Europe’s moral collapse and the return of antisemitism

Europe is experiencing a convulsion whose moral centre is failing just when clarity is most needed.

What once appeared to be isolated debates about Middle East policy have become a sweeping civilizational crisis: a convergence of post-modern indignation, mass immigration and political opportunism that has normalised hostility to Israel and resurrected old antisemitic patterns in new guises.

The spectacle is striking. Public figures and intellectuals repurpose incendiary vocabulary—“apartheid,” “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” —not as qualifications in narrow legal debate but as blunt instruments of delegitimization of the Jewish state. When such claims appear unchallenged on major platforms, they cease to function as critique; instead, they become the scaffolding for erasure.

Europe’s focus today is not to criticise Israel, promote Israeli-Palestinian peace or even support the establishment of a Palestinian state, but rather to join the global assault against Jews and the very existence of the State of Israel.

This is not only about erroneous historical narratives. It is about the weaponisation of grievance. In many Western capitals, campus movements, NGOs and media networks amplify a single, reductive narrative that paints Israel as the primary evil in a chaotic world.

Meanwhile, far graver and far more lethal crimes elsewhere—mass slaughter in parts of Africa, systematic campaigns of religious and ethnic violence in Asia—do not rouse the same global uproar. Selective outrage has moral consequences: when attention is monopolised by a manufactured narrative, real victims elsewhere are sidelined and genuine moral clarity is sacrificed for ideological convenience.

The social mechanics are clear. A sizable cohort of young activists has adopted a mode of moral identity that prizes performative purity over historical nuance. They speak of “oppressor” and “oppressed” as fixed categories and interpret complex conflicts through that binary lens.

That simplification dovetails with a left-wing cultural project that has lost confidence in the nation-state and seeks moral authority through global causes; it also aligns with Islamist activism that exploits grievances to expand influence in European public life. The result is a political ecosphere where demonisation pays electoral and cultural dividends.

This alliance between strands of the European left and Islamist constituencies has tangible effects. Universities suspend cooperation with Israeli research bodies; cultural institutions debate whether Israeli orchestras should perform; unions and municipal authorities adopt symbolic gestures that isolate Jewish institutions rather than protect them.

These actions are not isolated blunders of tone. They are symptoms of a deeper shift: institutions that once acted as bulwarks of liberalism now enable, or at least tolerate, a public atmosphere in which Jews are disproportionately targeted and Israel is portrayed as an illegitimate anachronism.

There is also a geopolitical angle. Europe’s uneasy pivot away from steady strategic partnerships—driven by economic dislocation, demographic anxiety and bureaucratic sclerosis—has weakened its capacity to respond coherently to security threats.

At the same time, an emboldened transnational activism has found fertile ground in Europe’s metropolitan centres. The result is paradoxical: a continent that produced the modern ideals of human rights now too often deploys them selectively, weaponising human-rights rhetoric to delegitimate a democracy under existential threat.

Cultural drift compounds the problem. Where once historical and textual literacy helped temper polemics, today many public debates proceed in a fog of ignorance. Historical complexity is flattened; narratives that erase Jewish historical continuity in the Land of Israel are recycled uncritically.

This intellectual laziness is not innocent: it feeds policies and practices that delegitimise Jewish claims—and, by extension, Jewish safety.

Practical consequences follow quickly. Incidents of physical assault and intimidation against Jews in European streets are rising. Synagogues and cemeteries are vandalised; Jewish students report a chilling atmosphere on campus. These are not abstract harms. They are breaches of the civic compact: the safety of a minority is the true test of a liberal society.

What is to be done? First, clarity of language matters. There is a vast and necessary space for legitimate criticism of Israeli policy. But criticism that erases history, inflates figures without corroboration, or traffics in rhetorical annihilation must be called out. Democracies require debate; they do not survive sustained delegitimisation disguised as moral urgency.

Second, Jewish communities and their allies must invest in strengthening identity and institutions. Pride of belonging is not a provocation; it is a shield. Political mobilisation, cultural resilience and educational initiatives that reclaim the historical record will blunt the appeal of simplistic narratives.

Third, European governments and civic institutions must reassert basic principles: equal protection under the law for Jews, vigorous enforcement against hate crimes, and insistence that academic and cultural exchanges proceed based on mutual respect and factual integrity. Symbolic gestures that single out Israel for exceptional treatment must be resisted; they corrode the principled application of human-rights norms.

Finally, allies beyond Europe—the United States, Israel’s friends in civil society, global Jewish networks—must not treat Europe as a lost cause. Europe still matters geopolitically and culturally. It remains a site where the battle for reason and memory can be fought and won.

The return of antisemitism in Europe is not some ancient ghost reanimated by accident. It is the product of contemporary political choices and intellectual failures. If we permit the fusion of ideological fashion and geopolitical opportunism to dictate public life, we will have surrendered the central moral terms that once separated liberal democracies from the mobs of the past.

History’s warning is stern: delegitimisation precedes dispossession. Europe’s leaders, intellectuals and citizens must decide whether they will heed that warning—or allow another chapter of moral decline to unfold.

The test is not abstract: it is whether Jews in Europe can walk in safety, send their children to school without fear, and participate fully in civic life. If Europe wishes to reclaim its moral claim, it must begin by defending those most vulnerable within its borders.