The essay is very powerful, focused on the hypocrisy of Belgium and France in dealing with the all too real problem of Islamic fanatics. As horrible as Islamic anti Semitism is, Lévy’s essay focuses on Europe’s political correctness in not reacting to Islamic hatred of Jews and Israel.
As an American, I see Lévy’s essay inn the light of Brandeis’ hateful withdrawal of an honorary degree for Ayan Hirsi Ali
Some quotes:
How can it be that France and Belgium (and thus Europe) have become a place where children are slain one day in cold blood at the doorway of their school in Toulouse for the sole offense of being Jewish; where, in 2006, a young man, Ilan Halimi, the personification of innocence, was tortured and killed; and where now four people who believed that a museum was a sanctuary are dead?
And where are the imams?
Where are the young Muslims of whom we never tire of saying that they have nothing to do with this nasty business?
What do the imams need to happen before forcefully condemning, once and for all, the insult to the Koran, the blasphemy, that is the act attributed to Nemmouche?
And what do young Muslims need to hear before organizing, rising up in protest, and, one would hope, chanting with one voice, “We are all Brussels Jews in danger of being killed”?
And what is any of them waiting for before disavowing Tariq Ramadan, who, several hours after the killing, while the world was reeling, could manage no more than write that “the two tourists targeted in Brussels were working for the Israeli secret police” and that the attack was a “diversionary tactic” the true purpose of which was to “take for imbeciles” the good people who consume the wisdom of the philosopher of the Muslim Brotherhood?
You read that right.