European leaders are making a bad habit of echoing the violent rhetoric of the anti-Zionist activist class. Back in September, it was Spain’s Pedro Sanchez who lamented that “Spain, as you know, doesn’t have nuclear bombs, nor aircraft carriers, nor large oil reserves. We alone can’t stop the Israeli offensive, but that doesn’t mean we won’t stop trying, because there are causes worth fighting for even if it’s not in our sole power to win them.”
This casual violence from a European president was a notable escalation, but it would not be the last.
Jean-Luc Melenchon, the powerful leader of the French left and prospective presidential candidate in the next national elections, has a history of voicing his inner anti-Semitic thoughts. He blamed Jews for killing Jesus in an interview, for example, and defended notorious British anti-Semite Jeremy Corbin.
French elections often pit the right wing against a coalition of left and center parties, with those votes coalescing around a centrist candidate to win in the runoff round. But next year, Politico Europe notes, the candidate with the votes to make the second round against the right wing may very well be the far-left Melenchon instead of a centrist.
While there will no doubt be concern about the opportunity that would open for a nationalist right-wing president, Melenchon isn’t less extreme in his own politics. Here’s what he said about Israel and Lebanon this week on social media, flagged by the Algemeiner:
“Israel is invading and annexing all of southern Lebanon. Netanyahu has raised his flag over Beaufort Castle. This French name should remind us of the thousand-year history that binds us to Lebanon. We owe the Lebanese people aid, solidarity, and support in the face of genocidal forces.”
He added: “The aircraft carrier would serve as a more useful symbol in the Mediterranean than in the Strait of Hormuz, to remind Netanyahu that his interference in our elections and his invasions of our allies’ territories are viewed as threats by the French. The UN Security Council must condemn Israel and organize the withdrawal of its forces from the occupied territory.”
So Melenchon believes Lebanon is still a French colony, essentially—that Israel’s seizing of the castle is an act of war against France. Then he accuses Netanyahu of interfering in French elections, suggesting that too is an act of war.
But the last part may be the most deranged. Israel took South Lebanon from Hezbollah, not the Lebanese army. Hezbollah is an Iranian occupation force. Why isn’t Iran’s occupation of South Lebanon viewed as a threat to France? Because when he talks about “invasions of our allies’ territory,” the ally is apparently imperial Iran.
If it sounds crazy to think Melenchon sees Iran as an ally against Israel, it shouldn’t. The Western left has been marching for three years explicitly cheering Hezbollah and Iran. In fact, it’s been cheering loudest for Hamas, the Iranian satrapy that carried out the savage murder spree of October 7, 2023. Hamas recorded its exploits on that day, and admitted to some of the worst of the crimes not caught on camera. If Melenchon’s ideological base can celebrate the Iranian militia carrying out a massive campaign of sexual torture and child murder, why wouldn’t Melenchon also see Iran as the good guy in this fight?
This is something the West needs to grapple with before it gets completely out of hand. It is not that the European left, along with its acolytes in the U.S., want the end of war in the Middle East. It’s that they want a different war—one that pits Western militaries against Israel and fights alongside Iran.
That obviously won’t happen—now. But the desire to reorganize the alliance around Iran and its associated “resistance” movements is there. And it should be a five-alarm fire in any corner of Europe that has retained its sanity.
Source:
www.commentary.org
