NETHERLANDS 2002-3
The number of antisemitic incidents
recorded in 2002 rose 140 percent from 2001. The increase was particularly
pronounced in the categories of physical violence and threats and abusive
e-mails. The extreme right reacted angrily to the assassination of Pim Fortuyn
by a left-wing animal rights activist. Several dozen Islamists involved in
financial, material and logistical support activities to terrorist networks
were arrested in the Netherlands in 2002.
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
organizations and groups
The Extreme Right
Three
movements may
be distinguished within the extreme right camp in the Netherlands: the
so-called civil extreme right, whose members espouse xenophobic and
ultra-nationalist views but comply with democratic principles; the neo-Nazi
network, whose members openly express anti-democratic and racist views and are prepared
to use extra-legal means to realize their
objectives; and unorganized groups of individuals and sub-cultures which
propagate extreme right or racist messages and manifest their opinions in street violence,
extreme
right demonstrations, on the Internet or in sound recordings with discriminatory or racist
texts.
The
civil extreme right fared poorly in the May 2002 elections. With the death of
former member of parliament Hans Janmaat, his party, the Centrumdemocraten
(Center Democrats – CD) ceased to
exist. The Nederlands Blok (Dutch Bloc –NB) of Wim Vreeswijk also became
defunct after years of decline. The Nieuwe Nationale Partij (New
National Party
– NNP)
was the only organization within the civil extreme right stream that was active.
The party is supported by young people and by former activists of the CP’86, which was
banned in 1998 (see ASW 1997/8).
In 2002 the NNP took part in several local elections, but obtained only two seats in
the Rotterdam borough of Feijenoord.
The NNP did not succeed in acquiring sufficient financial means and signatures
to take part in the national elections of 22 January
2003.
The
neo-Nazi Nederlandse Volks-Unie (Dutch People’s Union – NVU) also took
part in several local elections. The German neo-Nazi (and also NVU secretary)
Christian Malcoci stood as a candidate in Kerkrade, but his
party received almost no votes.
NVU leaders
successfully contested a municipal ban on public demonstrations in the courts.
In 2002 dozens of Dutch and German neo-Nazis rallied in secluded
industrial zones of Rotterdam and Harderwijk, after their initial prohibition
by the local authorities. Both demonstrations went smoothly, partly due to the
fact that they
had been ordered to relocate to remote areas and partly due to the
presence of the police, who succeeded in keeping anti-fascist
counter-demonstrators and football hooligans at a distance.
A
numerically small and isolated group of neo-Nazis, led by NVU party
ideologist Eite Homan, is active within the Antizionistische Beweging
(Anti-Zionist Movement
– AZB).
This group attempts to link up with Arab nationalists and radical Muslims in order to fight the
mutual enemy (the United States, Israel and the big capitalists
“dominated by the Jews”). In 2002 several members of the AZB took part in
pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Homan and several comrades were possibly
involved in disturbances that took place at the anti-Israel demonstration in Amsterdam on 13 April 2002 (see below). The AZB has
published names, addresses and photographs of political enemies on the Werewolf
page on the Internet. These include Jewish institutions, left-wing activist
groups and governmental bodies. A call for “dealing” with these entities has meanwhile
disappeared from the web page.
Unorganized
extreme right movements commonly use the Internet to express themselves. There
are several extreme right-wing Dutch web pages containing racist and antisemitic
texts and Dutch right-wing extremists also use the American Internet discussion
group Stormfront. This discussion group is not associated with Stormfront Nederland mentioned
above.
Several
former NVU supporters are active in the Dutch wing of the international group Blood
& Honour (B&H). B&H Netherlands use sound recordings to
disseminate extreme right-wing or racist messages and tries to organize
concerts of a similar nature.
