[The original book was published in English in April 2005
By ReganBooks/HarperCollins (N.Y.).]

Dear Europe,

There is a tiny holy land in the Middle East, which has largely
been the cradle of your moral values, ethics and religion, and
which has always been in the eye of the storm. The darkest stain
in your history, but also some of your greatest intellectual
giants, relate to the people originating from this land.
As a true friend, familiar with your continent and with your
culture, please allow me to address you with a mélange of
experience, passion and hope: Experience acquired by my family,
which has lived in the "eye of the storm" since the days
when Giuseppe Garibaldi was a child; passion of someone who
believes that Western Civilization has much to offer to the
world and that Israel has a lot to offer to its neighbors;
hope of an eternal optimist, who knows that you and we will
prevail, but prefers that it happens sooner, rather than later.

Dear Europe, when you are sick, a denial syndrome can be dangerous,
even deadly. To ignore the symptoms of a serious illness,
in spite of its rapid spread and progress, can kill anyone.
Early detection and resolute treatment can save your life,
as well as the lives of others who might be infected.
In the name of Western Civilization: Do not wait any more.
Open your eyes. Wake up!

Are you waiting until traveling by air can be done only in
underwear and being tied to your seat, because of new sickening
terrorist plots? Are the new habits of searching your luggage,
removing your shoes, denying you hand luggage, forbidding fluids
and waiting hours in security lines not enough? Are you waiting
until fanatics will explode themselves simultaneously in the
crowded check-in areas of ten different European airports,
in the peak summer travel season, killing thousands of people?
Are you waiting for the Iranian embassy to bring rockets in
their diplomatic mail, hide them literally under the beds of
some of your Muslim citizens and start shelling your cities
from the backyards of predominantly Muslim neighborhoods, or
from mosques, as they do in Gaza and in Lebanon? Are you waiting
until you will have to enclose terrorist infested neighborhoods
in your cities and countries by high separating walls? What more
should happen before you wake up?

And if you think that I am hysterical, please take note:
when my book predicted suicide murders in Europe, before the
July 2005 atrocities in London, some of my European friends thought
I was hysterical. They were wrong. The London suicide murders did
happen. When I described, in the book, a hypothetical story about
a man wearing a coat in a hot summer day, being killed by security
guards because he might be wearing a suicide belt, some of my readers
believed I was crazy. But a few months later, an innocent Brazilian
was killed in London in exactly such an incident. When I complained
about fabricated media pictures, I was labeled as being biased,
but now we have clear evidence of the Reuters phony photos and
of theatrical staged parades of dead bodies of children in front
of media photographers in both Gaza and Lebanon. When I wrote that
free democratic elections in an incited and uneducated society,
with no free press and no judicial system, can only lead to a
victory of the worst fanatic and murderous elements, I was told
that "we should believe in democracy", only to see, later, the
Palestinian Hamas victory and the gains of the Muslim brothers
in the Egyptian election. When I talked about sending rockets
from a Paris Muslim neighborhood into the Louvre, I was
considered out of touch with reality. Indeed, this has not
yet happened. But hundreds of cars were burned in the streets
of Paris since then and the rockets will arrive, probably via
the Iranian or Syrian embassy. Perhaps it will first happen in
Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Rome or London and not necessarily
in Paris. But any way you look at it, I am not hysterical.

We watch a terrorist army acquiring more than ten thousand deadly
rockets in the sovereign country of Lebanon (did I say "sovereign"?),
which pretends that this army does not exist, while two ministers
representing this non-existing army, are members of the Lebanese
cabinet. Terrorist groups of this army travel freely through the
Lebanese-Syrian border checkpoints, back and forth, to and from
their training camps in Iran. Naturally, the Lebanese government
neither destroys the private army nor asks the international
community for help in dismantling it. This army is fully funded
and armed by two other sovereign countries, members of the United
Nations, still maintaining elaborate commercial and diplomatic
relations with all European countries. But the private army is not
declared by Europe to be a terrorist organization and Europe claims
not to have clear evidence that Iran and Syria are financing and
supplying the terrorists. Perhaps aliens from another planet
finance them. Perhaps the flourishing drug business of the
Hizbullah manufactures the rockets as a spin-off.
"Europe has no proof", say its foreign policy spokespersons.
Dear Europe, you see no evil, hear no evil, but you definitely
speak evil. What more should happen before you wake up?

