This article first appeared in New English Review.
Last week, pro-Palestinian thugs in Amsterdam viciously
attacked Israeli soccer fans and other Jews on the streets of that city
following a soccer match between a Dutch team and a team from Israel. Five
people had to be hospitalized, dozens were arrested, and Israelis had to be
escorted to the airport by police. While it is undeniable that some of the
Israeli fans behaved badly before and during the match (as soccer fans around
the world are prone to do), nothing justified what happened after the match
when roaming gangs of thugs, many on motorbikes, hunted down and attacked Israeli
fans and other Jews on the streets.
The incident has shocked the nation and is forcing the Dutch
government to consider stronger measures against anti-Jewish violence. With a
more conservative government now in place, hopefully, the country (and the rest
of the world) will finally say enough is enough. Yet, as I write, on Wednesday
evening, hundreds of pro-Palestinians gathered on Amsterdam’s Dam Square to
protest in spite of a ban imposed on protests by the city’s mayor. Predictably,
it turned violent and police removed 265 people from the square. Their
custodial situation is as yet not clear.
One of the measures being considered by the Dutch government
is stripping away Dutch passports from perpetrators with dual nationality. That
would be a positive first step. Mass deportations of these criminals, who are
overwhelmingly of immigrant backgrounds, would be the best step of all.
But back to the question of what to do now. I am hesitant to
lecture the Europeans what to do about their problem when we have a similar
problem here in the US. Nevertheless, let me share my ideas.
Obviously, more severe prosecution is in order. Offenses
like these need to be met with stiff prison sentences that would serve as a
deterrent, at least for some.
Once a foreign suspect goes through the judicial process and
is released from custody, they should be promptly deported. If certain
countries, most notably Morocco, refuse to accept them back, countries like the
Netherlands should cut off any foreign aid or trade with that country. Morocco
is actually a prime example with the Netherlands-based Moroccan Maffia, a
particularly vicious organization that largely controls the illicit drug trade
in the Netherlands. Morocco generally refuses to accept convicted Moroccan
criminals back. There should be consequences for that.
The deportation question obviously will involve opposition
from liberal political parties, social associations, and likely the courts.
That is also true in the US, and we are about to see this played out with the
return to power of Donald Trump and his promise to deport illegal aliens. Unquestionably,
that will begin with the identified criminal elements and suspected terrorists.
Returning to the Netherlands, they and their European
neighbors first need to stop the bleeding. That means putting a halt to mass Muslim
migration into Europe. To be fair, this migration began decades ago and largely
involved needed workers for European countries with a low birth rate. Now that
has turned into a flood of millions of people, largely stemming from the Syrian
civil war in 2015. In addition, Western
Europe now has a young generation of people, largely from Islamic backgrounds,
born in Europe, and who speak the language. Yet, they are clearly not fully
assimilated. Worse yet, they have not adopted Western norms and values,
preferring those from countries from which their families immigrated. Still, I
don’t favor deporting some law-abiding restaurant owner who has been in the
country for an extended time and done nothing wrong. I am talking about people
like the Moroccan Maffia, those who attacked Jews in Amserdam last week,
radical Islamists, and those who refuse to respect the values and laws of their
adopted country.
Many European countries have a different citizenship system
than the US. That means in some countries, full citizenship is not
automatically granted to someone born in that country to immigrant parents. In
the Netherlands, there are many with dual nationality, thus, the discussion now
in Dutch political circles about stripping those people of their Dutch
nationality if they engage in criminal behavior.
At the end of the day, it comes down to this: Are we going
to protect our Jewish communities from lawless young thugs who want to attack
Jews because they are angry about Israel, and aside from Israel, have been
taught to hate Jews in general as part of their belief system? Are we going to
protect ourselves-all of us- from this Islamist way of thinking that has
invaded the West? Or do we throw up our hands and say, “It’s too late. We now have millions of them, Europe is
already lost”?
I hate to disappoint the Pollyannas out there who say the
answer is sensitivity training, interfaith cooperation with Islamic leaders,
and trying to encourage assimilation. It’s too late for that. This week, the
Dutch government leaders have met with both Jewish and Muslim community leaders
trying to find an answer. I have no objection with reaching out to true Muslim
moderates and imams who are against this anti-Jewish, anti-Western hate and
violence. The problem is that there are many imams and many mosques who are a
part of the problem. If certain imams in certain mosques are giving sermons,
damning Israel, Jews, the West, and anything that is not Islamic while calling
for violence, there is no point in asking them for cooperation. These mosques
must be closed and offending imams (who largely come from other countries)
should be sent home. In some cases in Europe, this has happened as in France
and Italy among others. But it is a long and difficult process. Laws need to be
changed in many of our countries. In many cases, existing laws simply need to
be enforced.
Let me be clear: I am not calling for countries like the
Netherlands and ours to deport every last Muslim, only the bad apples. At the
same time, we have to recognize that the Netherlands and other Western European
countries have allowed so many millions of Muslims into their countries, many
not fully vetted, who now threaten to demographically change the face of Europe
forever. I am not talking about whether Europeans are all brown 50 years from
now. I am worried that Europe will actually become Eurabia with a whole new
culture and set of values hostile to our own.
I speak Dutch fairly well (The reason why I learned it is a
long story), and there is a word that describes the situation the Dutch find
themselves in. It is a “puinhoop” literally a pile of rubbish, but often
used to describe something as a “mess”. Another term, “bende”, usually
meaning “gang”, can also be used for a
“mess”. Take your pick. The Netherlands,
like many of its European neighbors, has a mess on its hands. Fixing the
problem, if it can be fixed, will also be a mess. Far be it for me to tell the
Europeans how to fix their mess when we have our own mess here in the US, like
Europe, largely of our own creation. Historically, immigration has been great
for the US, but it has gone off the rails.
The Dutch people have a long history of welcoming true
refugees and for their tolerance. Centuries ago, they welcomed Jewish refugees
from Iberia fleeing persecution. In the 1930s, they welcomed Jewish refugees
from Nazi Germany, mostly notably Anne Frank and her family, German Jews from
Frankfurt. Of course, that all ended with the German occupation in World War 2.
Today, Dutch tolerance and hospitality has been abused, not by all, but by far too
many. The Dutch people themselves are not anti-Semites, but anti-Semitism has
been imported into their country and to the detriment of the Dutch people as a
whole. As a side note, the country is faced with a severe housing shortage.
Yet, Dutch citizens have to wait years for housing because the so-called
asylum-seekers go to the top of the list.
To me, the dilemma in the Netherlands is somewhat similar to
the one they faced during the German occupation. Are they going to surrender
their Jewish citizens to the new invaders?
Either direction will be a puinhoop, but I hope the answer is a
resounding, “No”.
