The number of incidents involving anti-Semitic vandalism recorded in the Netherlands last year increased by 40 percent, to a 10-year high of 28 cases.
The good news though, unlike here under tRump, most all of the political parties running for municipal elections have come out strongly against the actions and vowed to take action against Anti-Semitism.
Some of the actions:
- A Palestinian man’s smashing of windows in December of a kosher restaurant in Amsterdam. Holding a Palestinian flag, he then broke in and stole an Israeli one before being arrested.
- Two Israelis were stabbed in an elevator on July 18 in a suburb of Amsterdam
- A Jew of Syrian descent who was assaulted on Amsterdam’s Dam Square for wearing a Star of David pendant. He had been assaulted earlier this year at a fast-food eatery, where several men broke his arm
The numbers are not hugely high as the tRump would say.. but they are showing a significant increase over time. My point in writing this is two-fold,
One….any increase in anti-Semitism is by itself a horrible and vile thing and must be acknowledged and dealt with.
But second…. to compare the actions against our own friends with the uber-Right tRump…..when a country commits to having strategies to fight against the problem instead of inviting instigators into his own administration and saying their are good people on the neo-nazi right side.