS movement provides legitimacy and justification to those seeking to harm Israel. Silence in the face of bias within the academy provides continued opportunities for even greater attacks on Jews and the West.

The success of the Arab lies and canards can be seen in the number of American youth who now associate with Arabs and their supporters, students “who wear their Islamic culture as a cloak of revenge, attacking and terrorizing Jews with a violence that would have been unthinkable in frequency and intensity a year ago.”

The United Nations

Abba Eban, Israel’s first permanent representative to the UN, once called the UN, “the world center for antisemitism.” Attacks against Israel were so strident during his tenure [1949-1959], he said that “If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.”

“The Hamas attack ‘did not happen in a vacuum’ UN Secretary General Guterres told us, “creating epistemological and political damage that will remain in history,” Nirenstein claimed. By declaring that the Palestinian Arabs have been oppressed for 76 years, he has effectively tried to destroy the international legitimacy of the Jewish State. In this way, Guterres validated the premise of the mantra,“From the River to the Sea,” justifying the allegation that Israel commits genocide.

The Iranian Octopus”

Iran is the primary threat to the West because of its attempt to build an atomic bomb and by “brilliantly” establishing a substantial “network of militarized, anti-Western, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian Islamist movements worldwide.”

Iran on Campus

The investment Iran has made to the Palestinian Arabs has cemented its relationship with the Arab world.

An important part of Iran’s attempt to infiltrate and subvert the West is through American universities with the aid of its supporters. The extent to which Western universities have come to rely on funds from the Arab countries is very significant and very troubling. According to Nirenstein, Qatar, which hosts Hamas leaders in exile, provided $4.7 billion to American universities from 2001 to 2003, $894 million of which went to Harvard

She quoted Italian journalist Giulio Meotti who asserted that 200 U.S. colleges and universities have refused to disclose information about $13 billion in funds they have received, many of which are from authoritarian Islamic countries. Meotti said, “although correlation is not causation, the number of antisemitic incidents on a campus has a relationship to whether that university has received funding (disclosed and undisclosed)from Middle Eastern regimes.”

According to a new report, Ivy League universities have also accepted millions of dollars in donations from foundations located in the “State of Palestine.” In Europe, eight English universities received some 233 million pounds from Islamic countries. The Qatar Development Fund has provided 3 million pounds to the Thatcher Fund at Oxford University and 11 million pounds to St. Antony’s College, Oxford. A oundation in Kuwait contributed more than $8 million to the London School of Economics.

A Final Note

“The Middle East is a ram’s head to be used in the conquest of the world, and Israel is the only real obstacle on the road to Islam,” Nirenstein concluded. The urgency of responding to this threat she said has been impeded “by the persistent hostility of Western countries, including America, which continues to reject the fearful idea that this is also their battle.”

She was adamant that “Israel today is here to win antisemitism, as it is here to win the war that is its contemporary expression. The Jewish people today can fight antisemitism, something that it could not do in the past.”

Dr. Grobman is the senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society, and a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. He is on the advisory board of the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel (NCLCI).