In Porto and everywhere, Jews debate the diplomatic dispute between the European Union and Israel closely, as it directly impacts their safety and sense of belonging. The EU unanimously approved sanctions blacklisting prominent Jewish individuals who face EU travel bans, asset freezes, and a strict prohibition on conducting business with European entities. Robbery and defamation of Jews has always been a hallmark of the Old Continent.
The EU is Israel's largest trading partner and the current tension driven by European reviews of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, leaves Jewish communities feeling increasingly vulnerable.
A coalition of EU nations led by Spain, and Ireland is fiercely advocating for the full or partial suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Both Spain and Ireland are currently navigating significant political, corporate, and law enforcement scandals involving hight crime. While Spain is facing a massive political crisis that reaches the highest levels of government, Ireland is dealing with international corporate ethics controversies and high-profile internal police corruption trials.
Because suspending the agreement requires a qualified majority, Germany and Italy blocked the bid during foreign minister meetings, favoring a strategy of critical constructive dialogue over total economic decoupling.
The press paid by the UE and the Muslim Brotherhood is furious against Israel. The country is only mentioned for bad reasons, as if it were the "Jew of Nations". The societies feel the effects of the media propaganda. A European Citizens' Initiative petition calling for the agreement's termination has amassed over 1 million signatures across all 27 member states.
Jewish citizens are watching their home governments adopt increasingly critical, and sometimes sanctionable, policies toward Israeli citizens and policies. The European Council stays firm to strongly condemn "air and land operations impacting Lebanese sovereignty". Yet, Hezbollah freely continues to massacre innocent people and lead drug trafficking in Latin America, which in turn sponsors corrupt politicians and journalists in Europe.
The war against the Jewish state is not isolated. Jewish citizens feel abandoned by European authorities. Laws are made to protect racial and sexual minorities. Jews don't count. Synagogues and Jewish museums pay for their own security, despite extremist threats. Scandalous cases like the Portuguese Dreyfus affair remain unresolved. The atmosphere is not good. Attempts to poison Jews at music festivals. Lists of Jews are published in Portuguese newspapers. Authorities use asylum criminals to try to spit on Dreyfus's granddaughter. The wealthy are persecuted, and their companies suffer damage to their image. States tend to label weak communities as good and strong communities as bad. As a consequence, these latter communities tend to label the very states in which they live as corrupt.
States in general call renovations of old buildings, and empty synagogues Jewish life and do nothing to help the communities. Most synagogues no longer even maintain a permanent minyan, instead surviving on tourists and little else. This can be Jewish "heritage", not Jewish life. The word "Jews" has almost disappeared from official discourse on Holocaust teaching. School curricula are a disgrace.
Visiting children, upon arrival to the few existent Shoah museums, say that there was a Final Solution for gays, blaks, Roma, and communists. The "Holocaust" is used by the leftist system to persecute the so-called "far-right", a term where they usually include the Israeli government itself. Combating antisemitism is connected with Woke ideology, which by nature is against Jews and despises everything they do in religion, culture. The "antisemitism" combated by the states is skinheads and political adversaries, that's all.
Protecting communities is showing to be a nullity too. Communities pay millions euros to the state police to protect their synagogues and museums, until the day they can decide not to pay anymore. The only Jewish communities that can eventually claim to be satisfied with the European Commission's Plan are those that only exist on paper and are religiously and culturally dead.
