The writer David Ben-Basat, an Israeli, discusses the recent attacks on Jews in Amsterdam, and the indifference of Dutch authorities to displays of antisemitism. And still worse, some Dutch are blaming Jews for the violence visited upon them. More on his alarm can be found here: “The Netherlands are lost: Dutch seek to blame Israeli victims of Amsterdam pogrom – opinion,” by David Ben-Basat, Jerusalem Post, November 23, 2024:
As I write these words, a demonstration of hate is taking place in one of Amsterdam’s main streets, an unlawful protest by Muslims that signals, all too clearly, that the Netherlands, like other nations, has lost control of its own state to a fanatical Muslim mob. Just days after the antisemitic at carried out by Muslim rioters, it’s apparent that nothing has been learned. The Dutch authorities – including Amsterdam’s mayor and police, who banned the protest – did nothing to stop it.
On the same day that Muslims lay in wait outside hotels to target Jews, one’s thoughts traveled to an even darker period in Dutch history when, on a nearby street about 80 years ago, the Nazis captured Anne Frank and her family, leading to their eventual murder.
A Dutch friend recently sent me an image of the Star of David, writing, “Our thoughts and hearts are with you. This is no longer our Holland.” This message reminded me of the embrace and love Israel received worldwide after the Six-Day War, in which we triumphed over Arab states that sought our destruction. The times have indeed changed, yet the hatred remains the same. Antisemitism is reemerging globally and in the Netherlands, where Muslims and antisemitic Dutch citizens have joined forces, rallying with calls for Israel’s annihilation. Witnessing Dutch citizens shouting “Free Palestine” without grasping the implications of their words, while police stand by and allow blatant law-breaking, is deeply troubling.
We grew up on the legend of the Dutch as “Righteous Among the Nations,” heroes who helped save Jews during World War II. However, the truth is starkly different. Many Dutch citizens betrayed Jews to the Nazis, exposing their hiding places….
75% of Dutch Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, a greater percentage than in any other country in Occupied Europe. But the myth of the Dutch as “righteous Gentiles” has continued, as if those who helped hide Anne Frank’s family were representative of he Dutch, when such people were very rare. More Dutch were like the person who reported the Frank family’s whereabouts to the Dutch police, who were charged by their Nazi overseers with finding Jews in hiding.
The hundreds of thousands of Muslims who have been allowed to settle in the Netherlands have carried with them, undeclared in their mental baggage, the virus of antisemitism. And they have managed to infect some Dutch with that virus as well.
Following this week’s attack on Israeli fans who came to watch a soccer game, and despite countless videos documenting the violence, Dutch police released all the detainees, who, it turns out, had already been arrested in unrelated events prior to the game.
Meanwhile, Dutch media, which initially expressed “shock” at the pogrom, now shifts the narrative, unjustly blaming Israelis. The Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, commenting on police failures, suggested that officers secured irrelevant areas, attributing the problem to misallocated police resources rather than a lack of personnel. This sums up Amsterdam police’s monumental security lapse.
Did the Dutch police deploy in too few numbers to prevent the mob violence? Or did they, rather, simply not appear in sufficient numbers to deal with the Muslim violence agains Jews that they had been warned about in advance? Did that show an indifference to what the Jews suffered at the hands of violent Muslims? Whatever the case, the police did very little to stop the violent attacks, and while some Muslims were arrested, they were soon released, without the police providing any explanation for this failure to hold them for trial.
The mayor of Amsterdam at first deplored the “pogrom”against Jews in her city, but soon said that she had been wrong to use such a word. She was intent on downplaying the seriousness of the violence. And another narrative, blaming the Jewish victims, soon appeared. In this narrative, it was the Jewish fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv who had started the violence, by pulling down a Palestinian flag from a building, and by shouting anti-Arab slogans. Even if both were true, singing an offensive song and pulling down a flag do not justify beating Jews up, punching them repeatedly to the ground and then kicking them in the head.
As things now stand in Amsterdam, no Muslims have faced charges for the violence they unleashed on Jews during and after the Maccabi-Ajax soccer match. The Dutch media have now been repeating the narrative that “the Jews started it first,” which appears to exculpate Muslims, and also suggests that the tearing down of a flag and chanting slogans can in some way justify extreme violence in response.
Muslims in Amsterdam continue to stop passersby, and to ask for them to show their passports, in order to determine if they are Jews. And if they are Jews, they will be subject to harassment and threats of violence. The police are well aware of this, but appear to be doing nothing to prevent this practice.
