In the Netherlands?
“I see no future for recognizable Jews, in particular because of anti-Semitism, specifically in Dutch Moroccans, who continue to grow in number,” Bolkestein reportedly said.
The former politician added that the many Arab television channels in the Netherlands contribute to the spread of anti-Semitism. He said he has no confidence in proposed measures to combat anti-Jewish sentiment.
“The Palestinian-Israeli conflict continues to fester,” Bolkestein said. “I foresee no quick solution, and anti-Semitism will continue to exist. Moroccan and Turkish young people won’t care about the measures.”
Politician Geert Wilders, who visited Israel this week, responded that “Jews shouldn’t emigrate, anti-Semitic Moroccans should.”
It is tragic that Holland, for centuries a bastion of tolerance and accepting of the oppressed from all over (e.g., before the East Anglian Puritans came to New England they had gone to Leyden) has absorbed an intolerant poisonous culture into its body politic. Charles Martel would be appalled. This won’t end well.
Possible reply # 1: Rand, you think there is a future for Jews in the hostile environment of space, but not in Holland?
Possible reply #2: Mr. Bolkestein, you think there is a future for Jews in the hostile environment of the West Bank, but not in Holland?
Either way, hmmph! I bet on the resilience of the Dutch, Jew and non-Jew alike.
And while the violence is serious, I wouldn’t take the behavior of immigrant street gangs very seriously when predicting long-term trends. To point out something we Americans are already familiar with: The formerly Dutch city of New York has seen wave after wave of immigrant street gangs whose behavior did not indicate a problem with the overall immigrant community they came from. Irish Street gangs => Irish Cops => Irish businessmen and pillars of the community.
“But ‘Bob’, Moroccans immigrants are different! They preach intollerance!”
Nah. Sure, some fundies do, but Morocco has a lot more culture than that. As I mentioned here a few weeks ago, a Jewish friend of mine just got back from traipsing all over Morocco wearing a Jewish star. Lots of smiles, hospitality, one invitation to visit a synagogue, and no problems anywhere.
I believe Bolkestein is of Jewish descent, but I’m not positive. I do know anti-semitic comments have been made about him. In any event he himself is definitely not an anti-semite. While googling I found something about Bolkestein’s grandfather on Wikipedia that puts this into a historical perspective:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrit_Bolkestein
Bolkestein was the Minister for Education, Art and Science from 1939 until 1945, and was part of the Dutch government-in-exile from 1940. In early 1944 he gave a radio address from London in which he said that after the war he would collect written evidence from Dutch people relating to the oppression they had endured during the Nazi occupation. Among those who heard the broadcast, was Anne Frank who had been keeping a diary for two years, which she had spent in hiding. His comment that he was particularly interested in diaries and letters, led Frank to edit what had originally been a diary kept for her own amusement. Frank later died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, but her partially edited diary was saved, and eventually published in 1946.
I was assuming Bolkestein is a patriotic Dutch Jew who is just overwrought. Some in the comments section of the Jerusalem Post liken him to an anti-semite, but I think they are just being overwrought too.
As someone who lived and worked in Amsterdam at one point, I suspect that the question of whether or not Jews have a future in the Netherlands is just a minor subordinate issue to the main question of whether or not the Dutch have a future in the Netherlands. Recent events suggest the answer to this question is anything but clear cut and the trend lines are not encouraging.