Thursday, July 31, 2014
Pro-ISIS Demonstrators Call for “Death to Jews” in the Netherlands
Jewish human rights group the Simon Wiesenthal
Center has expressed its shock that protests in support of Islamic
terrorist group ISIS have gone undeterred by Dutch authorities in the
Hague. Two public rallies, expressing support for ISIS have been held
this month, with chants advocating the murder of “dirty Jews from the
sewers” heard at both.
The first protest inciting violence towards Jews was held
on July 4, while a second went ahead last week, on July 24, Dutch
newspaper NL Times reports.
Doctor Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center
addressed a passionate letter to the Dutch prime minister in response to
the protests, asking him to rescind approval should a third
demonstration of this kind be organised.
“Yesterday, the call in Arabic and Dutch was for ‘dirty
Jews from the sewers to be killed,’” Samuels told Jewish paper the
Algemeiner, a day after the second protest.
“This rally had little to do with Gaza solidarity. It was
unambiguously targeted against Jews, but also according to the Dutch
press sought to lynch journalists, who were pulled to safety by the
police, otherwise serving as silent spectators.”
Doctor Samuels had initially pleaded to the Mayor of the
Hague, Mayor Jozias van Aartsen, to undertake preventative measures to
stifle the protest to no success.
“The Dutch people today, sadly, face two forms of
terrorism”, the letter reads. “The first from those who brought down the
Malaysian aircraft over Ukraine. The second from the potential danger
at home from ISIS,” Samuels wrote.
“Mr. Mayor, you can stop the second, if you wish. If you do not, you will share responsibility for the consequence.”
Samuels presented video footage of the rally, which shows a
crowd larger than 50, waving ISIS flags and yelling “Maut al-Yahud’
(Death to the Jews)”.
According to Samuels, police
reports of the demonstration on the July 24 misrepresented the scale of
the violence, disagreeing with the account given by authorities.
The Public Prosecutor’s report of the rally said that
“there were only 40 to 50 people present… the police were present with
an Arabic speaking police officer” and “the slogans overheard by this
officer were not considered as crossing boundaries. Hence no arrest was
made.”
One Dutch parliamentarian who joined the calls of
condemnation of the protest was part-Moroccan Labor MP Ahmed Marcouch.
“What are these kids doing there in the first place? ISIS is pure
barbarism, it is bloodthirsty," he told The Daily Beast. "We can’t allow
them to win our children away from us.”
“The greatest insult of ISIS may even be toward the Muslims and Islam itself,” he said.
“I call on the Muslim community: stand up and don’t allow
your religion to be hijacked by these idiots! Don’t make light of them,
but make yourself strong against them, these barbaric criminals. Muslims
have to speak out: ‘Not in my name! Stay away from my faith,’" he
added
While sporadic and sometimes anti-Semitic violence has
broken out at pro-Palestinian protests in European capitals over the
last month, official action to contain them has been undertaken by
French, German and Italian authorities.
The Dutch protest also marks the first time demonstrations
in support of ISIS, now known as the Islamic State, which has declared a
‘caliphate’ over parts of Syria and northern Iraq that it controls,
have been held publicly in Europe.
Mayor van Aartsen’s refusal to discourage the protests has
sparked a petition to remove him from office, which has already
collected close to 17 000 signatures.
News of anti-Semitic violence in Europe comes as video
footage showing far right Israeli protesters chanting “"There's no
children left there [in Gaza]" and "Gaza is a cemetery" in Tel Aviv
yesterday, has emerged online.
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