In Melbourne, a synagogue was set on fire while twenty people were praying inside. This is not graffiti on a wall, not an anonymous threat on the internet. This is fire set to a house with people inside.

In the UK, music scene stars — Massive Attack, Brian Eno, Garbage, Kneecap, Fontaines D.C. — have united in the so-called “Palestinian Ethical Syndicate.” Their goal is not hidden: the delegitimization of Israel. Calls for the destruction of the Jewish state are now heard not only from the mouths of terrorists but also from the stages of European festivals, to the applause of the “progressive” audience.

On the Greek island of Rhodes, Israeli teenagers were attacked by participants of an anti-Israeli action, armed with sticks and knives. Words of hatred turned into physical violence.

But the case in Valencia (Spain) crosses all conceivable boundaries. Here, the aggressors were not marginals or celebrities intoxicated by their own “progressiveness.” Here, the state acted.

Fifty Jewish children from France, aged 13–15, were removed from a Vueling flight at Valencia airport. Their “guilt”? They were singing in Hebrew. The crew called it “noise,” and then accused the children of belonging to a “terrorist state.”

The arriving officers kicked the children out of the plane, and a 21-year-old accompanying them was thrown to the ground and handcuffed. She was released only after signing a commitment not to publish a video of the incident. The police demanded the children hand over their phones, forbade filming. What were they so fiercely trying to hide? 

No comments from Vueling airline. No apologies from the Spanish police. No reaction from local and central authorities. Their silence is tantamount to complicity.

Vueling employees and police officers, apparently, reveled in the opportunity to show Jewish children “their place.” This recalls another  case – in the Netherlands, where police refused to guard Jewish sites for “moral reasons,” finding “understanding from the leadership.” The Spanish police went further: they not only refused to protect — they themselves became a threat.

What will happen tomorrow? Detentions for the sounds of the shofar? Arrests for wearing a Star of David around the neck?

We are facing a harsh reality: European antisemitism no longer hides in the shadows, it acts without looking back.

The Chief Rabbi of the Great Synagogue of Paris recently said: “It is clear today that there is no future for Jews in France. I advise every young person to leave for Israel or a safer country.”

His words are not panic, but a sober assessment of reality. Israel remains the only place on earth where a Jew is not a target, not a symbol for someone else’s hatred, not a reason for “moral” indignation. Simply a person at home.

P.S.: Now, as the video of the detention episode has widely spread on social networks and received broad publicity, the airline’s management is trying to prove that the incident had no antisemitic undertones.

Marina Rosenberg Koritny, Head of the World Zionist Organization Department for the Promotion of Aliyah.