With friends like these …

An Israeli writer warns against accepting the support of anti-Muslim bigots in Europe who declare their support for the state of Israel. She argues:

“… many of these new friends are Muslim-bashers first and Israel-backers second. Their blanket condemnation of Muslim communities on their continent rings eerily familiar. Their sweeping verdict against a whole civilization has that strange déjà vu feel…. I, for one Israeli, would be grateful to my newfound buddies if their sympathy for me did not rely on the trashing of another religion. Unlike them, I’m touched by the sight of young Muslim women in European university campuses. They remind my of my own grandmother, a student in Prague who had to flee after the Nazi rise to power, and of all the other young and hopeful Jews whose dreams and lives were shattered by the European culture they so admired. I will therefore not solicit support based on unqualified dislike of other human groups…. Beware of Islamophobes bearing gifts.”

Wall Street Journal, 7 January 2007

Mad Mel is not happy.