The famous aphorism in the title of this item—often cited in reference to the Nazis—comes from Almansor, a play by the great German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, published in 1823. The play is set in Granada just after its annexation to Christian Spain in 1492; the line is spoken by a Muslim character in reference to the mass burning of the Quran by the Inquisition. But, writes Shlomo Avineri, the author most likely had a different event in mind:

Although, in the years following the end of the Napoleonic wars and the 1815 Congress of Vienna, Heine and his Jewish friends were able to attend university and aspire to careers as German writers and scholars, these years also saw the emergence of virulent modern German nationalism. The torchbearers of this movement were the student fraternities. . . .

In 1817, under the guise of celebrating the 300th anniversary of Martin Luther’s “95 Theses,” the fraternities called for a major pilgrimage to the Wartburg fortress in Thuringia, where Luther had once found refuge from his Catholic pursuers. . . . The Wartburg Festival, as it was called, was one of the first political mass demonstrations of the 19th century. Under the banner “Honor, Liberty, and Fatherland,” more than 500 students made the trek to Wartburg Castle. The festive procession culminated in a torchlight parade, with speeches by a number of student leaders and university professors—and a celebratory book burning.

The first volume to be thrown into the flames was the Napoleonic Code, which had been introduced in some German states during the brief period of French hegemony. The students and their teachers saw the civil code as a symbol not only of foreign occupation, but also of the universalistic ideas of the Enlightenment and hence something anti-national and anti-German. Of course, these were precisely the ideas that underwrote the equal rights that had been granted to Jews in the Rhineland and other German areas under French rule or influence. . . .

Another one of the authors whose books were condemned to the flames was Saul Ascher, a German Jewish philosopher and publicist who is today almost totally forgotten. Born Saul ben Anschel Jaffe to a Berlin Jewish banking family, he was one of the first Jewish students to receive a doctorate. By the second decade of the 19th century, Ascher was famous throughout Germany for a series of popular publications in which he supported the ideas of the French Revolution and called for full civic rights for Jews everywhere. Ascher was close to . . . Heine, who wrote about him several times and visited Ascher on his deathbed in 1822, shortly before the publication of Almansor.

Established in 2012 and maintaining branches in Europe, North America, and Iran, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network claims its goal is merely to show “solidarity” for imprisoned Palestinians. The organization’s leader, however, has admitted to being a representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a notorious terrorist group whose most recent accomplishments include murdering a seventeen-year-old girl. As Arsen Ostrovsky and Patricia Teitelbaum point out, Samidoun is just one example of how the European Union allows Iran-backed terrorists to operate in its midst:

The PFLP is a proxy of the Iranian regime, which provides the terror group with money, training, and weapons. Samidoun . . . has a branch in Tehran. It has even held events there, under the pretext of “cultural activity,” to elicit support for operations in Europe. Its leader, Khaled Barakat, is a regular on Iran’s state [channel] PressTV, calling for violence and lauding Iran’s involvement in the region. It is utterly incomprehensible, therefore, that the EU has not yet designated Samidoun a terror group.

According to the Council of the European Union, groups and/or individuals can be added to the EU terror list on the basis of “proposals submitted by member states based on a decision by a competent authority of a member state or a third country.” In this regard, there is already a standing designation by Israel of Samidoun as a terror group and a decision of a German court finding Barakat to be a senior PFLP operative.

Given the irrefutable axis-of-terror between Samidoun, PFLP, and the Iranian regime, the EU has a duty to put Samidoun and senior Samidoun leaders on the EU terror list. It should do this not as some favor to Israel, but because otherwise it continues to turn a blind eye to a group that presents a clear and present security threat to the European Union and EU citizens.