From the Jerusalem Post with a H/T to KitmanTV
By ISI LEIBLER
08/18/2010 21:03
There is a popular misconception that the Dutch are an easygoing, tolerant people.
Like many Jews, as a youngster I associated Holland with windmills and tulips and a heroic people which bravely defended Jews during the Nazi occupation.
Alas, I subsequently learned that the record of the Dutch towards the Jews was nothing of the sort. There were tens of thousands of Dutch righteous gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews but there were far more collaborators, over 25,000 of whom even volunteered for the Waffen SS. Overall, the Dutch authorities willingly assisted in the deportation of the Jews. Anne Frank and her family were amongst those denounced to the Nazis. Of the 140,000 Jews living in the Netherlands before the war, over 100,000 were murdered.
Today, there is a popular misconception that the Dutch are an easygoing, tolerant, multi-cultured people.
In truth, Dutch society has become polarized as a consequence of the massive influx of non-Western immigrants, predominantly Muslim, who have shattered social stability. Muslims currently comprise one million out of a 16 million population, a disproportionate number of whom have police records.
Together with indigenous anti- Semites, some radical Muslims have effectively exploited the culture of permissiveness to violently promote their objectives.
Verbal and physical violence has escalated, climaxing in November 2004 with the brutal public street murder in Amsterdam of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh who was shot and stabbed to death by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Muslim radical.
Although this had a major impact on Dutch society, it did not become the watershed one may have expected. However the status of the 30,000 members of the Jewish community, already subjected to increasing anti- Semitic incitement and violence primarily emanating from the Moroccan Muslim community, continued to deteriorate.
The leading daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad published an article in June stating that anti- Semitism in areas of Amsterdam has become the norm rather than the exception. It identified areas in Amsterdam in which Jews with skullcaps or distinctive garb cannot walk in the streets without being affronted, spat at or even attacked.
In May, an outdoor commemoration ceremony for the last transport of 3,000 Jewish children deported during the Holocaust was disrupted by bikers shrieking “Heil Hitler” during the recitation of Kaddish.
Anti-Semitism also manifests itself in anti-Israel demonstrations where cries of “Hamas Hamas – Jews to the gas”; “Jew cancer”; and “Hitler let one get away!” are frequently heard. Football stadiums have become notorious arenas for anti-Israel and anti-Semitic chants. About half of the registered criminal utterances reported on the internet throughout Holland in 2009 were against Jews. It is believed that if full records were accessible, the proportion would be much higher.
LAST MONTH, the 280-year-old synagogue in Weesp became the first Jewish house of worship in Europe since the war obliged to cancel Sabbath services after the police had warned congregants of threats of violence. Continue Reading →
