Last week, British police reported a disturbing and significant rise in anti-Semitic attacks on local Jews since the start of the latest conflict in Gaza.

“Figures seen by the BBC show recorded hate crimes against Jewish people living in London have doubled compared with the same period last year, while police in Manchester said they had seen an increase in anti-Semitic crime over the last month,” the BBC reported.

In totally unrelated news, the British government revealed on Tuesday that they are suffering from a terminal case of moral equivalency and are prepared to cut off military aid to Israel if “significant hostilities” resume in Gaza.

Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, and Skills and Liberal Democrat MP Vince Cable announced this week that the United Kingdom would suspend the export licenses of 12 British firms which send Israel arms like radar systems, aircraft, and tanks if any new hostilities in Gaza restart.

The Huffington Post U.K. reported that the British left is incensed by how “weak” this move is against Israel. Presumably, they would prefer that the government retroactively suspend arms trades to Israel and request that Israel send back any arms which they have acquired from British firms.

Fellow Lib Dem and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg recently expressed his support for an anti-Israel arms embargo saying that the Jewish state had “overstepped the mark” in its prosecution of the conflict with Hamas in Gaza.

Here is a brief review of the extensive lengths to which the IDF goes to avoid civilian casualties – rule of engagement to which neither the British nor the American armed forces would agree to be bound.

Hostilities have resumed on several occasions in Gaza after reports indicated that Hamas militants violated the terms of a number of temporary ceasefire agreements. On August 8, Hamas rocket fire into Israel shattered a tense peace. Another 72-hour cease fire which went into effect on August 1 lasted just 90 minutes before Hamas militants killed three IDF soldiers who were clearing and dismantling a tunnel network (as per the terms of that ceasefire).

None of this matter much, however, when your position is not logical but guided by emotion and reflex. And the reflex in Europe, it seems, is to lurch toward the abhorrent anti-Semitism which characterized the mid-20th Century.

If there was ever a sound argument against the necessity of a free and viable Jewish state, Europe is refuting it on a daily basis.