Where will this all lead? Muslims in Amsterdam, feeling empowered — after all, they paid no price for their mass attacks on Jews, the attacks the mayor now regrets she described as a “pogrom” — might demand that the Anne Frank House be shut down. After all, visits to the house where she was hidden from the Nazis only encourages sympathy for Jews, and even for Israel. And that is unfair to the Palestinians who are now fighting to regain the land stolen from them by the perfidious colonial-settler Jews. Impossible, you say? Just wait.
cornelius says
Was shocking on the Netherlands and Amsterdam sub-reddits. On the former, all reference to the violence was scrubbed….as if it never happened. On the latter, what few references there were happened to be infused with comments implicating rowdy Israeli soccer fans for the violence. When I pointed out that no Muslim or non-Jew suffered any serious injuries or hospitalization in the violence, while dozens of Jews were attacked and at least 6 were hospitalized….the responses were like the following…
“talk sh*t, get hit”
I was stunned. These were native Dutch, genteel, cosmopolitan, liberals….casting their lot entirely with the Muslim mob. I’m telling you folks, Europe is lost.
gravenimage says
Terrible, Cornelius. Thanks so much for that grim information. Chiling.
somehistory says
Since many mozlums have not just denied the Holocaust, but said that what happened was perpetrated by the Jews to other Jews, it is no surprise that mozlums are claiming the same about what was done in Amsterdam.
It seems it’s so easy for people to turn to evil and participate in acts of hatred and demonic behavior. No thinking is involved, no beating of the conscience, no putting oneself in the shoes of another..
“Never again” was supposed to mean something. But as long as islam exists, it will be that people act on the evil teachings of hate and murder of those who refuse to bow down to the wild beast.
James Lincoln says
somehistory says,
“Never again” was supposed to mean something.”
When I learned about the Holocaust in high school, I thought that “never again” meant “never again”.
Boy was I ever naïve…
somehistory says
James, that fits a lot of people.
gravenimage says
I too long thought that “Never Again” was a heartfelf committment.
Peter WF says
Give Geert Wilders some time. His support will grow as the Netherlanders continue to suffer the muslim violence and criminality. He currently does not have a complete majority and governs with some negotiation with other parties. The muslims have been trying to kill him for many years. He and his family are protected by a special branch of the army that is responsible for the security of embassies in islamic countries. This branch took over from the police many years ago.
https://www.government.nl/topics/parliament/senate-and-house-of-representatives
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Representatives_(Netherlands)
gravenimage says
I hope that you are right that there will be more support for Wilders. But at this point too many Dutch Infidels seem find with Muslms rampaging through the streets of their great capital hunting and attacking Jews.
FYI says
The fruit of the Kalergi plan……
Andrew Blackadder says
I spent a lot of time in Amsterdam in the early 1970s when it was truly a magical City but I was last there some 12 years ago for a few days and I was shocked as I walked down Dam Stratt to the main Train Station passing shops owned by Arabs who were shouting at the young girls as they passed by and they were not shouting nice words and I seen the faces of these young girls and so I walked alongside them as if that would do any good but these low life low IQ Arabs didn’t even blink…
What a change and though I had heard of the dramatic change I was however really really shocked when I see it with own eyes.
Such a wonderful City destroyed by a Fascist Religious Cult aided by those bleeding heart Far Left morons that think they are on the right side of history.
Im just glad I knew the City way back then as I have many wonderful memories of the place.
gravenimage says
Tragic, Andrew.
Johanna Jahns says
Same for many more places. I’m so sad for my wonderful continent and its special spirit.
Billy says
Islam is against Israel and all Christians as taught in Islam’s Quran(Quran 5:51; 98:6-7 etc.). Islam is a terrorist, murderous, criminal gang enterprise against all Non-Muslims using discrimination, deceit, h8tred, and violence to gain ultimate power and control as taught in Islamic Law and in Islam’s Quran. Moreover, Islam’s supremacist-genocidal Ideology, its tyrannical Muslims, its propaganda Schools, its foreign terrorist Organizations, and its ‘Convert-or-Die’ Mosques teach, inspire, and promote ‘Threats and Incitement of Violence’ as well as never-ending terrorism, loathing, and segregation against women, children, and all Non-Muslims(eg. Quran 2:191-3; 4:89,100; 5:82; 8:65; 9:5,14-15,29; 33:26; 47:4 and more).
Blougeoisie says
If we’re going to play the started it first game, Islamic arab colonists invaded Israel and built the dome of the rock with violence first. Does this justify the Jewish response?
gravenimage says
An Israeli’s Lament for The Netherlands
………………………………………….
Sadly David Ben-Basat is right.
What would Miep Gies–the brave Dutch woman who did so much to try and save Anne Frank and her family, and who suffered through a concentration camp for her efforts–think of what is happening in the Netherlands today?
Annynonymous says
I suggest we all ask the descendants of WWII vetrans, what they went through in Europe. I never asked my Uncle, who got a purple heart in Germany, about it. Who would he think the Nazis are today? Ukranian’s Zelensky? I would add that there was at least one other Dutch family that went to (two of them died )camps for hiding Jews. The Corrie Ten Boom story is documented.