The Real Driver Behind Europe’s Antisemitism: Frustration and Powerlessness

Left, Right, and the Electoral Math

Europe’s progressive left, draped in the language of universal human rights, openly deploys anti-Israel rhetoric to appease its “new voter base.” At the same time the far right feeds its rank-and-file the classic antisemitic bile. The political pendulum swings both ways, yet each arc strikes the identical scapegoat.

Everybody knows it—it’s an open secret muttered in power’s corridors. The left angles for votes in immigrant districts; the right bets on nostalgic resentments. Slowly public opinion drifts toward the notion that Israel, and by extension the Jewish people, are to blame for the moral vertigo Europeans feel inside their own borders.

Israel Fights a Dirty War—Europe Hands Out Sanctions

“Israel is doing the dirty work for the entire West,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared only days ago. As Iranian rockets pound Israeli hospitals and apartment blocks, Europe watches from a safe distance, quietly enjoying the strategic upside. American bombers and Israeli air defenses neutralize a nuclear threat that could just as easily vaporize Madrid, Rome, or Antwerp.

Yet Europe’s arrows fly at Israel, not Tehran. On day one of the war, Britain’s freshly minted PM Starmer called Israel’s response “concerning” and “an escalation.” By day five, Emmanuel Macron still clung to his plan for a UN conference on instant Palestinian statehood—vacuuming the carpet while the house burns. On day six, nine EU states demanded fresh sanctions on Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. Ideological missiles shot in the opposite direction of the real ones—no less lethal for their aim.

Two Theaters of Distraction

Europe distracts Israel on two fronts. At the leadership level, while Jerusalem’s war cabinets stay up all night drafting strategies that also shield Europe, EU leaders launch surreal legal bombardments to tie Israel down. On the street, as families in Sderot and Hebron take cover, Europeans lob digital projectiles: #CeasefireNow, #SanctionIsrael.

The result is a toxic loop. Iranian generals bank on European pressure to crack Israel’s resolve; European politicians vent their domestic frustrations on Israel’s existential fight. The physical battlefield fuels the ideological one, and vice versa.

Frustration in Hard Numbers and Harsh Symbols

The numbers don’t lie. Europe’s defense budgets lag despite bombastic NATO communiqués. Innovation hubs migrate to Silicon Valley, Shenzhen, and Bangalore while Brussels drowns in red tape. The pound sinks, the euro stalls, productivity gasps like a smoker’s lung.

Against that backdrop it feels oh-so-satisfying to hurl a rhetorical boomerang at the Jewish state: “They escalate, they destabilize; we sanction.” It’s blame-shifting as painkiller—yet also a confession of impotence. Europe can’t corner Tehran militarily or economically, won’t poke Moscow further, and dare not anger Washington—so it kicks Jerusalem.

The Shifting Jewish “Target”

In medieval Europe the Jew was trapped in ghetto walls and assaults targeted the religion—synagogues torched, disputations ending in pogroms. In the 20th century venom focused on the assimilated community, culminating in the Shoah. In the 21st century the sovereign Jewish subject is the State of Israel.

That shift only intensifies the pattern: for the first time Europe faces a Jew who shoots back. Israel shatters the narrative of the eternal victim and strips Europe of the moral superiority it once used to whitewash its colonial past.

A Literary Interlude: Shadow on the Cathedral

Picture a Gothic cathedral bathed in morning light. Suddenly a cloud casts a black veil over the altar. Worshippers look up. “It’s the Jew,” someone whispers, pointing skyward—where the “cloud” is actually the exhaust trail of an Iranian Shahed drone shot down over the Negev, hundreds of miles away. The reflex is identical to that chronicled in the 14th century, when Jews were blamed for spreading the Black Death. Times change; reflexes persist.

The Hinge: Frustration Becomes Powerlessness, Powerlessness Turns to Hate

Vice President J.D. Vance nailed it: “The greatest threat to the West doesn’t come from outside—it brews inside Europe.” That threat is a cocktail of demographic anxiety, economic stagnation, and cultural fragmentation distilled into resentment. Where nations once found pride in prosperity, they now hunt a common enemy to mask collective failure. Even staunchly pro-Israel chancellors skid across the thin line separating critique from demonization.

Exit the Hall of Mirrors

Europe can normalize its relationship with Israel and Judaism only when it steps out of its ridiculous hall of mirrors. That means admitting power and virtue no longer orbit the Seine, the Spree, or the Thames by divine right. It requires courage—naming defense shortfalls, owning innovation deficits, and stopping the projection of external threats onto the easiest scapegoat.

Until that day we remain trapped in tragedy: Israel fights what Merz calls “the West’s dirty war,” earning nothing but sanctions and sermons. Europe enjoys the shield yet bites the arm that lifts it. The paradox dissolves only through grown-up self-reflection. Keep scanning the mirror for an enemy and you’ll eventually see nothing but the outline of your own powerlessness.