Israeli PM Netanyahu addresses Joint Meeting of US Congress | Getty No, Prime Minister How Bibi Netanyahu managed to offend Jews, Israelis and Europe in one sweeping blow.

Last week I took part in a wonderful conference on Jews and the Opera, hosted by the Flemish Opera and the University of Antwerp. We discussed, among much else, the mutual inspiration of synagogue songs and some of Europe’s greatest musical compositions. It was a gentle and civilized debate, except for two dissonant notes: the ghost of Shylock and the armed police squad parked outside.

Shylock, like other ugly Jews (often blessed with beautiful daughters) that inhabited European literature and art in the last four centuries, has recently become a problem for theater and opera directors. Is it still legitimate to put the bad old Jewish stereotypes on stage in our increasingly illiberal era, when streets are awash with new forms of anti-Semitism and bigotry? Might the ancient hatred of the proverbial Hebrew, greedy and spiteful, spill out from dusty tomes into the public arena? Will the old zeal to massacre the Christ-killer transform into a new urge to blow up the Palestine-oppressor?

Yes, Europe’s Jews from Paris to Berlin and from Malmö to Madrid are currently facing a fresh and deadly version of the primeval odium. It is more political than biological this time around, but retains a perennial ingredient of the ancient anti-Semitic lore: deeming “the Jews” a collective of suspects, guilty by birth, by faith or merely by surname, eternally responsible for some sort of cardinal sin. In this particular century, the sin is called Israel. If you are a Jew, you must be pro-Israel. If you are pro-Israel, you must be a colonialist tyrant. If you are a colonialist tyrant, maybe you ought to be bombed.

This is the menace that my prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had in mind when he recently told the Jews of Europe to pack and migrate to Israel. “This wave of attacks,” Netanyahu told his cabinet in the wake of murderous targeting of Jews in Brussels, Paris and Copenhagen, ”is expected to continue... Jews deserve security in every country, but we say to our Jewish brothers and sisters, Israel is your home." To prove his seriousness, he launched a $46 million (€42.4 million euro) plan to help French, Belgian and Ukrainian Jews migrate to Israel.

The idea is far from ludicrous: in the three countries singled out for Israel-subsided emigration, significant numbers of Jews reportedly asked for such help. Many Israelis, left and right, are moved by the opportunity to fulfill, once again, the most humane of Zionist intentions, to offer all persecuted Jews a safe haven and a land they may call their own.

This instinct touches my heart as well, but my moral mind says otherwise. Netanyahu may have called his “Jewish brothers and sisters” to come home out of the warmth of his heart, but it is just as likely that his statement was calculated, even cold-blooded. I cannot read his mind, but either way I think Bibi has managed to insult Jews, Israelis and Europeans in one sweeping blow — not bad even by his own standards.

Being Jewish is an accident of birth, but feeling Jewish is a spectrum of choices. Religious or secular, conservative or socialist, a "cultural Jew" or an ultra-orthodox, you can be Jewish in many different ways. Israel may figure in your dreams, your nightmares, or neither. Jewish identity is not external to European or American or Australian identity — such senses of belonging are in a deep overlap, historically and intimately. Therefore, when I meet Jews in Europe, I do not see them as members of my ancestral clan, not even as "European Jews," but rather as Jewish Europeans. This is the most fitting order of words. Yes, we have a long common memory and a shared treasure of books and ideas, but I would like my prime minister to grant them the dignity of making up their own minds about their future, individually and rationally, rather than be rounded up by the primal trumpet of fraternity.

Netanyahu also erred against Israelis. Theodor Herzl, a Viennese liberal, dreamed up modern Israel as an exemplary “state for the Jews” in which Arabs have full and equal citizenship, not as a tribal homeland of terrified refugees. Like all modern states, Israel should regard itself as a polity rather than a family hearth. Therefore, civil fairness to its non-Jewish minorities is far more important than enhancing the Jewish majority by constantly blowing the national horn.

A safe haven for the world’s longest-persecuted group is a noble idea indeed, but it is currently relevant only to Jews in true mortal danger. Paris is not in that spot, thank goodness, nor is Copenhagen, nor is this century’s Berlin. My generation of Israelis must therefore curb the Zionist instinct of emptying the rest of the globe of its Jews and drawing them all in. Instead, we should be working harder to raise our high-tech nation to a higher stature of democracy. While helping Jews in need, Israel’s prime allure should be based on fascination, not fear.

Finally, Netanyahu has erred against Europe. In the aftermath of recent attacks, French president François Hollande and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt offered tangible sympathy, practical support and a decisive commitment to combat fanaticism. Behind them hovers the true founding spirit of the European Union. Precisely this spirit, still very much alive, stands shaken and shamed by Netanyahu’s rebuke.

Of course, Europe’s rulers must rise to their own challenge, putting their houses in order and handling the tough intersection of liberty, safety and diversity. But today’s mainstream Europe is not Shakespeare’s metaphorical Venice. It it becoming sensitive to the hurt of its erstwhile victims, Christian and Muslim, Roma and Jew. It has finally come round to agreeing with Shylock: our hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections and passions are common to us all. This sort of Europe does not deserve to be emptied of its Jews — their best ideas and their spilt blood have helped to build it.

A non-Jewish participant in the Belgian conference expressed his horror at the tough security measures at the Opera building. What is the world coming to, if a gathering of placid historians and gentle musicologists requires the protection of uniformed law enforcers in full gear? Well, I said, let’s look at the bright side, from the long perspective of Jewish history sprinkled with a grain of black Jewish humor: now, for a change, they’re on our side.

Fania Oz-Salzberger is a history professor at the University of Haifa’s Faculty of Law. Her books include Translating the Enlightenment (1995), Israelis in Berlin (2001), and, with Amos Oz, Jews and Words (2012). She tweets at @faniaoz