Israel looks on Europe with utter dismay

Political tremors are starting to be felt across Europe. In Britain, we see the rise of an emerging independent party, UKIP, which is Eurosceptic and takes a corrective line on the UK's unbridled open-door immigration policy.

In France, the Socialist Hollande looks likely to be replaced by the center-right Sarkozy. The left-wing Swedish government barely lasted three month before being forced to abandon a failed leadership. This gave them sufficient time to rush through a 'Palestine' vote which may be overturned by an incoming center-right government. Polls show that center-right parties win the popular vote in Norway and Denmark. Across Europe, voters are objecting to poor economic and immigration policies. They are offended by the rise of crime perpetrated by immigrants they had welcomed into their once decent countries. Cultural changes are making their countries unrecognizable to the indigenous population, and not to their pleasing. One prominent reason for the political swing has been politicians pandering to Islamic sensitivities at home. This is causing pause and division among their populations. The recent outbreak of symbolic parliamentary voting for an ill-defined Palestinian state is one outward expression of politicians catering to a rising constituency against which their grassroots citizenry are rebelling.

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The swing in the polls reflects a desire to return to an old patriotism of long lost national values

The swing in the polls reflects a desire to return to an old patriotism of long lost national values, lost in the mire of multiculturalism brought on by uncontrolled immigration against a background of recession and poor economic performance. They are in search of a once-was national character. A yearning to return to something past will not save them from the reality of what they now have. However, we will see European nations shift, possibly polarize, as populations demand that their voices are heard above the growing needs and demands of strong minority and troublesome migrants and left-wing anarchists. But will these changes come in time to save a sinking Europe from the misguided immoral decisions already being taken by a largely Socialist fractured continent?

One nation outside of Europe that is suffering from European misguided policies is Israel

One nation outside of Europe that is suffering from European misguided policies is Israel. From an Israeli perspective, it looks at Europe as a landmass that feels itself in need to cater to an unruly Muslim population that offers their politicians votes but on the other hand can, and does, cause problems and violence if their causes are not addressed. This expressed itself with displays of violent anti-Semitism that left local Jews vulnerable. Countries, one after another, fall prey to the lobbying of left-wing fringe groups allied to a Palestinian agenda by the introduction of anti-Israel resolutions. One after another, nations fall like dominoes not wishing to appear out of step to an ill-considered mantra of Palestinianism that contradicts European commitments to a permanent solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that must be settled only by the two parties involved, without any external unilateral moves that may endanger or foreclose such an outcome. The Oslo Accords, signed on the White House lawn between Israel and Palestinian leader Arafat called for mutual recognition, something that it totally lacking from Hamas, the leading political body of Palestinian Arabs, or from the rejectionist Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority. The notion of "two states for two peoples" has been totally rejected by the Palestinians. Europe has ignored this. Why? It is not something relevant to the peace process? An end to terrorism is yet another condition for peace. Can anyone truly say that this has been achieved following the grotesque Palestinian rocket attacks that erupted out of the Gaza Strip last summer? Or the horrendous sight of Palestinian terrorists coming out of the ground by Israeli farms and villages, intent to capture or kill huge numbers of Israeli civilians including women and children? Yet, on December 17, the European Court of Justice removed Hamas from the EU list of terrorist organizations. This, just days after the Hamas leadership had celebrated in Gaza by parading their rockets and suicide bombers, vowing to eradicate the Jewish State of Israel. Israel's Prime Minister summed up the feeling of all Israelis and Jews when Benjamin Netanyahu responded, "It seems that too many in Europe, on whose soil six million Jews were slaughtered, have learned nothing. But we in Israel, we've learned. We'll continue to defend our people and our state against the forces of terror and tyranny and hypocrisy." The hypocrisy was aimed squarely at a Europe that fails to support the only liberal democracy in the region but bends over backwards to establish a state that will, in all likelihood, be headed by an Islamic terror group or by a rejectionist body with a shared motivation to remove Israel as part of a 'liberating Palestine' agenda.

Europeans need to be asked, if Hamas is not a terrorist organization, what is?

Europeans need to be asked, if Hamas is not a terrorist organization, what is? As European parliaments fall, one by one, to a 'Palestine' vote, and its court cannot understand what constitutes a terrorist organization if it is cloaked in Palestinian clothes, no other issue brought the Israeli parliament into unison as the European court's decision. Wall to wall condemnation was heard across Israel's divergent political parties against the European Court of Justice whose decision demonstrates the loss of a moral path, in the words of MK Naftali Bennett. Former Justice Minister, Tzipi Livni, reminded Europe that Hamas is "an extreme Islamic religious terrorist organization that must be fought with all force."

Europe today does not have the stomach, or the political will, to fight Islamic terror with all its force, if at all

Clearly, Europe today does not have the stomach, or the political will, to fight Islamic terror with all its force, if at all. As Knesset Speaker, Yuli Edelstein said, the European Union "must have lost its mind!" This is clearly the case. It's a question of whether the winds of political change in Europe will arrive in time to save itself and Israel from the damaging tsunami of current political moves.