The ten thousand rockets are known to be so inaccurate that they
usually miss entire cities. Not only they cannot be aimed at a
specific building or facility, they cannot be aimed even at
a specific town. They are aimed at the Jewish town of Carmiel
in the Galilee and often hit the Arab Israeli town of Majdal-Curum,
kilometers away. They are aimed at an Israeli military airfield
and kill Israeli Arabs in Nazareth. They are aimed at the large city
of Haifa and most of the time hit the sea or empty fields outside
the city. Israel is so small that some of the rockets fly over Israel
and fall in the northern tip of the West Bank. However, five percent
of these thousands of rockets do hit inhabited areas and some of
them kill children and elderly people, Jewish and Arab. There cannot
be the slightest doubt that this vast array of rockets can only
be intended to deliberately and indiscriminately kill civilians.
No one is pretending otherwise. But Europe thinks that there is
no evidence that this is a terrorist organization. Will 100,000
rockets convince you, dear Europe? Perhaps a million? What more
should happen before you wake up?

In the first week of the Lebanon war in the summer of 2006,
Hizbullah murdered a Jewish grandmother and her five-year old
grandson, by one of its rockets. Nothing unusual about that.
After all, this is the declared purpose of the existence of
the Hizbullah. It is called "resistance". Indeed, a fierce resistance
to the existence of Jews in the world. But two days later the
Hizbullah rockets accidentally murdered two little Israeli Arab boys,
a few kilometers away from the same spot. The leader of Hizbullah
went on Television and apologized for killing the Arab little boys,
declaring them to be martyrs. The other children were Jewish,
hence a legitimate target. And Europe still claims to have no
evidence that the Iranian controlled Hizbullah is a terrorist
organization. After all, the president of Iran denies the Holocaust,
recommends the destruction of Israel and his Hizbullah Bullies
destroyed the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.
Are they anti-Semitic? Not at all, "only anti Israeli".
Dear Europe, you do know whether the Holocaust happened or not,
don't you? How can you accept that a UN member nation calls
explicitly for a second holocaust? Where is your voice and,
especially, where is your action? What more should happen before
you wake up?

Hizbullah and Hamas operatives dig dead bodies from their graves
and parade them in well staged theatrical productions in front
of video and still photographers of the western media. The pictures
appear everywhere, some staged and some digitally forged,
electronically modified. Children toys, mysteriously always
in bright colors and very clean, are "accidentally" found in
the midst of the messy and dirty rubble of destroyed Hizbullah
buildings and are photographed repeatedly by international
media teams. Who would have guessed that Hizbullah facilities
contain such sweet teddy bears? But they do! CNN, BBC and other
TV crews run through the rubble of the Hizbullah headquarters
in Beirut, led openly by a Hizbullah PR director, and
always "accidentally" find the same neat photo album of the
same happy family with children in the midst of the dirty rubble.
Zoom in. Close up. Applause. Thank you very much. Senior CNN
correspondents admit explicitly that they are showing to the
public only what the Hizbullah wants them to show, but their
confessions are aired only on CNN in the US and not on CNN in
Europe. What more should happen before you wake up?

Israel withdraws fully from the Gaza strip, only to absorb a
constant barrage of primitive rockets aimed at (you know it by now)
civilian towns in Israel (referred to as "occupied Palestine"
by the President of Iran and the leaders of Hizbullah and Hamas).
Israel fully withdraws, with UN blessing, from Lebanon, and for
six years is, on and off, being attacked by the Hizbullah
"resistance" organization (indeed, resistance to anything the
civilized world believes in). Damascus is hosting the leader
of the Hamas and providing airport and shipping services to
Hizbullah. European ambassadors happily sit there and watch.
And when the Americans, in their own clumsy powerful way, try
to do something about it, not always in a clever way, not
always effectively, the old European Far Left and the European
Neo-Fascists join, as always, in a combined anti American
and anti Semitic chorus. What more should happen before
you wake up?

