A Short Review of Dutch Anti-Israel Incitement: Manfred Gerstenfeld, Jerusalem Post, Sept. 1, 2016 — Next week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the Netherlands.
EU, Terror and the Transparency Bill: Ron Jontof-Hutter, Israel Hayom, Sept. 14, 2016 — On the December 7, 1970, German Chancellor Willy Brandt knelt solemnly before the Warsaw Ghetto in contrition.
France: The Great Wall of Calais: Soeren Kern, Gatestone Institute, Sept. 23, 2016 — Building work has begun on a wall in the northern French city of Calais, a major transport hub on the edge of the English Channel, to prevent migrants from stowing away on cars, trucks, ferries and trains bound for Britain..
Let’s Keep Canada Canadian: John Robson, National Post, Sept. 19, 2016 — The other day, I read a European Union publication on Ireland, which I concede is a self-inflicted wound. But it threw an oddly bright light on the vexed question of how Canadian values ever became controversial.
The Islamic Hatred of Modernity: John Mauldin, Maudlin Economics, Sept. 28, 2016
Germany: Beginning of the End of the Merkel Era?: Soeren Kern, Gatestone Institute, Sept. 10, 2016
Burkini Debate in France Exposes a Divide in its Jewish Community: Cnaan Liphshiz, Times of Israel, Sept. 24, 2016
Europeans Turn to Israel to Spur Lagging Economies: Breaking Israel News, Sept. 26, 2016
A SHORT REVIEW OF DUTCH ANTI-ISRAEL INCITEMENT
Manfred Gerstenfeld
Jerusalem Post, Sept. 1, 2016
Next week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the Netherlands. A succinct summary of anti-Israel incitement there may help him and his staff to better understand how the current Dutch reality differs from the distorted positive image many people still hold, namely the one based on the much publicized story of Anne Frank and her diary.
The Anne Frank story has entirely overshadowed a far more important one: the total disinterest of the Dutch government in exile in London during the Second World War in the fate of its Jewish citizens under the German occupation. Three-quarters of the 140,000 Jews in the Netherlands were murdered in the German death camps in Poland. The Netherlands is now the only Western European country which has never admitted to the wartime failure of its government’s attitude toward the Jews. Even Luxembourg and Monaco have recently done so. Furthermore, though archives contained the information for decades, it has only recently been published that Dutch SS volunteers participated in mass killings of Jews in Eastern Europe.
Around the turn of this century, the anti-Israel attitude in many Dutch circles strengthened. The ongoing incitement against the Jewish state by many Dutch politicians – mainly extreme-left and center- left – leading media, pseudo-humanitarian NGOs and so on has greatly influenced Dutch citizens. A Eurobarometer study in 2003 asked which countries are most dangerous to world peace. Israel came in second place after Iran – 59 percent of Europeans held this opinion. Of all countries polled the Netherlands had the highest percentage at 74%. This opinion can largely be explained by the widespread Dutch incitement against Israel. A 2011 study by the University of Bielefeld in Germany found that more than 38% of the Dutch population agreed with the statement that Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians.
The most dangerous political party to Israel nowadays is Labor, the junior partner in the current government led by liberal Prime Minister Mark Rutte. The Labor Party incites against Israel in many ways. During its first Middle East Conference in 2013, party leader Diederik Samsom singled out the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the only one on which patience is running out. He placed the entire responsibility for solving the conflict on Israel. Labor, the D66 Democrats and the Christian Democrats have also promoted a parliamentary motion which may lead to sanctions against Israel.
Earlier this year, Foreign Minister Bert Koenders (Labor) tried to fool his Israeli counterparts by saying that while there is freedom of opinion in the Netherlands, the Dutch government is against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. He did not mention that the Dutch government subsidized the BDS-promoting Catholic development aid organization Cordaid, to the tune of half a billion euros from 2007 to 2011 and lesser amounts since. Cordaid’s support of extreme incitement against Israel goes back at least 15 years.
