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Why
Is Hamas Courting Iran and the Palestinian Authority?
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Hamas does not recognize Israel's
right to exist and is vehemently opposed to the current U.S.-sponsored
peace talks. Hamas wants unity with the Palestinian Authority ... to bring
[the peace process] to a halt.
Hamas is desperate for cash and the
only two parties that could help rid it of its crisis are Iran and the
Palestinian Authority. Abbas told Jordanian parliamentarians during a
meeting in his office that 58% of the Palestinian Authority budget goes to
the Gaza Strip.
Israel and the US have good reason to be worried about Hamas's latest
moves, which are likely to have a negative impact on John Kerry's efforts
to reach a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In recent weeks, Hamas leaders have been working to restore their
relations separately with Iran and the Palestinian Authority.
At first glance, there seems to be a contradiction in Hamas's policy. As
the saying goes, "Tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who
you are."
Any rapprochement between Hamas and Iran would mean that the Islamist
movement has chosen to throw itself into the arms of Iran, a country that,
like Hamas, does not recognize Israel's right to exist and is vehemently
opposed to the current U.S.-sponsored peace talks.
At the same time, any rapprochement between Hamas and the Palestinian
Authority could be interpreted a sign of "moderation" and
"pragmatism" on the part of the Islamist movement. But this
interpretation is far from true: Hamas continues to oppose the peace talks
and refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist.
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Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in
Gaza, February 2007. (Image source: MaanImages)
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So what are Hamas's real motives behind this new policy?
Hamas has been passing through difficult times over the past three years
as a result of events in Syria and Egypt.
Hamas's refusal to support Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in his fight
against his opponents has damaged its ties with Iran, whose leaders
continue to back the Syrian regime.
Hamas received a second blow with the ouster of Egyptian Muslim
Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi seven months ago. Egypt's new rulers
view Hamas as an enemy and threat to their national security.
Hamas's growing isolation has prompted its leaders to reconsider their
policy. For Hamas, the name of the game these days is survival.
Hamas is desperate for cash and the only two parties that could help rid
it of its crisis are Iran and the Palestinian Authority.
Hazem Balousha, a Palestinian journalist based in Gaza City, revealed
that prominent figures in the Iranian government have contacted leaders in
Hamas to hold meetings, with the goal of healing the rift between the two
sides.
This outreach
"has led to a series of preliminary understandings that have
tentatively revived ties between the two parties once again."
Balousha pointed out that Hamas used to receive $23 million per month
from Iran before Tehran cut its ties to the movement in the Gaza Strip.
Now, he said, Iran has restored its financial aid to Hamas and part of the
funding has reached the Gaza Strip during the past three months.
Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar confirmed
last month that his movement has resumed relations with Iran.
In a surprise move, Hamas announced last week a number of "positive
measures" aimed at restoring ties with Mahmoud Abbas and the
Palestinian Authority.
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said that the measures include the
release of Fatah prisoners from Hamas jails seven years after Hamas seized
control over the area in the summer of 2007, as well as allowing others who
fled the Gaza Strip to return to their homes and families.
A few days later, Hamas fulfilled its promise by releasing
seven Fatah prisoners.
In response, Fatah
announced that it would dispatch its senior representative, Azzam
Ahmed, to the Gaza Strip shortly, to pursue efforts to end the dispute with
Hamas.
The decision to send Ahmed to the Gaza Strip came after Haniyeh phoned
Abbas and expressed his desire to achieve "national unity"
between the two rival parties.
Hamas, however, is not chasing Abbas because it supports his policies,
including the peace talks with Israel. Nor is Hamas seeking reconciliation
with the Palestinian Authority because it has decided to renounce violence
and recognize Israel's right to exist.
Hamas remains strongly opposed to any peace talks with Israel, as its
leaders continue to declare day
and night.
Hamas's representative in Lebanon, Ali Baraka, last week condemned
the peace talks as a "scheme to liquidate the Palestinian cause."
Hamas wants unity with the Palestinian Authority not because it wants to
boost the peace process, but bring it to a halt.
If Hamas is so strongly opposed to the peace talks, why are its leaders
saying that they are prepared to join forces with the Palestinian
Authority?
The answer is obvious: Hamas wants the Palestinian Authority to continue
channeling funds to the Gaza Strip.
More than half of the Palestinian Authority's annual budget goes to pay
salaries and support various projects in the Gaza Strip despite the rivalry
between the two sides. Abbas told
Jordanian parliamentarians during a meeting in his office that 58% of the
Palestinian Authority budget goes to the Gaza Strip.
