True.

Agreed that that is an apt analogy. And yeah, some measure of cynical power games is logical and reasonable for anyone taking a political position, I'm afraid...

Not really, no. You have to keep in mind that the European nationalist right, or at least some of those parties, have historical ties to pro-Nazi parties, so it takes some political manoeuvring to get to a pro-Israeli Hawk position. At least in my own country, for a long time one of the most important demands of the far-right party was retroactive amnesty for the "collaborators" during WW2, those who voluntarily cooperated with the Nazi occupiers and were harshly punished for it after the liberation - it's kind of hard to do that with the one hand while courting Israel with the other. They have indeed come around to doing so by now, though.

But no, it's not really about enemy of my enemy, it's just about them feeling that the Nakba and Israel's actions since justify the behaviour of Hamas and Hizbullah - while glossing over Hamas' treatment of its own people.

Sure.

Heh. Probably.

You don't have to cut them too much slack on my behalf. I think the most important point to keep in mind, more than the tightrope walking thing, is the "political correctness" one - the strong pressure within the Arab Muslim and to a lesser extent other Muslim communities that makes it very difficult to make even seemingly common-sense statements like "the majority of the Palestinian refugees will have to remain where they are for good, no matter what", or "a number of passages in the hadith are deeply problematic and should be ignored" or a good number of others. It's easier to come across such statements in places where the Muslims don't feel nearly as beleagured from all sides - like Turkey, or South-East-Asia. But even they feel the pressure from abroad.

Hm, true. But yeah, Qaradawi would not be considered as a radical element.

"Bad old days" may be an American concept that does not apply - in most of Western Europe, having any significant number of immigrants of a different religion and culture is a rather recent concept, dating back only to the sixties and seventies. Hell, having any significant number of inhabitants of a different religion, immigrant or no, is a rather recent concept in my country and some others. Perhaps Americans are liable to forget that until the Muslim immigrants started coming, the bulk of Western Europe consisted of essentially homogeneous regions and countries, in religious terms, having changed extremely little since the turn of the sixteenth century, before the Mayflower even left. Protestants in northern Germany, the bulk of the Netherlands, Switzerland, some parts of France; Catholics in southern Germany, the southern Netherlands and all of Belgium, most of France and all of Italy, Spain and Portugal. In most cases by majorities of 90 if not 95% and more, except perhaps in the big cities. Only the UK had any kind of real mixture, with Catholic and Dissenter minorities dispersed throughout the country (at least, I think they are dispersed, there may still be regions where they are notably more prominent than elsewhere, but I really don't know the details). And yes, Jewish minorities in most of these countries of course, but too small and too concentrated in a small amount of cities to make much of a difference.