Leave Europe, dedicated Zionists are warning!

By Orit Arfa

(JNS) — Since the Amsterdam pogrom of Nov. 7, in which Arab and North African youth chased and assaulted Israeli soccer fans who came to the Dutch capital for a game, I’ve heard more calls for Jews to leave a dying Europe. Dedicated Zionists warn us: Time to come home!

They bemoan how the Dutch police ignored warnings about the attacks. To make matters worse, the Amsterdam mayor resents calling the Jew-hunt, which injured several dozen Jews, a “pogrom” because it fosters “Islamophobia.”

Aayan Hirsi Ali, an ex-Muslim from Somalia who served in the Dutch parliament, posted on X: “The Hamasification of a considerable chunk of Muslims in the Netherlands continues to grow. The Jews of Holland are outnumbered. Those too old to relocate may carry on living there. Younger generations may consider making their home elsewhere.”

A few days after the attack, an Israeli friend in Berlin called to say that she was considering moving back to Israel. A Berlin pogrom, she fears, is nigh.

Let’s not forget, I told her. Pogroms happen in Israel, too. Oct. 7, 2023, was the deadliest pogrom Jews have experienced since the Holocaust, on the soil of the Jewish state meant to protect us. The Israel Defense Forces were also warned of a possible invasion. Many in the top brass of the IDF were no less righteous than the local Dutch authorities.

By this calculation, Jews should not live in Canada these days, either. As the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, I’m extra-vigilant, but I still don’t think now is the time for Jews to leave Europe. It’s time to stay and fight, with our allies. We are not, as Ali suggested, outnumbered. We should have the entirety of German society with us, fighting.

The true correction to the Holocaust, this time around, is not encouraging Jews to flee to Israel. The true correction is ensuring a strong Jewish Diaspora by fighting violent Jew-hatred in its tracks, especially in Germany. But for too long, Berlin thought it could correct the sins of the Holocaust in a way that perpetuated them.

Since 2015, Germany has imported the spiritual heir to Nazis—a sizable number of Islamic radicals who dream of Jewish genocide. What’s worse, German media and politicians have labeled those who opposed this migration as “far right,” “fascist” and “Nazis”! So long as German politicians continue to delegitimize opponents to uncontrolled migration from countries steeped in antisemitism, then maybe my friend is right for wanting to leave.

Some analysts have opined that Oct. 7 happened because Israel was weak and divided. In its opposition to the judicial overhaul in early 2023, which would have reduced the power of Israel’s liberal supreme court, the left took to the streets, causing mayhem with boycotts and shutdowns, including within the IDF. By focusing its energies on a relatively non-existential issue, Israel let its guard down, and Hamas was poised to attack. It took a bloody massacre for Israelis to renew calls for national unity.

Germany, likewise, is divided, and if opposing factions in Germany do not unite, then it is setting itself up for its own Oct. 7 in the streets of Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, and in its villages and towns. The jihadists might attack mostly Jews at first, but Jews are the buffer zone—in the Middle East and in European society.

With elections coming up, the left and right, liberals and conservatives must begin a dialogue and dignified debate, and actually tackle the most existential problems of the day, with threats of antisemitic violence by Islamists at the top of the list.

Common citizens can do their share by speaking out and lobbying their local governments to preempt, deter and crack down on any incidents on Jews. Police must treat violent pro-Hamas thugs as they would brownshirts. The Palestinian flag, which is now paraded to show support for the Hamas terrorist organization, should be treated like a swastika. Its goals are the same: Jewish genocide and imperialist fascist rule.

In his letter to posterity, my outspoken grandfather, Henryk Arfa, a Polish-Jewish Auschwitz survivor, wrote that he believed the Nazis could have been stopped if the Poles banded together with the Jews. But too many of them had too much petty hatred for Jews to fight with them and for them.

There was enough time for both parties, the Jews and the Poles, to find a way to hide Jews and to organize a resistance against Nazi Germany and inflict pain to the military posture of Nazi Germany: to spread partisans and small military groups over the entire territory of Poland and Germany and to curb the spread of the German army. A hanging for a hanging. A shooting for a shooting.

When there is a will, there is a way!

The Germans are feiges (cowards). They are not heroes. They are afraid as everybody else is in a squeezed situation. But the Germans were lucky. They did not meet any opposition.

Together, Jews and Poles, in small groups, should and could have attacked military installations, military barracks, gas stations—to put to flame anything that could burn in the territories of Germany. Ten thousand flames in one shot and can, then the next day, again and again. The Germans should not have been able to walk free on the streets, knowing that every house in Poland and apartment was armed with machine guns, small arms, grenades, and explosives. The Jews in Poland had no choice: just do it or die.

But stupid Poles would rather kill the Jews, their own unfortunate unarmed citizens, instead of protecting them. What a treacherous nation, and the Poles are stupid.

Of course, the analogy to today’s moment in Germany is not one-to-one. Still, German society is at risk of being “occupied” by Islamic radicals if it does not stand by the Jewish people and fight the pro-Nazi factions lying in wait to harass Jews, and eventually, all Germans. The country must overcome its inner strife—and perhaps its latent antisemitism in all sections of society—to prevent pogroms on its streets. As my grandfather says, “When there is a will, there’s a way!”

This originally appeared on Achgut.com.