Hamas's efforts to restore ties with Iran and the Palestinian Authority
are nothing but a ploy to ensure its continued presence in power. Hamas is
definitely not headed toward any change. Now that it is back on the payroll
of Iran, Hamas will feel more confidant than ever to pursue its efforts to
foil any agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
The
Islamization of Belgium and the Netherlands in 2013
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In January, the gangland
shootings of two young Moroccan men in downtown Amsterdam drew renewed
attention to the growing problem of violent crime among Muslim immigrants.
The two men were gunned down with AK-47 assault rifles in a shooting the
mayor of Amsterdam, Eberhard van der Laan, described as reminiscent of
"the Wild West."
In March, the Dutch public
broadcasting system NOS
television reported that the Netherlands has become one of the major
European suppliers of Islamic jihadists. According to NOS, about 100 Dutch
Muslims are active as jihadists in Syria; most have joined the notorious Jabhat
al-Nusra rebel group.
Belgium and the Netherlands have some of the largest Muslim communities
in the European Union, in percentage terms.
Belgium is home to an estimated 650,000 Muslims, or around 6% of the
overall population, based on an average of several statistical estimates.
The Netherlands is home to an estimated 925,000 Muslims, which also works
out to around 6% of the overall population. Within the EU, only France
(7.5%) has more Muslims in relative terms.
Belgian and Dutch cities have significant Muslim populations, comprised
mostly of Turkish and Moroccan immigrants, as well as a growing number of
converts to Islam.
The number of Muslims in Brussels—where roughly half of the number of
Muslims in Belgium currently live—has reached 300,000, which means that the
self-styled "Capital of Europe" is now one of the most Islamic
cities in Europe.
In 2013, Muslims made up approximately 26% of the population of
metropolitan Brussels, followed by Rotterdam (25%), Amsterdam (24%),
Antwerp (17%), The Hague (14%) and Utrecht (13%), according to a panoply of
research.
Not coincidentally, Belgium and the Netherlands have been at the
forefront of the debate over Muslim immigration and integration in Europe.
What follows is a chronological summary of some of the main stories about
the rise of Islam in Belgium and the Netherlands during 2013.
In January, the Belgian branch of the Dutch department store chain HEMA
lost a wrongful
termination lawsuit filed by a Muslim shop assistant whose contract was
not renewed because she refused to stop wearing a hijab, the traditional
Islamic headscarf.
The woman, a Belgian convert to Islam, had been employed as temporary
sales staff for two months, during which time she wore the hijab at work.
But when customers complained, the store manager asked her to remove the
headscarf.
After she refused to comply, HEMA declined to extend her contract in sales,
but did offer her an alternative job in its warehouse, where she would not
have direct contact with clients. She said the alternative job offer was
unsatisfactory and then consulted a lawyer.
Lawyers defending the Belgian shop said that to maintain the
"neutral and discreet image of HEMA, the shop did not want employees
wearing any kind of religious symbols."
But a labor court in the nearby Belgian city of Tongeren ruled that HEMA
did not have a clearly stated policy on headscarves and thus had no valid
justification to dismiss the woman. The court ordered HEMA to pay the
21-year-old woman €9,000 ($12,000), the equivalent of six month's salary,
as compensation.
According to the Centre
for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism, an NGO that helped
bring the woman's case to trial, the main purpose of the legal action was
to clarify how far a company can go in seeking to present a "neutral
image" to its customers. The NGO believes neutrality cannot be invoked
as a genuine and determining occupational requirement, and says it is not
self-evident that neutrality can amount to a legitimate goal if and when it
is chiefly invoked to please a private company's clients.
Also in January, the gangland
shootings of two young Moroccan men in downtown Amsterdam drew renewed
attention to the growing problem of violent crime among Muslim immigrants.
The two men were gunned down with AK-47 assault rifles in a shooting the
mayor of Amsterdam, Eberhard van der Laan, described as reminiscent of
"the Wild West."
According to the Amsterdam-based newspaper Het
Parool, young Moroccans continue their "unstoppable march to
become the largest group of violent criminals" in the country, despite
decades of government programs aimed at steering young Muslims away from a
life of crime. Moroccan gangsters specialize mainly in robberies of banks
and jewelry stores, as well as in drug trafficking, according to Het
Parool.
Meanwhile, the Dutch newspaper Trouw
reported that the Protestant Church of the Netherlands is planning to close
up to 800 of its 2,000 churches around the country due to the dwindling
number of practicing Christians. Critics of the move say many of these
buildings are likely to be converted into mosques.
In February, Members of the Belgian Parliament introduced a bill that
would limit the power of Muslim extremists who win elected office at the
local or national levels and isolate themselves from the political
mainstream.
The move came after members of the newly established Islam Party vowed
to implement
Islamic Sharia law in Belgium.
