Again, Jews and Muslims are finding themselves on the same tragic dark page. Grabbing at the same short end of the racism stick.

Columnist Lee Suster, writing for the extremely left-wing Counterpunch.org reports:

European politicians from London to Moscow are bashing Islam and immigrants, legitimizing politics previously limited to the anti-immigrant extreme right...

There were violent attacks as well, including an October 21 assault carried out by three men on those attending prayers at a mosque in the city of Manchester. The same day, right-wing media amplified Straw and Blair's attacks on Islam, with the Daily Express tabloid running a front-page photo of a woman in a niqab under the massive headline "BAN IT!" ...

The backdrop for all this is a series of raids and arrests of Muslims since August involving an alleged plot to hijack British airliners--even though they had taken no action toward doing so.

Islamophobia has replaced anti-Semitism as the focus of the European far right, according to Glyn Ford, a British member of the European Parliament and author of a book on neo-fascism in Europe. "Europe is in danger of seeing its extreme-right parties move into the mainstream," he said, adding, "Islamophobia has become the prejudice of the day, but the threat from the extreme right is real and it is found across the European Union."

The article gives a brief run-down of Islamophobic incidents taking place across Europe. Obviously any resurgence of extreme rightist activity affects Jews most acutely. I hope the Jews in Belgium who voted for Vlaams Belang didn't shoot themselves in the foot, instead of, for instance, opting to form a round table of religions to promote dialogue and kill the root cause of violent religious hate crimes.

In Germany this was called the worst year for anti-Semitism since World War II. If Islamophobia is surpassing even that then I don't know what to think, but I can't help but fear for European Muslims. The culture of prejudice must come to an end, for the sake of the well-being of the entire EU.