Four arrested after Rotterdam synagogue explosion: Ashah Al Yamin claims responsibility

Four young men, aged seventeen to nineteen, were arrested in Rotterdam after an explosive device detonated at a synagogue in the heart of the city. No one was injured, thank God, though the blast at around 3:40 a.m. left its mark on the building and, one suspects, on the nerves of every Jew in the Netherlands.

The terrorism suspects, all from Tilburg, were apprehended when police stopped a car prowling suspiciously near another synagogue. The driver's description matched one of the perpetrators from the earlier attack. One can only imagine the scene: young men in a vehicle, perhaps flushed with the adrenaline of what they had just done, now suddenly confronted by officers who had pieced it together with commendable speed.

A group calling itself Ashab Al Yamim, a hitherto unknown Shi'ite terror outfit, has claimed responsibility. 

This is no idle boast; the same shadowy organization has recently launched a series of assaults on Jewish institutions, including a bombing at a synagogue in Liège, Belgium, and another attack in Greece. One is tempted to ask: where do these groups spring from, fully formed, with videos and statements ready to hand out? While the name translates roughly as "Companions of the Right,"  their actions suggest something altogether darker: proxies, perhaps, in a wider campaign of intimidation that has escalated since the joint US-Israeli operations against Iran commenced in late February.

It is difficult not to see a pattern here. Jewish communities across the West find themselves under siege. 

Earlier this week, a synagogue in Michigan was rammed by a vehicle in an incident involving an active shooter. In Canada, several synagogues have endured targeted shootings over the past month. And now this in Rotterdam, arson by explosion, claimed by a new Shi'ite entity whose emergence coincides precisely with heightened tensions in the Middle East.

The police, to their credit, have increased surveillance at other synagogues throughout the city and launched an extensive investigation. [What can their motive possibly be?] 

Whether the four suspects intended further targets remains unconfirmed, but the question hangs in the air: how many more such plots are being hatched, even as we speak?

One cannot help but reflect on the broader malaise. Europe, once so proud of its post-war tolerance, now watches as its Jewish citizens, citizens who have every right to worship in peace, are forced to live behind heightened security, metal detectors, and armed guards. The euphemisms of "heightened concerns" and "increased surveillance" mask a grim reality: Jews are once again being hunted in the streets of European cities, this time under the banner of a resurgent ideological war exported from the Middle East.

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As any great historian of totalitarianism might have observed, the first step toward barbarism is the normalization of targeting a particular group. 

We are well past the first step now. The question is whether the West still possesses the moral clarity, and the will, to confront it before the next explosion claims not just windows and doors, but lives.