Addressing the Belgian Parliament on February 28, Alain Destexhe, an MP with the Reformist Movement [Mouvement Réformateur],
the largest French-speaking classical liberal party in Belgium, and Philippe Pivin, a liberal MP who is also
the deputy mayor of Koekelberg, a suburb of Brussels, said it is imperative
to curb the power of elected Muslims whose beliefs are inconsistent with
the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Strasbourg-based European
Court of Human Rights ruled in February 2003 that Islamic Sharia law is
"incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy." The
court said that a legal system based on Sharia law "would diverge from
the European Convention on Human Rights, particularly with regard to the
rules on the status of women, and its intervention in all spheres of
private and public life in accordance with religious precepts."
Destexhe said the measure is necessary because Muslim politicians in
Belgium are creating isolated communities and parallel societies. "The
people of the Islam Party refuse to shake hands with women," he said.
"They do not want to mix with others in public transport and other
communal places. They advocate getting married and wearing a veil at 12
years old, based on Islamic law."
Also in February, the growing problem of rampant anti-Semitism among
Muslim high school students in Arnhem, a city in eastern Holland that has a
large Muslim population, was brought to the fore after Turkish students
interviewed by NTR
public television said they approved of the murder of millions of Jews
during World War II and called the Jewish Holocaust "a blessing."
The February 24 broadcast of the NTR program "Unauthorized
Authority" [Onbevoegd Gezag] shows a 15-year-old Turkish boy saying:
"I hate Jews. It is clear. This thought cannot be taken away from me.
I am very pleased with what Hitler did to the Jews." (Six minute video
here,
in Dutch.) The Turkish boys said in the program that many Dutch friends
agree with them.
After the creator of the program, Mehmet Sahin, publicly reprimanded the
boys, he was forced to go into hiding due to death threats from members of
the Muslim community, who accused Sahin of being a "Jewish agent"
and a "collaborator."
Dutch public prosecutors said the boy had violated Article 137c of the
Dutch Penal Code, which restricts hate speech. But they decided not to
prosecute the boy after he said he was sorry for his remarks.
The Centre
for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI), an anti-Semitism
watchdog group, called on Dutch Education Minister Jet Bussemaker to investigate
the rise of anti-Semitic prejudices among high school students in Holland.
Meanwhile, a new research report, entitled "Youth
Groups and Violence," found that more than 1,200 youth gangs are
active in the Netherlands, and about 300 of these gangs are extremely
violent. The report,
which was produced under the auspices of the Dutch Ministry of Security and
Justice, said the gangs of mostly Moroccan youths operate on the national
and international levels and specialize in muggings, armed robberies, house
invasions, violent drug crimes and extortion.
In March, the Dutch public broadcasting system NOS
television reported that the Netherlands has become one of the major
European suppliers of Islamic jihadists. According to NOS, about 100 Dutch
Muslims are active as jihadists in Syria; most have joined the notorious Jabhat
al-Nusra rebel group.
As in other European countries, Dutch counter-terrorism experts are
worried that Dutch jihadists will bring their war-fighting skills back to
the Netherlands.
On March 13, the Dutch government raised its alert level for terrorist
attacks from "limited" to "substantial." In a
statement, the National
Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism (NCTV), a government
agency within the Security and Justice Ministry, said: "The chance of
an attack in the Netherlands or against Dutch interests abroad has risen.
Close to a hundred individuals have recently left the Netherlands for
various countries in Africa and the Middle East, especially Syria."
The agency said individuals fighting for radical Islam abroad could return
and "inspire others in the Netherlands to follow in their
footsteps."
On March 16, the Dutch daily newspaper Trouw
reported that the Justice Ministry lacks effective measures at its disposal
to prevent Dutch jihadists from embarking on their foreign adventures. The
paper noted that Dutch courts have so far been unable to prosecute Dutch
jihadists for travelling to foreign battlefields.
Trouw describes the trial in a Rotterdam court of three Dutch
Kurds, arrested in November 2012 just before travelling to Syria to join
jihadist fighters there. Prosecutors accused the three of "taking
preparatory actions for the purpose of committing terrorist offenses."
But the case stalled because it was unclear which terrorist actions the
three were planning to commit in Syria.
In neighboring Belgium, the daily newspaper De
Standaard reported on March 11 that at least 70 members of the
outlawed Sharia4Belgium,
a Muslim group that wants to turn Belgium into an Islamic state, are
actively fighting in Syria. The paper noted that that most of the Belgian
jihadists are "young people, between the ages of 17 and 25, who grew
up here. They are young people without qualifications and often with
criminal records. They come from Antwerp, Brussels, Mechelen and
Vilvoorde."
De Standaard reported that the Belgian security services are
"particularly concerned about what will happen when the
military-trained 'drop-outs,' after the war from Syria, return to our
country." The paper added that it has been difficult to prosecute
jihadists in Belgian courts, as the uprising against Assad is "generally
regarded as legitimate."
