netherlands 2001-2

 

The rise in antisemitism noted since 1997 became more acute and serious in nature with the outbreak of the second intifada. Six violent antisemitic acts were recorded in 2001 and six in the first four months of 2002. In addition, there was a steep increase in threats to use violence and in abusive language against Jews, as well as in harassment of Jewish schoolchildren.

 

the jewish community

An estimated 30,000 Jews live in the Netherlands today out of some 16 million inhabitants. The majority live in Amsterdam. Dutch Jewry is represented by three councils, based on affiliation: the Nederlands Israelitisch Kerkgenootschap, the Verbond van Liberaal Religieuze Joden and the Portugees Israelitisch Kerkgenootschap. The community, which sustains a variety of religious and educational institutions, publishes the newspaper Nieuw Israelitisch Weekblad.

 

political parties and extra-parliamentary groups

The Far Right

Holland’s extreme right parties have not recovered from electoral setbacks and organizational problems of the past few years. Although not officially confirmed, the Nederlands Blok has been dissolved since it lost its only seat on the Utrecht council in 1998. The Centrumdemocraten (CD), which has lost much of its political cadre, also appears to be on the decline.

            The Niewe Nationale Partij (NNP) remains the only far right party with a distinct following. CD and CP’86 veterans who largely made up the party’s cadre are gradually being replaced by a younger generation. In 2001 it focused on running its Internet page and conducting pamphlet campaigns.

            Dutch neo-Nazis were active in 2001. Stormfront Nederland (SFN), formed by dissident members of the NYU (see below), held short, unannounced demonstrations in several big cities. Membership of this extremely racist group is unstable and consists mainly of young skinheads and youth from the rave scene without political motivation. Three SFN members were involved in the Jewish cemetery desecration at Oosterhout (see below).

            The Nederlandse Volksunie (NYU) successfully contested in court a ban on demonstrations imposed by the local authorities of Kerkrade. On 24 March a group of about 150 Dutch and German neo-Nazis marched through the town bearing the slogan “Against criminalization of nationalists.” However, its plans to hold further demonstrations appear to have been shelved when key NYU activist Constant Kusters went to prison (see ASW 1999/2000). The position of German neo-Nazis within the NYU has been reinforced by the appointment of Christian Malcoci as party secretary. The National Offensief, formed in 1999, was dissolved.

            Holland experienced a rise in race-motivated violent crime in 2001. Although individual members of far right groups were responsible in some incidents, there was no evidence that they had received instructions from their organizations. Following the September 11 events, the country experienced a brief spate of anti-Muslim violence, directed mainly against mosques and Islamic schools (vandalism, graffiti, arson attempts, as well as phone and letter threats). Several NYU and SFN members were arrested in connection with these incidents.

 

Islamist Extremism

The strong anti-integration tendency evident among some groups of Muslims raised in the country could induce further radicalization. Some young Muslim youths have already proved receptive to support for or even participation in Islamist-inspired violence. Individual members or branches of several Islamist groups linked to trans-national terrorist networks are being monitored by the Dutch security services. These include the Algerian Groupe salafiste pour la Prédiction et le Combat and Takfir wal Hijra; the Egyptian al-Jama‘a al Islamiyya and Islamic Jihad; and the Turkish Kaplan (Caliphate), which was banned in Germany (see Germany).

 

antisemitic activity

While a continuous rise in antisemitism has been noted since 1997, the increase in manifestations became sharper and more serious in nature with the outbreak of the second intifada in September/October 2000. For example, while in 1999 only one act of physical violence was recorded, there were six each in 2000 and 2001, and six reported in the first four months of 2002. Similarly, there were eight threats of the use of violence in 2001 (nine in the first half of 2002), compared with only one in 1999. The number of incidents of abusive language directed at Jews (or people mistaken for Jews) rose to 55 in 2001 (40 in the first four months of 2002), compared to 17 in 1999. It should be noted that these figures do not reflect the real picture. Investigation by CIDI researchers has revealed that many victims of verbal or written abuse are reluctant to lodge complaints to the police. Either they dismiss the incidents as “not so terrible,” or complain that the process is too time-consuming and may never reach the courts in the end. Moreover, Jewish institutions have ceased keeping count of antisemitic phone calls, e-mail and other letters due to their multiplicity.

