Posted on 04/22/2002 1:36:30 PM PDT by knighthawk
The conflict in the Middle East is no longer confined in the region, but is manifesting in an increasing way in the streets of European cities. Notebly in France en Belgium a wave of antisemitism is flooding the cities. But also in other European countries, like Germany and the Netherlands, report a strong increase of antisemetic incidents.
After the attacks on Spetember 11 in New York (and Washington) there was a virtual wave of islamofobic, now it are mostly synagogues, kosjer shops, Jewish cemetaries and Jewish citicens who are targeted. In France the first two weeks in April there were 360 antisemetic incidents reported, a French antiracism organization reports. Most suspects are young and originate from North Africa.
In Belgium three Jewish buildings were set on fire in a short period. Jews in the street are repeatedly are called 'Hitler'. In Berlin two American othodox Jews were beaten up, an Jewish memorial was defaced with swastikas. In the Netherlands a pro-Palestina-deomstration in Amsterdam erupted in riots and antiracism organizations report a strong increase of antisemitist incidents. The bureau in Amsterdam registered in the three months half the number of incidents that usualy are reported in a whole year.
R. Eyssens of Meldpunt Discriminatie (Reportcenter Discrimination): "After the WTC-attacks we recieved ten reports of antisemitism, and three of those were related to the intifada. During the last four months this number was 55 and 25 of them were intifada related."
That the emotions of the conflict in the Middle East also are evident in Europe is not strange, says racism-experts. Becuase of the immigration of certain people inevitable the conflicts that happen outside of Europe are imported. When PPK (Kurdish terrorist group)-leader Ocalan was arrested, the tensions between the Turks and the Kurds rised. The Molukkans also protested when the battle between muslims and Christians heated up in Indonesia. In England there are frequent clashes between Indian and Pakistani people.
'Migration causes people to enter that indentify strongly with events that occure in their homeland', says P. Rodrigues, researcher at the Anne Frankfoundation. But the way these conflicts get out of hand tell something about the politics and atmosphere in the country, he concludes. That is why France is delivering more critique at the adress of Israel than the Netherlands and is less determined to counter antisemitism.
Rodriques: 'Le Pen in France and the Vlaams Blok en Belgium created such an enviroment for a long tide to allow such feelings. Those feeling are openly displayed. That could happen in this country with Fortuyn too." The parties in power also started to make such hard statements. PvdA (Dutch socialists) member Rob Oudkerk was caught speaking about 'kut-Marokaantjes' (female genitals-Moroccans), minister Van Boxtel spoke about 'quat-chewing Somalian scoundrals'.
When the muslims are feeling less accepted, they will side with the Palestinians, the weak party, more and more. This according to L. Hamidi of the National bureau for countering racial discrimination. She says that the feelings that arouse on September 11 also play a role. "Then muslims were confronted with the feeling they collectively were to blame for the attacks." She sees that the muslimyouths are imitating the intifada style: throwing rocks and burning flags.
The Dutch Iranian A. Elliean, criminal code and international law expert, fears that the riots are only the top of the iceberg. He says that the influence of 'political islam' is still underestimated in Europe. "Mosques and islamic foundations spread a political message that also is noticible in Arabic countries: the conflict in the Middle East is being fought with American weapons and European money. That message is also brought by Al Jazeera and is being spread to the growing muslimcommunity in Europe by their satelite-dishes. This brings a strong anti-American feeling and hatered of Jews with it."
Bolkenstein fears more riots will break out between Jews and muslims
De Volkskrant, April 22
European Commissionar Frits Bolkenstein fears that the incidents between Dutch Jews and immigrant youths will happen more frequently. He recons that within a few decades the majority of the population in the big cities are made up of immigrants. "They are not nessesary in the majority anti-Jewish, but I fear that it will contribute to it."
Bolkenstein commented Sunday in the TV-program 'Buitenhof' about the incidents that occured in Amsterdam during a pro-Palestinian-demonstration. A small group of protesters attacked Jewish people. Bolkenstein refered to this as 'terrible'.
On the same program imam A. Haselhoef reacted to his comments. According to Haselhoef is it not really the case of antisemitism, but rather the case of 'anti-Israel feelings'. He said to somehow understand this feeling, when seeing the way the Israelis went into Jenin. What is happening with the Palestinians is the same as what happened to the Jews in WWII. He also said he could understand that the protesters in Amsterdam carried sign displaying swastikas. Those signs where not aimed at the Jews in the Netherlands, but are a symbol of 'the feeling of solidarity with the Palestinians.
Rodrigues is somewhat wrong about blaming the far-right groups of letting the anti-Jewish attitude grow. It is the current governments fualt of letting the muslims get away with everything. The 'multicultural society' failed and now they blame others for the mess their cuddly toy muslims are creating. Here in the Netherlands the left parties are totaly responsible for the muslims way of thinking they can get away with everything. Parties like the PvdA (socialists) and Green Left made it impossible to discuss the problems with the immigrants. Now they are out of control.