The newspaper pointed to a recent court case in the Belgian city of
Mechelen, where 13 Muslim extremists were acquitted of being members of a
terrorist organization. The court said that although there was evidence
that the jihadists travelled to Chechnya in Russia, there was no evidence
that they fought there as members of a terrorist group.
On March 26, the center-right newspaper La
Libre reported that Wallonia, the French-speaking southern region
of Belgium, officially renamed the four major Christian holidays on the
Belgian school calendar with secular names in the interests of
"administrative simplification."
From now on, school calendars within Belgium's French speaking community
will permanently use the following terminology: the Christian holiday
previously known as All Saints Day will now be referred to as Autumn Leave;
Christmas Vacation is now Winter Vacation; Lenten Vacation is now Rest and
Relaxation Leave; and Easter is now Spring Vacation.
Critics of the move to "de-Christianize" the Christian
holidays said it reflects an ongoing effort by Belgian politicians to
remove Christianity from public life to accommodate a burgeoning Muslim
population.
Also in March, several Dutch Moroccan organizations sent
a letter to the Labor Party (Partij van de Arbeid, PvdA) in which they
threatened to urge Dutch Moroccans to stop supporting the party if it
agrees to a proposal by its Minister of Social Affairs, Lodewijk Asscher,
to cut social welfare payments to Moroccans who do not live in the
Netherlands. Asscher accused the organizations of using an "improper
electoral threat."
Meanwhile, the mayor of the Belgian city of Liège, Willy Demeyer (PS), banned
a protest march against the construction of a Turkish mega-mosque in
the city.
Muslims want to build the largest mosque in Wallonia (the
French-speaking region of Belgium) on an 11,000 m² (118,000 ft²) plot. The
project consists of a main building with a capacity for 1,000 worshippers,
a library, a cafeteria and several shops.
Plans to build two 30 meter (98 foot) minarets were scrapped after
opposition from local residents. The new plan involves one 18 meter (60
foot) minaret which will be automatically illuminated during calls to
prayer.
In April, more than 200 Belgian police carried out dozens of raids and
arrested six Islamists—including Fouad Belkacem (alias Abu Imran), the
pugnacious ringleader of a Belgian Salafist group called
Sharia4Belgium—suspected of recruiting foreign fighters for the war in
Syria.
The raids were conducted in the northern port city of Antwerp and in
Vilvoorde, which is situated about 20 kilometers north of Brussels, home to
most of the young Belgians who are known to have departed for Syria.
According to the public prosecutor's office, the objective of the police
operation was two-fold: to deter other volunteer jihadists from departing
for Syria, and to determine whether a group known as Sharia4Belgium
"is a terrorist group," belonging to which is an offense that
carries a 10-year jail term.
The public prosecutor's office said one of those arrested was Belkacem,
a well-known Antwerp-based Islamist who is the main spokesman for
Sharia4Belgium, and who has long called for turning Belgium into an Islamic
state.
Although Belkacem had previously been sentenced to two
years in prison in February 2012 for incitement to hatred and violence
towards non-Muslims, he was released from prison in February 2013 and
allowed to serve the rest of his sentence at home, provided he wore an
ankle-strap monitor and promised not to speak with his followers. His
re-arrest implies that he violated the terms of his release.
Belgian prosecutor Eric
Van Der Sypt told a news conference that "the investigation shows
that Sharia4Belgium is part of a broad international jihadist
movement," accused of providing ideological and martial arts training,
organizing violent activities in Belgium and recruiting Islamist fighters
for conflicts abroad. Van Der Sypt said Belgian authorities were aware of
33 people with links to Sharia4Belgium who were either fighting with, or on
their way to fight with, al-Qaeda-inspired jihadists in Syria.
According to Stanny
De Vlieger, the director of the federal judicial police in Antwerp,
"The investigation shows that members of Sharia4Belgium have joined
Salafi jihadists inspired by al-Qaeda and they appear to have participated
in combat and even in the kidnapping and execution of those they call
'infidels.'"
Also in April, a new survey of Muslim youth in Flanders, the
Dutch-speaking northern half of Belgium, found that only 30% of Muslim
males between the ages of 15 and 25 feel as though they are accepted by
Flemish society. This figure drops to 25% for Muslim females in the same
age group.
The survey, published by the daily newspaper Gazet
van Antwerpen on April 19, shows that 60% of Muslim youths believe
that they will never be integrated into Belgian society. One in three of
those surveyed say that he or she has been discriminated against at school,
and one in five say they have been discriminated against at work. More than
50% say they have been victims of racism. Although 93% of those surveyed
have Belgian citizenship, 42% of them say they consider themselves to be
foreigners.