            The seriousness of the incidents in the Netherlands is highlighted by the fact that an increasing number of Jews are becoming victims of antisemitic violence and abuse. Until recently, no Jew since World War II had been threatened with a pistol or had Jewish children canceled their membership in football clubs because of acts of violence directed against them. Moreover, in the mid-1990s cries of “Death to the Jews” and “Sieg Heil” by demonstrators and “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas” by football fans would have been cut short by police intervention, and Jews could wear skullcaps or display car stickers with a Star of David, without suffering physical or verbal abuse.

            The clear connection between antisemitic expressions and events in the Middle East is demonstrated by the steep rise in abusive utterances and e-mails from December 2001 onward, as violence has increased between Israel and the Palestinians – 110 e-mails in the first four months of 2002 compared to only 31 in 2001 and 10 in 2000. Many involved in antisemitic acts have been identified as dislocated youth from the Moroccan community in Amsterdam, who, according to the weekly Vry Nederland, among others, share a sense of solidarity with the Palestinians, and are influenced by Arab broadcasts on the conflict as well as by antisemitic propaganda in the Arab world (see also ASW 2000/1). However, it should be noted that most of those who gave the Hitler salute or vandalized the Jewish cemeteries in Oosterhout and Zaltbommel (see below) were native Dutch, not second-generation Moroccan, youths.

            While the majority of the incidents took place in Amsterdam, where the largest Jewish community resides, the considerable increase in antisemitic acts directed at Jews in non-Jewish schools elsewhere in the country and in antisemitic e-mail received in other areas indicates that the problem is not confined to that city.

 

Violence, Vandalism, Threats and Abuse

There were at least four incidents of violence near synagogues in Amsterdam in 2001. In August, a Jewish woman was threatened at knife point and abused by Moroccan youths, who called her a “filthy Jew.” The woman recognized the boys from her neighborhood and informed the police, who could not arrest them because they were minors. In The Hague, a man identifiable as a Jew by his skullcap was repeatedly abused by Moroccan youths, who jeered and spat at him.

Among the violent acts perpetrated in the first half of 2002, in many cases by youths from the Moroccan community, a Jewish woman was beaten after trying to prevent the burning of an Israeli flag at a pro-Palestinian demonstration; an American youth was kicked and beaten and his skullcap taken; a Jewish boy was spat upon, pursued by someone who held a swastika over his head and called “rotten Jew, dirty child murderer”; a British Jewish visitor who had gotten into a dispute with another driver, was hit on the head, kicked and verbally abused; and a Turk, mistaken for a Jew, was called “a dirty, rotten Jew,” and beaten up by two Moroccan youths. In April a Jewish stall holder in Amsterdam was threatened by a non-native Dutchman with a pistol when he affirmed that he had participated in a pro-Israel demonstration. There were other numerous incidents of abuse in 2001/2, especially directed at Jews on their way to or from synagogue, but, as mentioned, many cases were not even reported. It should also be noted that while many of these incidents occurred in areas with large Arab communities, some took place in “white” areas with large Jewish populations. Increased security measures in some heavily Arab populated areas near synagogues and the wearing of hats or peaked caps over skullcaps have reduced the number of anti-Jewish incidents in those vicinities.

            There were two serious desecrations of Jewish cemeteries in 2001, one at Oosterhout in April and the other at Zaltbommel in June. Gravestones were daubed with swastikas and inscriptions such as “Juden raus” (70 gravestones at Oosterhout and 7 at Zalbommel). The perpetrators of both acts – in the first case, three members of Stormfront - were arrested. The three Stormfront members received prison sentences of less than two months each. Graves at the Utrecht Jewish cemetery were also daubed with graffiti in early 2001.