Group-rape of girl cover up attempt uncovered in Holland
Group-rape of girl cover up in Holland - an update
Dutch court acquits Muslim cleric of discrimination charges
Also he claims that Pim Fortuyn is like Le Pen. He is totaly wrong about that. Fortuyn is very pro-Israel (he wrote a book about that in 1997) and if he was the prime-minister in the Netherlands, he would have never let Arafat be invited to the Netherlands like Wim Kok did. Arafat was greeted like a stateman. Wim Kok even kissed him!
The demonization of Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch up and coming politician
More on the way Europe is heading:
France's angry young Muslims
Attacks on Jews leave Marseille wondering about a rupture
Anti-Semitism: 'Vandalism' worries Jews in Paris
"No parking tickets for Jews": The Situation In France
Danish (Left) Opposition, Unions Call For Pro-Palestinian Demo
Death To Jewish settlers: Anti-Zionist Poet (UK neo-nazi speak out)
Europe Feels Shockwaves From Middle East Conflict
Europe s Jews fear new wave of anti-Semitism
European Jihad
Pro-Palestinian demonstration in Antwerp
Pro-Palestinian demonstration in Brussels
Belgian Foreign Minister: EU Should Reconsider Trade Relations With Israel
Israel summons the ambassador of France, Belgium
The real nazis: how they spread the hatred of Jews and the call for 'Endlosung'
The Palestinian Authorities like you never heard them (PA: the Jews are to be exterminated)
Letting Arafat Off The Hook: Yasser Arafat As You've Never Heard Him (PA: US are the bad guys)
A view on Jews and Israel from Khilafah.com
Arabic Press and the Jews: Antisemitism Worldwide 2000/1
Arab youth urged to help intifada
Ask the imam: Why can t the Jews and Muslims live together in peace?
Is Peace With Israel Possible?: The Islamic Verdict
Death to America, Death to Israel: A Call to All Arab Nations
UN backs Palestinian violence
(UN) Resolution to endorse violence
How they indoctrinate their children to hate and kill (like the nazis did)
They dream of peace ... and blood
(Palestinian) Toddlers' lessons in terror
If people want on or off this list, please let me know.
The Dutch Iranian A. Elliean, criminal code and international law expert, fears that the riots are only the top of the iceberg. He says that the influence of 'political islam' is still underestimated in Europe. "Mosques and islamic foundations spread a political message that also is noticible in Arabic countries: the conflict in the Middle East is being fought with American weapons and European money. That message is also brought by Al Jazeera and is being spread to the growing muslimcommunity in Europe by their satelite-dishes. This brings a strong anti-American feeling and hatered of Jews with it."
Someone who knows what he is talking about. Doesn't fit into lefty preconceptions or satisfy their guilty feelings, so it will be ignored.
By Khaled Shawkat, IOL Netherlands correspondent
THE HAGUE, April 21 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - An upcoming lawsuit against the Dutch government that “broke Dutch law and constitution” in its military cooperation with Israel could be a sign indicating an increasing impact of the Palestinian issue in the Netherlands, especially with the appearance of the Palestinian issue in the Dutch elections’ speeches.
In an interview with IslamOnline, Benji DeLevi, head of the committee of defending the Palestinian people, Palestina Komite, said that his organization will take its protest against the Dutch government’s attitude toward the Palestinian issue to court, by filing a lawsuit against the government.
DeLevi, who is also Jewish, said that the Dutch government has been breaking the law for more than five decades in many ways, including selling highly developed weapons to Israel to be used in deterring actions against the Palestinian civilians in refugee camps and occupied towns.
“The U.S.-made Apache airplanes used by the Israeli army in its last campaign in the West Bank and Gaza to destroy homes and kill civilians are functioning with an electronic systems made by known Dutch companies that sold it to Israel with the approval of the Dutch government,” he added.
The Dutch cabinet resignation over a report on the 1995 Srebrenica massacre was one of the most important elements encouraging the committee to condemn the government on a higher level, as there is no difference between the Palestinian civilians killed by the Israeli soldiers in Nablus and Jenin and the civilians killed in Srebrenica, DeLevi said.
“The government that was condemned for not protecting Bosnians is also blamed for facilitating the mission murders in Palestinian territories by providing them with weapons, regardless of the fact that the Dutch law forbid the selling of arms to regions of conflicts and wars,” he added.
Delevi also said that the committee of defending the Palestinian people, founded in the seventies by a group of Dutch Leftists activists, is currently working on mobilizing human rights and civil society organizations to adopt the lawsuit that will be filled at the Hague preliminary court and to pressure the political elite obstruct any upcoming arms deals between the Netherlands and Israel.
The Netherlands, which enjoys its role as a center for international justice and host of the United Nations Tribunal in The Hague, is having its elections in May and this may be an opportunity to take some promises from candidates to stop arms deals with Israel.
The importance of the Palestinian issue in the upcoming elections was already noticed when the head of the Dutch leftist party began his first speech in his electoral campaign by assuring his party’s support to the Palestinian people and condemning Israeli aggression in the Palestinian towns.