Thousands of Iraqis are murdered by other Muslims and hundreds
of thousands of Sudanese are slaughtered by Arabs in Darfur,
but Europe is up in arms about one thousand dead Lebanese,
half of whom are Hizbullah terrorists. It is not the dead
people who matter to Europe. It is who killed them. If it
is other Muslims, send it to page 10. If it is Israel, in
self-defense, it is a front page "war crime". Call the UN
for an emergency session! One day, thirty Iraqis are murdered
in Shiite Najaf by a Sunni suicide murderer. The next day,
dozens of Iraqis are shot in the streets of a Sunni neighborhood
in Baghdad by Shiites. And some Europeans still believe that
this is done against the Americans, or by the Americans,
or that it has anything to do with Israel! Wouldn't they try
to kill Americans, if this would be the purpose? For every
American killed in Iraq, there are hundreds of Iraqis
senselessly murdered by other Iraqis. For every attempt to
hurt the Americans, there are dozens of attacks on innocent
Iraqis. Who is funding them? Who provides weapons, explosives,
reconnaissance and intelligence? Not the poor hungry Iraqis.
Who finances the Shiite murderers in Iraq, so close to the
Iranian border? Who is funding the Sunni murderers in Iraq?
I do not know. But I have no doubt that European intelligence
services do know. I do know that the Sunni Palestinian
Islamic Jihad is fully paid by the Shiite Hizbullah and I
know who pays the Hizbullah. But the French foreign minister
visits Beirut and states that Iran is playing a constructive
role and Mr. Prodi asks for help from Iran. What more should
happen before you wake up?

A misguided, but idealistic, young Italian decides to spend
his vacation by arranging a summer camp for Palestinian children
in East Jerusalem. He is stabbed to death by a Palestinian
terrorist (or "resistance fighter", you can choose your words)
in the middle of the street. Medical and social volunteers,
who try to help Iraqis, are kidnapped and beheaded. Money
contributed in Europe for earthquake relief in Pakistan is
used to finance the latest suicide plot against flights from
the UK to the US. Israel withdraws from Gaza and leaves
intact greenhouses that could provide employment to numerous
unemployed Palestinians. The greenhouses are destroyed, under
the supervision of the Hamas and their metal parts are sold
as scrap metal or used as raw material for more primitive
rockets. The greenhouse area becomes a launching pad for
rockets into Israeli villages. After all, they get a better
salary for trying to kill Israelis than for growing
strawberries and flowers. And the EU tries to find ways
of sending money to these people. What more should happen
before you wake up?

Perhaps the so called international human rights organizations
should react? Oh, yes, they do, by one proclamation after another,
denouncing Israel. The secretary general of the UN is critical
of Israel, both in Gaza and in Lebanon. Not one word about
thousands of rockets deliberately sent from both areas towards
Israeli civilians, when Israel is not occupying one centimeter
of their land. The brand new "Human Rights Council", the new
improved version of the old UN "Human Rights Commission"
(yes, the revised version of the grotesque body previously
chaired by Libya) is calling an emergency meeting in order
to condemn Israel in the Lebanese context. "This Council
represents a great new chance for the United Nations,
and for humanity, to renew the struggle for human rights"
says the UN leadership. But in the long six-week
(repeat: six weeks) history of this new council, this is
already the second extraordinary emergency session. The
first session was called in order to denounce Israel in
connection with the Palestinian terror. Did I hear anyone
in Europe protesting? Did Europe announce that it will have
nothing to do with this farce at the "Human Rights Council"?
Why do we hear about EU financial humanitarian aid for the
Lebanese and not for the Israeli civilians whose houses
and schools were destroyed by the terrorists? Perhaps we are
still waiting for the proof that these are terrorists.
Evenhanded Europe, can you please explain why Lebanese
civilians are dearer to you than Israelis? Perhaps, the
argument goes, because more Lebanese died than Israelis.
Ah, but many more Germans died in World War II than
British and French combined. Hitler must have been
right! Did you realize that when the Lebanese government
announces daily the number of dead civilians, they include
among them the hundreds of dead Hizbullah terrorists,
because they are not soldiers? Did you realize that
when Kofi Annan talks about Palestinian casualties
in the conflict with Israel, he always includes
the suicide murderers in the count? Has anyone mentioned
this in Europe? What more should happen before you wake up?