The results were virtually unchanged from a similar survey conducted in
2005, and imply that years of government efforts to make Belgium more
multicultural have done nothing to change the minds of Muslim youths.
According to the Flemish Minister for integration, Geert
Bourgeois, Muslim youths should work harder and complain less.
"That so many young people feel discriminated against and do not feel
accepted means that our society still has a lot of work to do. It's
actually an 'us-them' story. We as a society can and should still make an
extra effort, but conversely, Muslim youth should do more as well. Perhaps
an inverted research shows that we just think that young Muslims do not
belong because they do not want to belong," Bourgeois said.
In May, the Dutch newspaper Trouw
reported that a part of the Schilderswijk district of The Hague has become
an Islamic enclave run by fundmentalist Muslims who are forcing Muslims and
non-Muslims to comply with Sharia law on the street.
The enclave -- which is known as the Sharia Triangle and also "the
point of the sword" -- is home to an estimated 5,000 Muslims who have
established a "mini-caliphate" run according to Sharia law.
Muslims in the enclave have banned the smoking of cigarettes, the use of
alcohol and the sale or consumption of pork on the streets. Muslims have
ordered Dutch police out of the neighborhood because the local residents
"can solve their problems themselves."
Trouw asked the municipality of The Hague for a response, but
could not get a "careful and substantive response" regarding this
"complex issue."
Also in May, an opinion
poll published by NCRV public television and radio found that nearly
three-quarters (73%) of Dutch Muslims believe that Muslims who travel to
participate in jihad in Syria are heroes. Most Muslims (75%) surveyed
believe that those who want to leave for Syria should be free to do so and
do not want them to be arrested and prosecuted. Upon their return, they
should be accepted back into Dutch society and their Dutch passports should
not be revoked.
In June, the Ibn
Ghaldoun Muslim High School in Rotterdam was involved in the biggest
exam fraud in Dutch history. At least 27 types of exams were stolen from
the school's safe, and then copied and sold, sometimes to students in other
towns and cities for between €20 ($27) and €250 ($340).
The investigation began when a French exam was posted online, apparently
by a whistleblower trying to demonstrate how easy it was to get hold of
advance copies.
Students who saw the advance copies were given an ultimatum to admit
their role in the fraud and retake their exams, or face having their
diplomas cancelled if they were caught out by the inquiry. Although 26
pupils came forward, Deputy Minister of Education Sander Dekker said he
believed more students were involved and called it "very
regrettable" that more had not taken up the offer. Police eventually
investigated 58 suspects.
In July, Dutch police arrested a 19-year-old Muslim woman who goes by
the name Oum Usama ("Mother of Osama") for recruiting Dutch
Muslims for the civil war in Syria. Usama, a Dutch national of Somali
origin, was arrested in Zoetermeer, a city in western Holland.
The arrest came after complaints by several parents of Dutch Muslims who
have traveled to Syria. The arrest led to protests by Muslims outside of
Dutch embassies in several European countries. The website "The
True Religion" ["De Ware Religie"] published a letter
warning of potential retribution for the arrest, including the abduction of
Dutch citizens in Muslim countries.
Public prosecutors have said that while authorities cannot stop would-be
fighters from leaving the country, they can combat recruitment, which is
against the law and carries a sentence of up to four years in jail or a
fine of €78,000 ($106,000). Nevertheless, such cases are difficult to prove
and there have been no successful prosecutions of Muslims on recruitment
charges to date.
Oum Usama was freed after ten days and eventually surfaced in Syria
under the name Oum Usama al Muhajirah.
In August, the Catholic University of Leuven, the oldest university in
Belgium and one that has been a major contributor to the development of
Roman Catholic theology for more than 500 years, announced that it would
offer a degree in Islamic theology beginning in 2014.
The decision by KU Leuven,
as the university is commonly known, to focus on Islam follows similar
moves by other leading universities in Europe and reflects the growing
influence of Islam on the continent.
Belgian opinion-shapers cast an overwhelmingly positive light on KU
Leuven's decision to teach Islamic theology, a move that has been closely
coordinated with the government in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern
part of Belgium.
But critics said such efforts to create a "European Islam" are
naïve and misguided, and will serve only to contribute to the
"mainstreaming" of a religious and political ideology that is
intrinsically opposed to all aspects of the European way of life.
Also in August, it emerged that the government of Kuwait was paying the
salaries of Muslim leaders in Amsterdam to promote
Islam in the Netherlands. According to the newspaper Het Parool,
the Kuwaiti Ministry of Islamic Affairs is financing operations of the Blue
Mosque situated in the Sloterdijk district of Amsterdam.
According to an analysis published by the Investigative
Project on Terrorism, Kuwait is tying Dutch and other European Muslims
directly into the Muslim Brotherhood through a complex network of
financial, non-profit and religious organizations in an effort to fund the
growth of radical Islam in the West.