A major scandal developed in 2002 when it became known that the Ford Foundation had partly funded the anti-Israel hate-mongers of the Palestinian LAW organization which had to be disbanded due to widespread corruption. No attention was given to the fact that Cordaid had donated even more money to LAW. The current Labor Party minister of foreign trade and development cooperation, Liliane Ploumen, held top positions with Cordaid from 2001 to 2007. Other Dutch pro- BDS bodies also received large amounts of government funding. Koenders has been active in the European labeling of products from the West Bank as well.
The list of Jewish guests for the 2013 dinner hosted by Dutch King Willem Alexander for the visiting president Shimon Peres has never been published. The heads of the two largest Jewish communities, the Ashkenazi Orthodox and Liberals, were not invited. The head of the tiny, extreme Jewish anti-Israel group EAJG was.
For the first time in Dutch independent history – thus leaving aside the German occupation – a number of Jewish businessmen had to hire private bodyguards in 2014 as a result of threats. The most severe anti-Semitic incident in the Netherlands was a robbery last year (by criminals who appeared to be of Moroccan-Arab descent) of a couple of elderly Holocaust survivors in Amsterdam. The woman was a survivor of Auschwitz. The robbers called them “dirty Jews” and beat them severely. The most recent scandal is a claim in the NRC daily that the Mossad is threatening a human rights activist in the Netherlands.
From time to time Prime Minister Rutte visits Israel with a delegation of Dutch businessmen. He is accompanied by two Labor Party ministers who visit the Palestinian territories. Perhaps next time Prime Minister Netanyahu can invite Rutte and his ministers for a memorial meeting at the site of the terrorist attack at the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem where a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in 2001. Among the 15 killed were five members of the Schijveschuurder family. Two parents and three of their children were murdered, and three others were wounded. They were children and grandchildren, respectively, of Dutch Holocaust survivors. The above are a small sample of the widespread incitement against Israel in the Netherlands. This topic can easily be extended to book format.
EU, TERROR AND THE TRANSPARENCY BILL
Ron Jontof-Hutter
Israel Hayom, Sept. 14, 2016
On the December 7, 1970, German Chancellor Willy Brandt knelt solemnly before the Warsaw Ghetto in contrition. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Israel faced annihilation, the same Willy Brandt denied German landing rights to U.S. planes carrying emergency supplies to Israel. Chancellor Angela Merkel occasionally says that Israel's "right to exist" is Germany's raison d'etre.
Like Brandt, Germany appears to be two-tongued when it comes to anti-Semitism. Like the EU, Germany makes a distinction between anti-Semitism and objecting to Israel's policies, which on paper seems to be fair. Thus, giving the Hitler salute and denying the Holocaust are illegal. On the other hand, the annual Iran-sponsored Al-Quds March through downtown Berlin, calling for the destruction of Israel, is legal. Berlin constantly turns a deaf ear to appeals to ban that march.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — the Iran nuclear deal — was enthusiastically supported by Germany, enabling Iran to fully develop its nuclear program after a decade, while currently testing missiles marked "Death to Israel." However, the same Germany decided that nuclear facilities for peaceful purposes were too risky for Germans. They are to be phased out by 2022. Germany maintains it has a "special relationship" with Israel while the EU ambassador to Israel explained that Israel is singled out because "you are one of us."
The EU countries support various NGOs despite their being termed "nongovernmental." Germany's Economic Cooperation and Development Ministry provides funding to NGOs as part of its foreign aid programs. Recently, Professor Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor exposed the doublespeak of Germany yet further. The German government annually pays 4 million euros ($4.5 million) to NGOs in Israel, of which 42% goes to organizations that support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and worse, like the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, which advocates violent riots in Judea and Samaria. The German Embassy in Tel Aviv does not deny the funding, but blandly states that Germany does not support boycotts of Israel. They donate to "organizations supporting peace."