In
2002 the extreme right showed great interest in the Lijst Pim Fortuyn/Leefbaar
(LPF/LN) front. Its oppositional stand, and particularly that adopted by Pim Fortuyn
on the immigrant issue, attracted people with an extreme right outlook. The
press revealed that dozens of extreme right adherents had signed the support
lists for the May 2002 and January 2003 national elections of, among others, the
LN. Partly as a result of media pressure, the LN and the LPF, banned right-wing
extremists from their parties. In particular, attention focused on the contacts
of Leefbaar Rotterdam councillor Michiel Smid with extreme right groups.
The
extreme right reacted angrily to Fortuyn’s assassination a week before the May
election by a left-wing animal rights activist who opposed his anti-immigration
stand, and several extreme rightists were involved in public disturbances in The Hague on the
evening of 6 May following his death. Many of them also took part in the
various silent marches that took place in the Netherlands during the
next week and the NVU held a “commemoration march” in Harderwijk. Left-wing
politicians were attacked on extreme right web pages, and three neo-Nazis were
arrested following information that they were preparing to retaliate against
left-wing politicians. The assassination of Fortuyn was strongly condemned
by the entire far left-wing movement, as well as by animal rights activists.
Islamic Activity and Groups
Radical Islamic networks in the Netherlands are involved in financial, material and logistical support for terrorist groups. In 2002 dozens of Islamic youths were
reportedly involved in recruiting to these networks in the Netherlands, partly as a result of radicalization within the Islamic community. Several dozen
Islamists were arrested on the basis of General
Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) investigations in 2002. In response to
these arrests, the
British-based Omar Bakri, who has alleged ties to al-Qa‘ida and is known for
his extremist views (see UK), criticized the Dutch
authorities for their “anti-Muslim” policy in a TV interview. He stated that
he would not be surprised if Muslims were to take up arms against the Dutch government.
In
addition, the AIVD’s investigations into Islamic terrorism revealed that
various persons and organizations in the Netherlands in 2002 are
suspected of links to Islamic terrorist support activities in foreign
countries.
Such
support includes organizing false travel and personal documents, putting up
jihad fighters or other Islamists and assisting them in entering, passing
through and leaving the country.
Some
Islamic NGOs,
especially those involved in charitable or other social causes, engage in financing
Islamic terrorism. In 2002 two organizations in particular were being
scrutinized: Benevolence International Foundation (BIF), affiliated to al-Qa‘ida, and the al-Aqsa foundation, associated with Hamas. The bank accounts of
both groups have been frozen in the Netherlands (the former group is on the UN sanctions
list and the EU “freeze list”; the latter is included in the EU list of
terrorist organizations).
Another
focus of AIVD activity is Jama‘a Islamiyya (JI), an Asian
collaborative partnership between Muslim extremists seeking a pan-Asian Islamic
state to include Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and parts of
the Philippines. JI Supporters
have been linked to the Bali attacks in
October 2002.
Abdul
Wahid Kadungga, a
Dutch passport holder considered to be a key link between al-Qa‘ida and JI, was
arrested in Indonesia in December 2002.
The international
radical-Islamic movement Hizb al-Tahrir (HUT) recruits members
within the Netherlands from within a small
circle of the Turkish community.
antisemitic activities
The trend of
an increase in antisemitism, first noted in 1999, continued into 2002, when the
number of antisemitic incidents rose to 337, up 140 percent from 2001. This
increase was particularly pronounced in the category of abusive e-mails (from
31 in 2001 to 159 in 2002, 108 of which were addressed to CIDI). The number of
serious incidents (physical violence against individuals and institutions and
threats of violence) also grew, from 16 in 2001 to 33 in 2002. There was also a
serious growth in verbal abuse, from 48 incidents in 2001 to 68 in 2002. The
number of Internet sites and chat boxes monitored by the Meldpunt Discriminatie
Internet (MDI) – hotline for reporting Internet discrimination) rose
drastically, from 197 in 2001 to 584 in 2002. Some observers believe the actual
number of incidents to be quadruple the official figure since many incidents go
unreported.