In September, military police at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport suspended
a Muslim woman because of fears she could be a danger to national security.
The woman, identified only as Sabra R, is part of a team charged with
combating terrorism and crime. According to the newspaper De
Telegraaf, the security services worried she could be susceptible
to the influence of radical Muslims.
Military police became suspicious when the woman failed to tell the
security service that one of her relatives gave a statement in relation to
the Hofstad group terrorism trial in 2005. The Hofstad group was the
codename the Dutch secret service AIVD gave to an Islamist terrorist
organization of mostly young Dutch Muslims of mainly North African
ancestry.
Also in September, the Dutch government said it would cut funding for
the Ibn Ghaldoun Muslim High School in Rotterdam, driving the school into
bankruptcy. The school was involved in the biggest exam fraud in Dutch
history. The school has since been reopened under a new name, De Opperd.
Meanwhile, a court in Rotterdam determined that the new school cannot
force parents to sign a contract in which they not only promise to commit
to the Islamic character of the school, but also promise to refrain from
speaking to the press. A judge said it was a violation of their right to
the freedom of speech.
In October, the lawyer who lost the "hate crime" case against
Geert Wilders in June 2011 said he would ask the Dutch Supreme Court to reopen
the case. Wilders—the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party—was acquitted
of charges of inciting religious hatred against Muslims for comments he
made that were critical of Islam.
Lawyer Gerard
Spong told the television program Pauw & Witteman on October
21 that he had asked the procurator general to take recourse in the
interest of law, a special procedure in which the High Court in hindsight
decides if a lower court has explained the law clearly and properly.
Although the ruling of the earlier case would not be affected, Spong
said he wants a clear ruling on whether Wilders was guilty of
discrimination and inciting hatred with an eye to future similar cases. The
procurator general refused a similar request in 2012, but Spong is using a
recent report by the Council of Europe to back up his latest effort. That
report said the Netherlands is not doing enough to counteract racism.
Separately, Arnoud van Doorn, a former member of Wilders' Freedom Party,
said he wants to establish the first Islamic political party in Europe. Van
Doorn, who recently converted to Islam, said the party will focus on
serving Islam and Muslims not only in the Netherlands but Europe as whole.
Van Doorn was involved in producing the 2008 documentary Fitna, which
argued that Islam is prone to violence and bent on world domination. In an
interview with the Saudi
Gazette, van Doorn said: "I have taken a solemn pledge to work
day and night in the service of Islam to atone for my previous sins. I hope
that Allah will accept my repentance and forgive me."
Meanwhile, the rector of the Islamic University of Rotterdam (IUR),
Ahmet Akgündüz, said he values stoning as an appropriate punishment,
according to a report in the newspaper NRC
Handelsblad.
The rector wrote a pamphlet about the political unrest in Turkey,
calling opponents of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
"enemies of Islam." He said the demonstrations were the work of
"people with a Western lifestyle" and said stoning is "one
of the prescribed punishments within Islam."
Several MPs demanded clarification from Integration Minister Lodewijk
Asscher. They are concerned about the statements because the IUR is
recognized by the government as a training institute for imams. The parties
want to know what action the minister will take against the university.
"With this, you will get imams with hostile views and anti-western
values," said Labor MP Keklik Yücel.
In November, the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant
reported that Muslims in Belgium and Holland have set up the website Selefienederland (Netherlands
Salafi) to collect thousands of euros for jihadists in Yemen. The website
calls for sympathizers to contribute more money for "the Jihad against
cursed Shiites."
The fundraising came to light after a 25-year-old Moroccan from
Amsterdam named Ibrahim
El Bey (aka Brahim Abu Hudayfal) was killed during continued fighting
between Sunnis and Shias in Dammaj, a small
town in northwestern Yemen. El Bey had traveled to Yemen to study Salafi
doctrine at the Dar al-Hadith Institute, a Dammaj-based Koran school that
has attracted hundreds of hardcore Salafists from across Europe. A
12-minute documentary about El Bey produced by NOS Public Television can be
viewed here
(in Dutch only).
Also in November, the newspaper Volkskrant
reported on a new phenomenon called "Pop Jihad" in which a
growing number of Muslim youths are idolizing the symbols of al-Qaeda,
often distributing them on social media. The National Coordinator for
Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV) said the popularization of jihad was a
nationwide phenomenon and "extremely worrying."
Meanwhile, Dutch counter-terrorism officials said the seventh Dutch
jihad warrior had been slain in Syria. Abu Jandal, a 26-year-old jihadist
from Delft, a city in southern Holland, was also known by the pseudonym Abu
Fidaa. He was the contact person for an interview with a group of Dutch
jihadists that Volkskrant
published in June.
