The same terrorist methods developed and used by the Palestinians against Israeli civilians for years are now being employed by ISIS against Europeans: car-rammings, stabbings, and suicide bombings in public spaces.
The question of the designation of Hezbollah by European countries and by the EU is partly a question of reconciling the law with the facts. But it will remain ultimately a question of politics. As such, any decision regarding its status should be part of a broader diplomatic and/or counterterrorism strategy.
In the wake of the unprecedented tragedy of the Holocaust, it was anything but obvious that a Jewish group would seek to engage postwar Germany. But that’s exactly what American Jewish Committee (AJC), alone among global Jewish organizations, did.
I am not naive about the complex history of Polish-Jewish relations, or the accusations emanating from both sides. Yet I believe, as the son of parents who suffered at the hands of both Berlin and Moscow, that what we share in common far exceeds what divides us. And those commonalities are profoundly important in our contemporary world.
I write as a friend, who has said more than once that the EU is the single most ambitious and successful peace project in modern history. But if the EU is serious about tackling antisemitism and preserving historical memory of the Holocaust, it cannot neglect, minimize or wish away threats to the existence of Israel, the world’s lone Jewish-majority country and home to nearly 7 million Jews.