By Seth Mandel
Tuesday, December 24, 2024
What sentence would you give to a criminal convicted of a
standard violent crime that also happens to be a sign of coming societal
collapse, near-apocalyptic failure of government and education, and too-late
recognition that the mistakes your country has made will haunt it forever?
It’s a tough one.
Countries that ignore history’s canary in the coal
mine—societal attitudes toward the Jews—pay a heavy price for it, and it’s
usually self-inflicted. The trials of the Amsterdam pogromists is a good
example of this.
Last month, a meticulously planned, premeditated “Jew
hunt” took place in the city when an Israeli soccer team came to town. As in
the pogroms of the past, the Jews were initially blamed for the violence
against them, allegedly having “provoked” it. As in pogroms of the past, the
provocations turned out to have been concocted. Also as in pogroms of the past,
the authorities knew what was coming and assisted it.
The trials
of some of the pogromists incinerated any remaining doubt that the whole thing
was coordinated. WhatsApp conversations exposed the stage-by-stage planning.
All that was left were the verdicts and sentencing, which
we now have for a handful of the defendants. From the wires: “The heaviest
sentence imposed was six months in prison, for a man identified as Sefa O. for
public violence against several people.” One of the defendants, a 19-year-old,
was treated by the court as a minor.
As in past pogroms, the prosecutor seemed to have more
sympathy for the perpetrators than for the victims: “The violence was
influenced by the situation in Gaza, not by antisemitism,” he said.
To recap: The perpetrators said they were carrying out a
“Jew hunt”—in other words, a frank declaration of anti-Semitism. Even if you
are the type to whine that the term “anti-Semitism” is overused in order to
quash the free speech of Hamasniks on campus, you’d probably admit that “Jew
hunt” as a motivation for physical violence is unambiguous. If there is such a
thing as anti-Semitism, a “Jew hunt” falls into that category.
To understand the prosecutor’s argument, however, you
must understand the role he is intending to play, not the role he is
technically assigned to do.
The prosecutor sees himself not as a prosecutor of these
defendants but as a defense attorney for the future defendants of this crime.
Just as they were the night of the violence in Amsterdam, everyone is on the
same side.
But wait. Didn’t the prosecutors ask for more time than
was given? Don’t they claim to be disappointed by the sentences handed down? To
which I’d respond with a question of my own: Are you interested in purchasing a
bridge in Brooklyn? If you, as a prosecutor, argue that acts of violence are
understandable acts of protest, you are the one who has reduced the
sentences of the accused before the trial is even over.
Here’s another example from the same trial: “A
22-year-old identified as Abushabab M., 22, faces a charge of attempted murder
but his case has been postponed while he undergoes a psychiatric assessment.
“He was born in the Gaza Strip and grew up in a war zone,
his lawyer told the court, while M. sat sobbing as his case was being heard.”
Psychiatric assessment? Is he incapable of not trying
to murder Jews because he is from Gaza? That is some kind of defense?
If it sounds familiar, it should. In 2017, a man named
Kobili Traoré killed Sarah Halimi at her Paris apartment. He admitted to the
crime, and his motive was, as
reported by the New York Times, that he “had been troubled by Ms.
Halimi’s mezuza.” As he threw Halimi out her own window, he yelled “Allahu
akbar” and “I killed the devil.”
Cut-and-dried, right? Not so fast. How did we know he was
driven into a frenzy by the sight of Halimi’s mezuzah? From a psychiatric
report, which also noted the killer had smoked marijuana. That is apparently
the lucky combination, as the court ruled he could not stand trial due to his
psychiatric condition at the time of the crime.
That ruling was upheld on the grounds that under French
law, “a person is not criminally responsible if suffering, at the time of the
event, from psychic or neuropsychic disturbance that has eliminated all
discernment or control.”
The neuropsychic disturbance in the Halimi case was the
same as in Amsterdam. And it has nothing to do with marijuana.
The affliction is anti-Semitism. And those who suffer
from this condition, whether adults who are tried as minors or murderers who
like to get high before spilling Jewish blood, will not be treated as if they
can control their actions.
Meet the new Europe; same as the old Europe, at least in
some very important ways.
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