Some of the NGOs funded by the EU are Zochrot, Grassroots Jerusalem and Baladna Arab Youth Association, all of which are committed to getting Palestinian refugees and their third- and fourth-generation descendants to "return" even though most have never been to Israel. I have met some of these "refugees," who lead comfortable middle-class lives, in Australia. They certainly do not fit the image of a refugee we see on TV. In my recent satire, "The Trombone Man: Tales of a Misogynist," the story depicts one such comfortable refugee who, like his parents, has never been to Israel. Despite these anomalies, the EU generously funds these organizations that are dedicated to Israel's disappearance as the Jewish state.
The EU therefore supports some organizations dedicated to Israel's demise while paying lip service to its "right to exist," whatever that means. The EU, led by countries such as Germany, also supports labeling people and products from beyond the Green Line or "Auschwitz lines," as the late dovish Foreign Minister Abba Eban called it. Thus, while officially declining to support BDS, the same EU countries fund NGOs that do — all with a straight face.
The EU, committed to democracy and human rights, has been "deeply concerned" about the recent transparency law passed by the Knesset, even though there is no suggestion these NGOs would be banned from practising their dubious activities. The State Department termed it "chilling," despite its funds being surreptitiously used to influence the outcome of Israel's last election. In the meantime, Europe is reeling with regular terror attacks, for which Europeans cannot find an answer — except to insultingly compare Israel to Putin's Russia and be "deeply concerned" with their fellow democracy that struggles to maintain civil rights while upholding its citizens' right to life. Israel remains a vibrant democracy despite the underhanded tactics of the EU. As Europe grapples with increasing terror, its exaggerated concern with an ally threatened daily by internal and external terror is misplaced and misguided.
NGO Monitor has shown in great detail the doublespeak of the EU countries that mouth unconvincing platitudes regarding Israel's "right to exist" while simultaneously funding many NGOs that promote exactly the opposite. At the end of the day, it should be remembered that the hidden agendas of many of these NGOs have little to do with human rights, per se, but more to do with providing conditions that would end the State of Israel, by stressing the Nakba, hope, resilience and the "right of return" of refugees and their descendants. That is why it is always worth remembering Willy Brandt 1970 and Willy Brandt 1973. It sums up Europe perfectly.
FRANCE: THE GREAT WALL OF CALAIS
Soeren Kern
Gatestone Institute, Sept. 23, 2016
Building work has begun on a wall in the northern French city of Calais, a major transport hub on the edge of the English Channel, to prevent migrants from stowing away on cars, trucks, ferries and trains bound for Britain. Dubbed "The Great Wall of Calais," the concrete barrier — one kilometer (half a mile) long and four meters (13 feet) high on both sides of the two-lane highway approaching the harbor — will pass within a few hundred meters of a sprawling shanty town known as "The Jungle."
The squalid camp now houses more than 10,000 migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East who are trying to reach Britain. The migrants at the camp are mostly from Sudan (45%), Afghanistan (30%), Pakistan (7%), Eritrea (6%) and Syria (1%), according to a recent census conducted by aid agencies. Construction of the wall — which will cost British taxpayers £2 million (€2.3 million; $2.6 million) and is due to be completed by the end of 2016 — comes amid a surge in the number of migrants from the camp trying to reach Britain. Around 200 migrants from Calais, the principal ferry crossing point between France and England, are successfully smuggled into Britain each week, according to police estimates cited by the Telegraph. This amounts to more than 10,000 so-called "lorry drops" — when illegal migrants hiding in the back of trucks jump out after reaching the UK — this year.
In 2015-16, more than 84,000 migrants were caught attempting illegally to enter Britain from the Ports of Calais and Dunkirk, according to Home Office figures cited by the Guardian. On just one day, December 17, 2015, around 1,000 migrants stormed the Channel Tunnel in a bid to reach Britain. Police, who used tear gas to disperse them, said the number seeking to cross the Channel in a single day was "unprecedented." Many of the migrants who are turned away move to "The Jungle" and try over and over again. Migrants at the camp have been using felled trees and gas canisters to create makeshift roadblocks to slow trucks heading for Britain. When the trucks come to a stop, migrants climb aboard to stow away as the vehicles head to Britain through the Channel Tunnel or on ferries.