In December, Belgian police raided the home of a Muslim hate preacher,
Jean-Louis Denis, in Brussels and detained him for allegedly recruiting
jihadists to go and fight in Syria. See 13-minute news report here, in French.
The 39-year-old Belgian, who converted to Islam, was involved in an
organization that distributed food to poor and homeless people at Brussels
North Railway Station. He reportedly approached young Muslims at the
station with a view to persuading them to go and fight in Syria.
Soeren Kern is a
Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.
He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de
Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
Europe's
New Crowd-Pleasing Jew-Hate
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Dieudonné, in a video posted on
YouTube, and widely seen before being removed, expressed a longing to bring
back the gas chambers in which the Nazis gassed the Jews. Everything he
posts goes viral.
On Saturday
December 28th 2013, a French Muslim soccer player, Nicolas Anelka (aka:
Abdul-Salam Bilal), scored a goal for his club, West Bromwich Albion, in
front of thousands of cheering fans and millions more around the world
watching on television. He showed no joy. He did not even smile. He
extended one hand straight down and touched the other to his shoulder. Most
of those who saw did not understand. For many others, the meaning was
clear: he was performing a "quenelle", the reverse Nazi-style
salute invented by the French "comedian" Dieudonné M'Bala M'Bala.
For the last couple of years, "quenelles" have become a trend in
France and throughout Europe.
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Dieudonné M'Bala
M'Bala demonstrates the "quenelle" salute with NBA player Tony
Parker. (Image source: Twitter)
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Pictures of people performing "quenelles" also multiplied:
"quenelles" in front of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of
Europe in Berlin; on the train tracks leading to the Auschwitz death camp;
beside a picture of Anne Frank in Amsterdam; and in the courtyard of the
school where three Jewish children and a teacher were murdered by Mohamed
Merah in Toulouse.
The photos also show "quenelles" by famous athletes: soccer
players, such as Nicolas Anelka; basketball players such as Tony Parker (he
recently apologized, saying he did not know the meaning of the gesture),
and world judo champion, Teddy Riner.
It has long been common knowledge in France that Dieudonné is an
anti-Semite and that "quenelles" were performed by countless
people. It is also common knowledge that Dieudonné's shows were explicitly
anti-Semitic and attracted large crowds, but until recently, nobody paid
attention.
For many, however, Nicolas Anelka's "quenelle" during the
soccer match went a step too far, and occurred at the wrong moment: only
one week after Dieudonné himself, for many, went a step too far. In a video
posted on YouTube, and widely seen before being removed, he expressed a
longing to bring back the gas chambers in which which the Nazis gassed the
Jews. He also added an ambiguous sentence that unambiguously meant it was
"too bad" that a Jewish journalist, Patrick Cohen, could not be
gassed. A few hours after the video was posted, a hacker tracked down some
of those who posted their own "quenelles" pictures on Dieudonné's
website and made their addresses public.
Immediately after Anelka's "quenelle", Valérie Fourneyron,
French Sports Minister, called Anelka's
gesture "a disgusting provocation" and an "incitement to
hatred." A few hours after that, Manuel Valls, French Minister of the
Interior, spoke
of "the need to ban" Dieudonné's public appearances -- the first
time since World War II that the French government and France's highest
administrative court, the Council of State, have ordered a ban to go into
effect.
Protests are being organized by Jewish movements in front of the Paris
theater where Dieudonné's performances are still scheduled, and the famous
Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld have said they will participate.
All the fuss, however will be almost certainly useless.
Dieudonné's popularity is intact and will not vanish. It is likely even
to increase. Nicolas Anelka is a hero in French and British Muslim suburbs,
and he will stay a hero. He has said that when he will stop playing soccer,
he will become an actor and work with his friend, Dieudonné. Dieudonné's
shows and sketches, available on-line, have attracted over a million views.
He has created a network of sympathizers and a website called
"Dieudosphere," where they can share and exchange information.
Everything he posts goes viral.
Sociologist Michel Wieworka wrote in Le Monde on December 31st,
that Dieudonné is a "symptom," and he is right: Dieudonné became
the symptom -- and the symbol -- of the new anti-Semitism that is gaining
ground in France and throughout Europe.
It is an anti-Semitism that seems to come mostly from people affiliated
with the French radical "left": members and sympathizers of
Trotskyist movements, of the neo-communist French "Left Front",
and of "pro-Palestinian" organizations such as Europalestine. Its
followers accuse the Jews of having "monopolized" human
sufferings, of having "rapaciousness" behind the "Holocaust
industry" and of being complicit in the "imperialist crimes"
committed by Israel against the "Palestinians". Unsurprisingly, a
growing number of young Muslims identify with these arguments.