The prime minister of Lebanon, a clear accomplice of the
Hizbullah, by omission and by submission, but not by
commission, sheds tears publicly, in front of world media
and Arab league foreign ministers, about the forty civilians
who were just murdered indiscriminately by Israel, only to
sheepishly admit, a few hours later, that actually one person
was killed in that attack, not forty. But the entire world
has repeatedly watched the well acted phony drama of tears,
with numerous replays by all networks, long after the truth
came out. Few people have bothered to read the small print
of the admission that this was a total fabrication. But we
have already seen this movie, a few years ago, in the Jenin
"refugee camp", where people have been deliberately kept
by the UN and by the Palestinians, for four generations(!),
as refugees, only half an hour drive from where their
grandparents used to live sixty years ago. Arab satellite
TV networks repeatedly broadcast pictures of mutilated bodies,
some real, some being deliberately paraded in front of the
cameras and some being dug from old graves. A gut wrenching
dead body of a little girl, killed in Gaza when she fell from
a swing, is paraded in front of news cameras, shown repeatedly
around the world as an Israeli bomb victim. Shares of Hizbullah,
Hamas and Iran go up in Muslim street markets. Shares of moderate
Arab regimes go down. Do we hear about it from the European media?
What more should happen before you wake up?

How would you defend yourself against a deadly rocket, launched
into your civilian population centers, from the terrace of an
apartment building, without destroying the building and hurting
its dwellers? Perhaps you are supposed to simply announce:
"I am not allowed to defend myself". How can you destroy the next
rocket, before it is launched, if it is hidden inside an apartment
of a family with children, or if it is transported in an
unmarked family car? And if you defend yourself in any way,
does that make you a war criminal, because civilians died together
with the terrorists? When I discussed in my book the need
to rewrite international law, both purists and jurists smiled
cynically at the naïve scientist, who is expressing views on
matters of law. I am the first to plead ignorance and
incompetence in matters of international law, but please
answer my questions: Can you destroy the building in which
the missiles are hidden in bedrooms and from the terrace of
which they are launched, or are you forbidden to defend yourself
at all? Can you recommend an alternative? Do I have to read
every day in European newspapers accusations about Israel
violating international law, while no one is answering this
simple question? How will you, dear Europe, react when the
rockets will be launched against you? In Kosovo, without
rockets, you invited the American bombers to solve the
problem. Numerous innocent civilians were killed,
at your service. You did not complain much. Will you invite
the Americans to defend your cities, when the rockets
arrive? Will you then enjoy their protection and accuse them
of war crimes, when they blast a building full of rockets and,
in the process, kill innocent civilians? What more should
happen before you wake up?

Dear Europe, you live inside a nice and clean bottle,
surrounded outside by deadly poison. The bottle is transparent.
You can see clearly what is happening outside, but in order to
do so, you must uncover your eyes. At the moment, Israel has
the unfortunate fate of being the cork of that bottle. The eye
of the storm has become the cork of the bottle. The metaphor
has changed, but not the role. The poison is leaking into the
bottle and no one inside is acknowledging it. And the cork
is attacked on both sides:
With deadly weapons from the outside, and with deadly words
and pictures from the inside. America had its wake-up call
on September 11, 2001. It made terrible mistakes since then,
but it is fully awake. Some segments of its society are also
in denial, but even they are awake. In my book I made the simple
geographic observation that "when America wakes up, Europe is
out to lunch". Dear Europe, your lunch break is too long and
you are now extending it into a siesta. There is a war outside
and you are going to be part of it. The sooner you act,
the fewer victims will die, both in Europe and in the Muslim
world. Appeasement is not an option and neither is hesitation.
You are guaranteed to be on the winning side, for the sake
of civilization and also for the sake of millions of honest
innocent Muslims, who will eventually pay the highest price
for the madness of their leaders. But you cannot win while
in denial and certainly not before you open your eyes.
What more should happen before you wake up?

Haim Harari
Europe, summer 2006