Former European Union Commissioner Frits Bolkenstein said that Jews have no future in the Netherlands and recommended that they emigrate to the US or Israel, Dutch magazine Elsevier reported on Tuesday.HAARETZ: "Top Dutch politician: Jews should emigrate to Israel or U.S. --- In book written by Holocaust survivor, Frits Bolkestein quoted as saying Jews have no future in Holland; fellow coalition members rebuke comment, say emigration is not the answer." [MORE:]
According to a book on Dutch Judaism, released this week, Bolkestein, former leader of the right-wing VVD party, said that due to anti-Semitism amongst young Moroccans Jews who look like Jews - those who wear kippahs or payot - should leave Holland for their own safety.
A prominent Dutch politician sparked a heated debate in the Netherlands this week by saying practicing Jews had “no future here, and should emigrate to the U.S. or Israel.”
The statement made by Frits Bolkestein, former European Commissioner and ex-leader of Holland's ruling rightist VVD party, was published in the recently released book Het Verval (The Decline), written by Manfred Gerstenfeld, a Netherlands-raised Holocaust survivor and senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
Bolkstein backed up his statement by saying that the increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the Netherlands over the past decade had led him to have limited confidence in the ability of the government to fight anti-Semitism.
Bolkstein came under fire for his comment, including from members of the three-party coalition led by his own faction. Geert Wilders, the leader of the anti-Islam Party for Freedom, reacted by saying that “not Jews should emigrate, but anti-Semitic Moroccans.”
EUROPE IS AT THE CROSSROADS:
EITHER IT BECOMES MORE SAFE FOR JEWS - AND REMAINS IN THE WEST, OR IT BECOMES , FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES, PART OF THE UMMAH.
My own reaction was also one of anger, but some with a better sense of strategy have assured me his remark was designed to draw out the left (who habitually side with Muslims) and force them to take a stand. They are currently in the process of doing that and I think the predictable will happen.
ReplyDeleteHe's not "a leading politician" at all. He's rather a political has-been who over the last decade or so has spouted one nonsense idea after another (including replacing Dutch in our school curiculum with French to encourage "European integration").
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