Serious harassment of schoolchildren was another indication of the escalation in antisemitism. A Jewish boy was beaten up and called a “filthy Jew” at a secondary school near Utrecht. According to his mother, the boy had suffered continuous abuse and swastikas were daubed on their house. Another secondary school pupil in South Holland, who also claimed to be the target of continuous abuse, found a portrait of Hitler in her locker. According to a report on antisemitism in non-Jewish schools in the Jewish weekly Het Nieuwe Israelish Weekblad (26 April 2002), if you are Jewish you stand a fair chance of being baited, especially in schools with a large Moroccan population.

            Dozens of abusive letters, e-mails, faxes and phone calls branded Jews as murderers, conspirators and swindlers, and wished that Hitler had “finished off the job.” For example, six Jewish institutions received antisemitic letters during the year from a citizen signing himself “A.L.E. Hameis.” A letter sent to the director of CIDI referred to a “mini-holocaust perpetrated by the ‘Jews’,” which needed “to be settled as soon as possible.” In March 2001 a Dutch Jewish citizen reported the following message recorded in accentless Dutch on his voice mail: “Smutty, rotten Jew. I am going to murder you. Palestine forever!” Complaints to the police were lodged in several cases, but there have been no prosecutions.

Members of an Orthodox Jewish youth football team were .injured and abused by members of the rival SC Orient team to such an extent that the latter were barred from competition.

 

Propaganda

About 20,000 people took part in a national demonstration in April 2002 organized by the Palistina Komite and the KMAN (Committee for Moroccan Workers in the Netherlands), under the slogan “Stop the war against the Palestinians.” Violent rioting ensued and US, British and Israeli flags were burned. Participants displayed antisemitic banners, with slogans such as “Sharon is Hitler,” “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas” and “Death to the Jews.”

CIDI was forced to close its Internet discussion page because of the large amount of abuse it received. Comments included “Ras, ras, all Jews to the gas,” and “Filthy Jews.”

The Dutch Jewish community was denounced as “a community of conspirators” by neo-Nazi Tim Mudde in the online and hard copy extreme right journal Niuwe bezems. In his article “The High Degree of Organization of the ‘Chosen People’ (Part II),” Mudde cites the names of Jews, as well as non-Jews working for anti-racist organizations.

            Copies of a magazine containing antisemitic and anti-Christian texts were found in the As Siddieq primary school in Amsterdam. The texts appeared in the journal El Tahweed, published by the foundation of the same name. The chairman of the school board, El Shersaby, serves on the board of directors of the El Tahweed Foundation. Examples of offensive texts include: “Jews own the arms industry and, on the other hand, are the ones that wage war.” Also, “the Jews believe that they are the only ones with racial purity and that the sperm of the rest of the world is dog sperm.” Although dating from 1996, these claims can be found on the Internet site of El Tahweed. According to a spokesman of the Board of Education, whose inspectors visited the school following a CIDI complaint to the police, “if a school board member makes statements that are unacceptable, the matter belongs with the Ministry of Justice.”

 

responses to racism and antisemitism

There have been various attempts to initiate dialogue between the Jewish and Muslim communities. In April an Islamic youth organization organized a meeting for Jews and Muslims, and a Coalition for Peace in the Middle East in the Netherlands was launched by a group of Jews and Muslims. Contacts have been established between CIDI and ISBO, the roof organization of Muslim schools.

            In May the Supreme Court suspended the judgment of a lower court, which had sentenced NVU member Joop Glimmerveen to five months imprisonment for incitement to hatred and discrimination at gatherings in Rotterdam and Schiedam in 1996, and referred the case to the Amsterdam Court of Appeal because of a legal technicality.

            In July the Roermond police court sentenced Constant Kusters, Eite Homan and a third neo-Nazi to imprisonment and fines for, inter alia, displaying offensive symbols and slogans during a demonstration in the town of Echt in August 2000. All three have appealed.

            The Supreme Court, which reviewed the case of Pieter van der Sloot (Pieter Waterdrinker), author of the book Danslessen (Dancing Lessons) who was accused of libel, upheld his acquittal by the Amsterdam Court of Appeal (see ASW 1999/2000), although on different grounds. The book contains antisemitic references to a Jewish mayor of Zandvoort. The current mayor of the town is Jewish.