By DOV SEGAL
Some 15 years ago in Amsterdam, observant Jews started to complain to the local government and police about verbal and physical harassment in predominantly migrant neighbourhoods.The only Amsterdam politician who was truly shocked by this development was an ethnic Moroccan called Ahmed Marcouch. He proposed a number of concrete measures to combat the growing anti-Semitism from Muslims.None of the proposed measures were carried out.The police had their own method for solving the problem of anti-Jewish incidents. They did not try to apprehend or stop the perpetrators. They did nothing.Instead, they told the Jews to cover up their ethnicity, or leave.The Jews left. No Jews, no attacks on Jews, problem solved.Nowadays, there is no public Jewish life in Amsterdam any more. Observant Jews have retreated to a few neighbourhoods in the south of the city. When they leave these small neighbourhoods they hide their heritage in public.Seventy years after the end of the Holocaust, Amsterdam Jews are again hiding the fact that they are Jews. And few people care.They are a liability. It costs money to protect their buildings and their very presence provokes the growing Muslim community.However, the biggest problem with the Jews is that they support Israel.
Hatred of Israel is a binding factor between the regressive left, (many) Muslims and indigenous anti-Semites. It is not the size of the country that they hate, it is its very existence. For them, Zionism is the same as Nazism and Israel is even worse than ISIS.In 2018 there are local elections. According to the prognoses, a majority of the vote will likely go to anti-Zionist parties.What then for the Jews of Amsterdam, who support the state of Israel? Ominously, there have been recent verbal and physical attacks on pro-Israel demonstrators and the police have done nothing about them. Even though the attacks were filmed and they know the names of the perpetrators.There is an arrangement for public participation at council meetings. Anybody can speak to the council for three minutes.One of the pro-Israel demonstrators who had been physically attacked took advantage of this arrangement. The members of the party that is projected to be the biggest after the next elections, got up and left when he started to speak.I remember an article in a national daily newspaper written by one of the leaders of an “anti-racist” platform. He wrote that Zionists were traitors and they should be tried for treason. Many on next year's new council in Amsterdam will agree with him.The clock is ticking for the Jews of Amsterdam. They would do well to remember that the Dutch have a history of betraying Jews.