Dutch minister goes to court to defend statement that antisemitism is "almost a part of the culture" in Muslim countries ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Monday, December 16, 2024

Dutch minister goes to court to defend statement that antisemitism is "almost a part of the culture" in Muslim countries

In May, Dutch MP Mona Keijzer was a guest on TV program "Sophie & Jeroen." In a discussion of what prospective immigrants should be required to know before being allowed to become citizens.

She argued that the integration classes should include material about the Holocaust, saying of asylum seekers from Muslim countries, "We know that there, hatred of Jews is almost part of the culture."

The host and another guest immediately took offense, first pretending that she said that only Muslims were antisemitic sand then that she was calling all Muslims antisemitic. She clarified what she said: "Now it seems as if I am saying that everyone who comes from an Islamic country hates Jews, that is not the case. If that is how it came across, I apologize, because that is not what I meant. But it is definitely a problem and it must become part of the integration process."

A group of Muslims filed a complaint saying that her comment is insulting and she was inciting hatred, violence and discrimination against Muslims.

The Public Prosecution Service concluded that Keijzer was "in principle guilty of group insult", but that prosecution would be too great an infringement of a politician's right to freedom of expression, so the case was dropped.

Mona Keijzer is now the Housing Minister for the Netherlands, and she wants a review of the case to clear her name.

Her defense is that her words are objectively true."Facts cannot be punishable," Keijzer has been telling the media.

Referring to various studies done in Europe, in the Netherlands and by Pew Research, she says "seventy to eighty percent of people from Islamic countries exhibit antisemitic views."

De Telegraaf newspaper looked at the statistics and found that Keijzer's statement was accurate.

The American Anti Defamation League (ADL) has been conducting surveys around the world since the 1970s....The largely Islamic Middle East and North Africa do not fare well. Of the 275 million inhabitants, 200 million people hold views such as 'Jews have too much power in the financial world' or 'Jews are responsible for most of the world's wars'. According to the ADL, anyone who agrees with six of eleven more or less anti-Semitic statements is considered an anti-Semite. That yields a score of 74 percent in the Middle East and North Africa. In Morocco, it is 80 percent. By comparison, Sweden scores 4 percent, the Netherlands 6, the US 10, France 15, Spain 26 and Turkey 69 percent.

Recognizing widespread Islamic antisemitism has been the third rail in most Western countries. The liberal West, including academia and human rights groups, treat pointing out the truth as Islamophobic.

This is an important case for freedom of speech. Moreover, it helps bring a very real problem of a very real bigotry out in the open, when the media and most governments try mightily to bury it.