Never again.  Those words reverberate through history as the pledge of Jews around the world after the Holocaust, and supposedly the world stands with them …. except when actual genocidists appear.  Michael Yon wonders why Europe seems so infatuated with Hamas, an organization that would cheerfully impose brutal theocratic rule on the Continent just as quickly as they would in Israel, and just as brutally:

Israel is a free country that abides by the rule of law. By contrast, if a writer were to go to Gaza or Iran, for instance, and start writing bad words, he might wind up on the news, dead. Israel allows Christians and Arab Muslims to worship freely, while Hamas wants to see us all at the bottom of the sea. Hamas, supported by Iran, is clear about their goals: they want to wipe out Israel completely, utterly, with finality. But it’s not just Israel that Hamas wants to kill; they want to kill all Jews everywhere. Complete genocide.

And when Iran has the capacity to launch rockets over to Europe or the United States, one can count on it happening. If they can manage to hatch nuclear weapons, we could see Israeli cities annihilated, leaving Israelis with little choice other than to respond with nuclear weapons, which could leave millions dead. If Iran gets nuclear weapons, Iraq will want them, as will other nations who are threatened by Iran. I’ve lived in Europe for about six years, and it is easy to imagine Europe being engulfed in a massive religious and race war. America is relatively sedate on the racial front, but Europe could explode if a serious terrorism wave were to sweep through.

It is simply astounding that many foreign governments do not see this for what it is. Good Muslims are murdered by Muslim extremists in probably dozens of countries, yet certain European governments insist that there is some sort of moral equivalence between Hamas and the democracy called Israel.

Yes, Europe has come a long way since the Holocaust, but unfortunately, it’s in a circle rather than straight forward.  Once again, they’re blaming the victims rather than the genocidists themselves.  If Hamas has targeted the Jews for destruction and rain thousands of rockets and missiles on their heads, then it’s because the Jews have done something wrong — and not because Hamas explicitly states in their charter that their mission is to destroy the Jews and seize Israel for themselves.

Does this remind anyone of the worldwide reaction to Adolf Hitler and Mein Kampf?  “Oh, he doesn’t really mean all of those things,” people would say.  “He’s just a provocateur looking for power, and he’ll have reason to moderate once he has something at stake in world politics.”  How did that work out for the Jews in Germany and Europe, and for the world as a whole?

Yon reminds us that we remain allied with Israel for good reason: they provide freedom and liberty for their people in a region where neither are found in abundance.  They’re not perfect, but to equate them with the terrorists and genocidal lunatics of Hamas and Hezbollah shows a moral perversion on the part of Western leadership, and a serious failure to understand the actual aims of both groups and their fuehrers in Tehran.  That failure could be fatal, as it was seventy years ago.

Michael Yon is traveling through Israel and doing some fine reporting.  Stay up to date at his blog, and be sure to put a few dollars in his tip jar to keep him funded for more of his excellent work.