UK-bound migrants are building up to 30 barricades a night to stop vehicles travelling through Calais, according to French officials. Teams of traffic police now spend every night trying to keep the roads around Calais clear of migrants and their debris. In recent months, masked gangs of people smugglers armed with knives, bats and tire irons have forced truck drivers to stop so that migrants can board their vehicles. The Deputy Mayor of Calais, Philippe Mignonet, has described the main route to the port as a "no-go area" between midnight and 6am.
In an interview with the French newspaper Liberation, Xavier Delebarre, who is in charge of France's northern road network, said the migrants have "tools, electric chainsaws that can be bought anywhere for fifteen euros." He added: "There is a strategy in their concerted attacks. They launch simultaneous assaults, and also diversions. Migrants build barricades by piling different materials on the road, including branches, as well as mattresses and trash. They set it on fire, and then put gas cylinders in the fire, which is very worrying. They create traffic jams to storm the trucks, so they can board them to try to get to England."
On September 5, hundreds of French truck drivers and farmers (who complain that fields around the migrant camp are full of rubbish and human excrement) blocked off the main route in and out of Calais, in an attempt to pressure the French government to close "The Jungle." The blockage brought to a standstill the route used by trucks from all over Europe to reach Calais and Britain.
Antoine Ravisse, president of the Grand Rassemblement du Calaisis, a coalition of local businesses, said the protesters wanted assurances from the French government that the roads in Calais will be made safe again. He said: "The main image of Calais today in the newspaper and on TV is very negative, all about the migrants and attacks on the highway. The first point is we want the highways safe again. It's unacceptable that today in France you can't travel without fear and without the certainty that you won't be attacked. We apologize to our British friends — our economy depends very much on the business we do with England. We apologize to all the families but some of them have experienced very bad times and dangerous times and they will agree it can't go on. We are standing here and we will wait until we hear something back from the government. We are not moving until we hear from the government."
David Sagnard, president of FNTR national truck drivers' federation, said: We have to do this. We have to escalate things, because for months now the situation has been getting worse and worse. Before, it was just attempts to get on trucks. Now there is looting and willful destruction, tarpaulins are slashed, goods stolen or destroyed. Drivers go to work with fear in their bellies and the economic consequences are severe."…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
John Robson
National Post, Sept. 19, 2016
The other day, I read a European Union publication on Ireland, which I concede is a self-inflicted wound. But it threw an oddly bright light on the vexed question of how Canadian values ever became controversial.
Everybody yammers on about them. An NDP email insists that health care is “a core Canadian value.” A Department of National Defence spokesman defends his department accidentally training a Bangladeshi terrorist by saying: “The Canadian Armed Forces has exchange and training programs designed to enhance our bilateral relationships and promote Canadian values.” Yet when Conservative leadership hopeful Kellie Leitch suggested screening immigrants to make sure they share those values, the smart set got a bad case of the vapours.
It seems we’re meant to know that “values” are for yokels, despite originally being Nietzsche’s subversively sophisticated substitute for moral truth. Which brings me abruptly, if unexpectedly, to that smarmy EU book. When you think of Ireland,” it concedes, “leprechauns, shamrocks, and Irish music might come to mind.” But if so, they are swiftly shoved aside: “modern-day Ireland… is no longer the homogeneous society it once was.” Formerly poor and quaint, it became a “Celtic Tiger” and “people from other parts of the world flocked to Ireland, seeking jobs and economic opportunity…. The flood of new cultures and peoples… has changed the centuries-old traditional life… there are now eight times as many people in Ireland who speak Polish as … Gaelic”. Nowadays “people from all around the world add their perspectives” in “the most globalized country in the world” where “society’s relaxed pace has disappeared” and “in a recent survey of Irish people between fifteen and twenty-four… more than a third did not know the meaning of Easter.