The Netherlands, which has been the most supportive state to Israel in West European countries, is now witnessing a change in its bias foreign policy along with a more understanding position toward the Palestinian rights.
This shift is due to the increasing role of the Muslim minority in political fields, in addition to the activities of organizations, such as the Committee of Defending the Palestinian People, and Palestinian communities in the Netherlands.
I'd appreciate it if you added me to the list.
look at this than:
Volkskrant online forum (Eurotrash alert and the ultimate barf alert?)
Vandals Destroy Slovakia Tombstones
AP via Europe Daily, April 22
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Vandals destroyed 135 tombstones at a Jewish cemetery in Slovakia's second-largest city over the weekend, a rabbi said Monday.
Rabbi Jossi Steiner said the desecrations were discovered Sunday by a visitor to the cemetery in Kosice in eastern Slovakia. Dozens of grave markers were torn down, and some were broken into several pieces, he said.
``Those mute stones couldn't cry out, so they knocked them down,'' an angry Steiner told The Associated Press by telephone from Kosice, 260 miles east of the capital, Bratislava, and home to the country's second-largest Jewish community.
Steiner said the same cemetery was attacked by vandals several years ago, though not to this extent.
During World War II, when the formerly communist country served as a puppet state to Nazi Germany, about 70,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps, where most perished; today, only about 3,000 Jews remain in Slovakia.
As police searched for the vandals, Kosice's city hall issued a statement strongly protesting ``the largest attack on the Jewish community in our city since the Holocaust.''
City hall spokeswoman Zuzana Bobrikova said Kosice's reputation as a peaceful and tolerant city was damaged by the act, which she said ``casts a shadow on these attributes.''
``At a time when tensions are growing in the Middle East, we consider such act to be ill-considered and condemnable,'' she said in a statement.
A wave of anti-Semitic attacks has hit Europe this month amid Israel's offensive in the West Bank.
They've got the same plan for the U. S., of course.
I'd like to think they'd have a harder time here making political inroads; but I used to think Americans were too smart to fall for lefty propaganda in a big way, too.
When many in the Muslim world blamed Israel and its supposed desire to discredit Islam for the Sept. 11 attacks, most Americans dismissed the report as a deformed joke. But just as the attacks forced Americans to face the fact that there are deadly serious groups seeking to destroy them, so some of the anti-Semitic actions in Europe in recent months cause us to wonder whether, six decades after the Holocaust, we are witnessing a resurgence of the virulent hatred that caused it.
Expressions of sympathy for the Palestinians or criticism of the Israeli military campaign in the West Bank are of course entirely appropriate. What is troubling are hateful statements and actions like the bombs thrown at Jewish schools, centers and groups in France, or the Orthodox Jews beaten on the streets of Belgium and Berlin, or the truck bomb driven into the ancient synagogue in Tunisia. We worry that such actions, largely by Muslim extremists, touch a historic chord in Europe that is not being confronted. Israelis have been too quick, over the years, to view criticism of their government as motivated by anti-Semitism. But it is hard to think of another word for the way some critics of Israel's policy toward the Palestinians are expressing their opposition. The dark shadow of Europe's past seemed to be reappearing when the liberal Italian daily La Stampa depicted a baby Jesus looking up from the manger at an Israeli tank, saying, "Don't tell me they want to kill me again." Or when a Lutheran bishop in Denmark delivered a sermon in the Copenhagen Cathedral comparing Ariel Sharon's policies toward the Palestinians to those of King Herod, who ordered the slaughter of all male children under the age of 2 in Bethlehem.
Political opinion in Europe is certainly one-sided when it comes to the Mideast conflict. Members of the Norwegian Nobel committee have publicly called for the withdrawal of the peace prize from the Israeli foreign minister, Shimon Peres, but not from his co-winner, Yasser Arafat. The European Parliament voted to urge member governments to impose trade sanctions on Israel but urged no action against the Palestinian Authority. Historically, the far right and far left have not agreed on much. These days they seem united in their contempt for the Jewish state.
This was evident last summer at the international conference against racism in Durban, South Africa, which turned into a celebration of Israel hatred. Zionism was once again equated with racism, and Israel's legitimacy came under repeated attack.
Focusing on the suffering of only one side is also not the same as anti-Semitism, although it is distressing. Just as there are American politicians who believe that they have no political room to maneuver when it comes to support for Israeli policies, so there are European politicians with large Muslim constituencies whose voters do not want to acknowledge gray areas in this fight. There are also other explanations for the European mood. Guilt over the Holocaust may be salved with the thought that Jews, too, can act with cruelty. And given U.S. sponsorship of Israel, being fashionably anti-American can easily mean being anti-Israel.
But much of Europe has a special responsibility to be cautious. Its cultures are drenched in a history of anti-Semitism. The mixing of historic European anti-Semitism with the more modern version in the Muslim world is a dangerous cocktail.
All this does not mean that Israel should be above criticism. Far from it. But it does mean that when you read of hooded men shouting "Death to Jews" attacking a Jewish soccer team in suburban Paris, as happened recently, it should prompt some profound soul-searching about whether the past has come calling.
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