Antisemitism
is now evident in all sectors of society including the workplace, school,
sports and the Internet. The rise in the number of incidents of harassment at
schools is particularly troubling: in 2001 there were four, in 2002 six, and
during the first few months of 2003, seven such reports were received.
The
increase in anti-Jewish manifestations is clearly related to the violence in
the Middle
East,
as demonstrated by the exceptional rise in incidents (both physical attacks and
slurs) in March/April during Operation Defensive Shield (see ASW 2001/2).
Reduced interest in the Palestinian-Israel violence in the first months of 2003
due to the war against Iraq led to a temporary decline in the number
of antisemitic incidents compared to the same period the previous year.
Propaganda
Most, but by
no means, all incidents of verbal abuse are perpetrated by youths of North
African descent. These youths tend to exhibit a strong sense of solidarity with
the Palestinians and are encouraged by Arab TV stations which export antisemitic
prejudices prevailing throughout the Arab world to Europe via
satellite. Some second and third-generation Arab youths are poorly integrated
into Dutch society and are ignorant about World War II. This fact may partly
account for their involvement in five disturbances of national ceremonies
commemorating victims of World War II recorded in Amsterdam on 4 May 2003.
However,
antisemitic prejudices (including conspiracy theories) and minimalization of the
Holocaust may also be found even among prominent members of Dutch society. Gretta
Duisenberg, chairwoman of the Comité Stop de Bezetting (Committee against
the Occupation) and wife of the president of the European Central Bank, for
example, compared Israeli policies with Nazi atrocities. She qualified her
statement by adding “except for the Holocaust.” On another occasion she
attributed Israel's success to
the power of the Jewish lobby and stated her intention of collecting six
million signatures for a petition to end the occupation. On 23 December 2002 the Dutch
Public Prosecutor stated that her remark about collecting signatures
contributed to “poisoning the climate of political debate in the Netherlands.”
As
illustrated by the example above, Jewish conspiracy theories have spilled over
from the Internet into Dutch political discourse. Movie director Paul Verhoeven
made such references in Veronica Magazine (10 April 2003); program
producer Adam Curry made a statement that he subsequently retracted on the
popular news radio program Met het oog op morgen; and Karel Glastra van Loon (a
writer and advisor to the Socialist Party) wrote an antisemitic preface to the
Peter Edel’s book Shadow of the Star, Zionism and Anti-Zionism, which
tries to prove that Jews were driven by malevolent motives in their attempts to
found a Jewish state and that the Talmud is a racist system aimed at promoting
the superiority of the Jews.
On the
popular level, Sharon was compared to Hitler
and the Star of David equated with the swastika at a violent anti-Israel
demonstration in Amsterdam attended by about 15,000 demonstrators on 13 April 2002. Youths of
Moroccan origin were the main agitators.
responses
to antisemitism and racism
CIDI, the
anti-discrimination bureaus (ADBs), the Meldpunt Discriminatie Internet and the
anti-fascist research group Kafka provide annual reports on antisemitic
manifestations. Anonymous data was supplied also by the police in the
Amsterdam-Amstelland region in 2002. The Commissie Gelijke Behandeling
(Commission for Equal Treatment), the Fifth Monitoring Report on Racism and the
Extreme Right by the Anne Frank Foundation and the University of Leiden, the Centraal
Meldpunt Voetbalvandalisme (Football Hooliganism Reporting Center, the KNVB
(Royal Dutch Football League) and the Landelijk Expertise Centrum van Discriminatiezaken
(National Expertise Centre for Discrimination Cases) also supplied information for
the 2002/3 CIDI report.
In 2002 the Netherlands had no
legislation in place specifically focusing on the prevention of terrorism.
Recently, the diffuse, constantly changing structures of Islamic terrorist
networks have exposed the limitations of classic legal instruments used in the
West. Specific anti-terrorist legislation was expected to take effect in 2003.
