Maccabi Tel Aviv's victory in basketball last week was one of the highlights of Israeli basketball. Everyone who saw the game witnessed before their eyes the rare loss of dry statistics to the forces of spirit and faith, which were part of Maccabi Tel Aviv's team DNA in the Euroleague games last season.
But unlike during the game, in everyday reality the statistics don't lie. The 17,500 anti-Semitic tweets posted by Real Madrid fans on Twitter and thousands of racist chants made across the entire social network are not just a passing curiosity of disgruntled fans. This is not the empty ranting of a few fans whose souls cling to "fan madness" and extreme sympathy for their team. This is a seething hatred that lies in the hearts of many and reveals its true face during the match.
And yesterday was gym time.
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Real Madrid fans discovered that they were not alone. This afternoon we witnessed how anti-Semitic statements find practical expression when a man entered a Jewish museum in Belgium, opened fire on those present, and murdered three visitors in cold blood. The murderer is not a statistical anomaly. He is the embodiment of an anti-Semitic mindset that is blowing strongly throughout Europe and is not receiving an adequate response.
For anyone who was surprised by these anti-Semitic revelations, it is worth remembering that there is nothing new in Spain and Belgium. Over the past decade, there has been a sharp increase in anti-Semitism in Belgium and Spain, and in surveys conducted in recent years, among others, by the Anti-Defamation League, they found themselves at the top of the anti-Semitic countries in Europe, alongside Hungary, Poland and France.
From readings in the playground to murder in the museum
These surveys reveal a grim reality: The wave of hate speech against the Jewish people on social media after Maccabi Tel Aviv's victory was merely an expression of what many Europeans think but do not always dare to say explicitly. The anti-Semitic murder in Brussels is the practical expression of these thoughts. As the dimensions of the anti-Semitic chants we have seen against Maccabi Tel Aviv fans and players grow stronger, we will be forced to deal with a growing trend of brutal murders of Jews around the world.
The chants of the Spanish fans, then, should be a wake-up call for the Israeli public: We should not get drunk on Maccabi's victory. It is impressive. It is exciting. It is heroic in sporting terms. But it is also a victory that exposed the ugly face of part of the Spanish audience, just as the murder in Brussels exposed the dimensions of hatred towards Jews on the streets of Belgium. These events could hint, as a microcosm, at the growing anti-Semitic mindset across Europe.
This mindset does not begin and end with the general public in Europe, but is also expressed in the European Parliament towards the most prominent representative of the Jewish people: the State of Israel. For example, politicians all over Europe disguise their anti-Semitic positions under the guise of freedom of expression, and attack Israel's policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in an aggressive, unilateral manner and without real justification. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who spoke on the subject yesterday, also noted the inevitable connection between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and this must be taken into account.
The whole world is against us?
However, the sentiments of the Israeli public are often channeled into anger and a generalised grumbling along the lines of "the whole world is against us". This is essentially a cliché that absolves us from taking action and even from believing that there is a cure for the disease of anti-Semitism, whose metastases are becoming increasingly malignant throughout Europe. We still need to understand that one of the significant roles that the State of Israel must take on is the uncompromising fight against anti-Semitism in all its forms everywhere in the world.
Israeli diplomacy must use all means at its disposal to exert pressure on European governments where anti-Semitism flourishes, in order to reduce and eradicate it. It is unacceptable that Minister Avigdor Lieberman recognizes the close connection between attacks on Israel on the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and anti-Semitism in Europe, but does not translate this into Israel's diplomatic strategy. The weakness of the hands of European governments, which is expressed in weak condemnations, individual detainees who are usually released within a short time, and turning a blind eye to local anti-Semitic incidents, is the finger on the trigger that pulled the trigger on the next anti-Semitic incident.
Maybe it would be better if the Israeli government learned from Maccabi not to surrender to statistics and fought more vigorously against those who want to break our spirit and kill Jews simply because of their Jewishness?
