Recently, Milos Zeman, President of the Czech Republic, made a very strong statement about Islam, Israel, and Anti-Semitism [via MA]. Here are some excerpts:
“The only holiday of independence which I can never leave out is the celebration of the independence of the Jewish State of Israel,” Zeman said.
“There are other nations with whom we share the same values, whether it’s free elections or a free market economy, but no one is threatening to delete those states from the map. No one shoots at their border towns and no one wants to see the citizens of those nations driven out of their country.”
“There is a term called political correctness and I consider it to be a euphemism for political cowardice. So I refuse to be cowardly.”
“It is necessary to name the enemy of human civilization and this enemy is international terrorism associated with religious fundamentalism and religious intolerance. ...
“I am not reassured by the claims that this is the work of only a small fringe group. Quite the contrary. I believe that xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism stems from the essential ideology that these fanatical groups are based on.”
“And let me provide a proof of this assertion in a quote from one of its sacred texts. ‘The Jews will hide behind stones and trees. Then the tree will call out, ‘A Jew hides behind me, come and kill him.’ The stone will call out, ‘A Jew hides behind me, come and kill him.’
“I criticized those who call for the killing of the Arabs, but I don’t know of about any mass movement that calls for the mass murder of Arabs. I do however know of an anti-civilizational movement which calls for the mass murder of the Jews.”
“One of the articles in the Hamas Charter calls for killing Jews.”
“Do we really want to pretend that this is only a small group of extremists? Can we really be politically correct and insist that they are all good and that only a tiny number of the extremists and fundamentalists are committing these crimes?” [emphasis added]