Members of the politically right-leaning "nationalist
revolutionary" parties, and other Neo-Nazi organizations see all this
as a boon and an exoneration. They hate Islam, but they hate Jews and
Israel even more, and when people such as Dieudonné say that
"Zionists" in the Middle East are worse than Nazis, or that
Holocaust commemorations are "memorial pornography," they exult.
When Dieudonné invites a famous Holocaust -denier such as Robert
Faurisson on stage, and then praises the gas chambers, members of the
audience are full of joy. When Dieudonné sings "Shoah-Ananas"
["Holocaust Pineapple"] in the company of Faurisson, the audience
sings along with gusto. "The Anti-Semite," a movie Dieudonné made
with Iranian money to mock the Auschwitz concentration camp, was never
released in theaters, but has became an on-line success anyhow.
This new anti-Semitism is especially strong in France, where there is a
deeply rooted leftist tradition: for decades, the French Communist Party
earned more than 20% of the vote in every election. Today, openly Marxist
parties are still an important part of the political landscape. Several
radical politicians openly support Islamists and Arab terrorists. A few
weeks ago, the mayor of Bagnolet, a small town in the Paris suburbs,
organized a ceremony to make Georges
Ibrahim Abdallah a honorary citizen of his city. Abdallah happens to be
a killer sentenced to life in prison in France for the murders
of Charles R. Ray, assistant U.S. military attaché in Paris, and Yaakov
Bar-Simantov, an Israeli diplomat.
France has never fully confronted its collaborationist past: after World
War II, General de Gaulle disseminated the idea that France was full of
members of a "Resistance," who liberated the country from the
Nazis. It was only in 1995 that a French President acknowledged
France's responsibility in the mass-deportation of the Jews.
In 1967, just twenty two years after the Holocaust ended, General de
Gaulle was the first European leader to make anti-Semitic remarks about
Israel; he spoke
of the Jewish people as "self-assured and domineering" -- a
description many might think fits De Gaulle. Since De Gaulle's slur,
however, France has been at the forefront of the demonization and
boycotting of Israel.
De Gaulle also embarked France on a pro-Arab foreign policy that led to
massive Muslim immigration and to strong support for the "Palestinian
cause." Today France has the largest Muslim population in Europe --
more than six million people (10% of the general population) -- and the
number is rapidly increasing .
On the "far right," since 1984, the National Front party has
been one of the country's three main political forces, and its influence is
still growing. Although ts current leader, Marine Le Pen, has been trying
to "de-demonize" it, her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the man who
said that the gas chambers were "just a detail in the history of World
War II," remains enormously influential -- and is a close friend of
Dieudonné and the godfather of his fourth child.
Ironically, Dieudonné started his career as an "anti-racist"
"leftist" comedian, who worked with a Jew, Elie Semoun. A few
years later, he became openly "anti-Zionist." In 2003, in a
prime-time TV show, he denounced the "American-Zionist axis," and
added, while performing a Nazi salute, "Heil Israel." He broke
with Semoun and began using anti-Semitic innuendos more and more often. He
ceased being invited on TV, but gained an audience beyond his dreams.
His fame now goes way beyond the borders of France; in today's Europe, a
sinister clown who inflames sick emotions has become an influential
political spokesman. His popularity also reveals the disquieting resurgence
of a broader sickness that has mutated but has not disappeared -- and will
not disappear.
The new anti-Semitism is not different from the old anti-Semitism; the
victims remain the same and, for the most part, the words remain the same:
Jews were described as "greedy" and having "too much
power." They are again described as "greedy" and having
"too much power." They were presented as being members of an
international "conspiracy." Now, the view of a "Jewish
conspiracy" to rule the world is spreading again, even if, to avoid
being accused of being anti-Semites, the new anti-Semites call it a
"Zionist conspiracy" instead.
In Europe, every day, anti-Jewish hatred is becoming more and more
acceptable. It has found new ways to seduce and indoctrinate the public,
and it has found a new audience while retaining its old one.
The French government and the Jewish organizations have every reason to
react. But even if they could stop Dieudonné, it does not mean they will
stop what Dieudonné has come to embody.
Even if they decided to broaden their scope, to combat anti-Semitism as
it exists now in Europe -- such as a request to the French government to
denounce the way Israel is treated in the mainstream media and by many
European intellectuals and politicians -- it would probably be asking too
much.
Anti-Semitism is becoming frightfully "banal" in Europe once
again. At a time when Europe is in economic, cultural, political and moral
crisis, anti-Semitism gives people a scapegoat that they can easily
designate as responsible for their misfortunes, and which they can easily
loathe.
The Jews have been used in Europe for twenty centuries as scapegoats;
seven decades ago, this scapegoating led to the worst crimes in the modern
era.
A growing number of Jews now feel it is safer to leave Europe, and that
is what they do.
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