In short, there’s no longer any there there, just one more suburb of the galactic metropolis full of frantic, rootless, sleep-deprived materialist pseudo-sophisticates. Which is apparently good. As the introduction had already assured readers, Europe “is a continent with many different traditions and languages, but with shared values such as democracy, freedom and social justice, cherished values well known to North Americans. Indeed, the EU motto is ‘United in Diversity.’ ”
Such rhetoric certainly is familiar to Canadians. Eerily so. Our shiny prime minister, a walking, talking incarnation of post-modern vacuity, says “there is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.” It’s odd to hear all this talk of diversity, while everything gets more and more similar. As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed after denying our core identity, “There are shared values — openness, respect, compassion, willingness to work hard, to be there for each other, to search for equality and justice. Those qualities are what make us the first post-national state.” The words “post-national” are key. They are meant to say that anything good about Canada comes not from our traditions but from discarding them in favour of those famous globalized perspectives that always sound exactly like Michael Ignatieff, who called Canada a “civic experiment” and a “fiction,” while claiming a deep “attachment to the place on Earth that, if I needed one, I would call home.” But he doesn’t. He’s a “citizen of the world,” just like Justin Trudeau and his father.
Leitch’s proposal has proved popular with actual people, who understand, as historian Daniel Boorstin once said, that, “Planning for the future without a sense of history is like planting cut flowers.” They want immigrants to share genuine Canadian roots. But the elite is busy hacking through those very roots because, to borrow a phrase from theologian N.T. Wright, they think “trees should be entirely visible and obviously fruitful, no part of them buried in dirty soil. What’s down there in the rich soil of our home and native land? Individual liberty. Rule of law. Critical self-examination. And yes, monogamy, sprouting from a Judeo-Christian tradition now deemed in especially urgent need of uprooting and burning.
The EU’s book on Ireland smugly explains that, “You might be accustomed to seeing dates expressed with the abbreviations BC or AD.” But they’re going with BCE and CE because “many people now prefer to use abbreviations that people from all religions can be comfortable using.” It’s ludicrous, since CE still dates from the supposed birth of you-know-who. Would it mollify Muslims if we called him Gezuz? But it’s part of an aggressive, if shallow, effort to eliminate everything that forms part of our true heritage, especially everything religious.
Hence efforts in Canada to ban Trinity Western University graduates from practising law, and efforts to eliminate faith-based exemptions to non-discrimination laws at all universities. And hence Trudeau, who in odd-numbered years considers gender equality a core Canadian value, speaking cheerfully in an even-numbered year at a mosque where his female ministers are segregated, forced to cover their lascivious hair and stay silent. It’s oh so cosmopolitan. But without roots, societies, like plants, wither and die. Let’s keep Canada Canadian.
The Islamic Hatred of Modernity: John Mauldin, Maudlin Economics, Sept. 28, 2016 —I have for you a very interesting and unusual piece for this week’s Outside the Box. It is not that I do not regularly send things by authors who see the world differently from me, but I rarely delve into the political and geopolitical world.
Germany: Beginning of the End of the Merkel Era?: Soeren Kern, Gatestone Institute, Sept. 10, 2016 —German Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a major blow on September 4 when the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged ahead of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in elections in her home state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania.
Burkini Debate in France Exposes a Divide in its Jewish Community: Cnaan Liphshiz, Times of Israel, Sept. 24, 2016— Like their constituents, the mainstream representatives of French Jewry are not known for passing up opportunities to express their opinion on subjects of national debate.
Europeans Turn to Israel to Spur Lagging Economies: Breaking Israel News, Sept. 26, 2016—About 60 ministers of education from a range of OECD countries gathered Sunday in Jerusalem for a three-day program to explore Israel’s culture of entrepreneurship.
