AMSTERDAM POLICE DEPLOY "DECOY JEWS"

Here's an article on the Hudson website about how Holland's authorities are deploying decoys to fight anti-semitism in the streets (via NRO's The Corner):

Last week, a television broadcast showed how three Jews with skullcaps, two adolescents and an adult, were harassed within thirty minutes of being out in the streets of Amsterdam. Young Muslims spat at them, mocked them, shouted insults and made Nazi salutes. “Dirty Jew, go back to your own country,” a group of Moroccan youths shouted at a young indigenous Dutch Jew. “It is rather ironic,” the young man commented, adding that if one goes out in a burka one encounters less hostility than if one wears a skullcap.

Were the Moroccans really serious about telling them to go back to their "own country"? I doubt it. Helen Thomas practically said the opposite.

In an effort to arrest the culprits who terrorize Jews, the Amsterdam authorities have ordered police officers to walk the streets disguised as Jews. The Dutch police already disguise officers as “decoy prostitutes, decoy gays and decoy grannies” to deter muggings and attacks on prostitutes, homosexuals and the elderly. Apparently sending out the decoys has helped reduce street crime. The “decoy Jew” has now been added to the police attributes.

While this part is good to learn about, guess who's opposing it:

The deployment of “decoy Jews”, however, is being criticized by leftist parties such as the Dutch Greens. Evelien van Roemburg, an Amsterdam counselor of the Green Left Party, says that using a decoy by the police amounts to provoking a crime, which is itself a criminal offence under Dutch law.

In other words, it's more of the classic blame-the-victim routine, and you can be sure this must even be their stance when it comes to the prostitutes and grannies.

And look at the situation in Belgium:

On Monday, the Belgian newspaper De Standaard reported that large numbers of Jews are leaving Antwerp for America, Britain or Israel. Antwerp — nicknamed the “Jerusalem of the North” — is one of the major centers of Jewish culture in the Low Countries. “In London, you are not harassed if you wear a skullcap, but here you are,” a young Antwerp Jew told the paper.

I have to disagree a little here, since I'd blogged about some of Britain's own problems with anti-semitism before, and it's not just Muslims who are responsible for the crimes there, but even some Brits themselves.

Still, this does show how much you can trust "brave little Belgium" I guess.

Kleinblatt, a famous Jewish Antwerp bakery, which has been handed down from father to son since 1903, will soon break with that tradition because the baker’s son has emigrated to the U.S. “We no longer feel safe and welcome here,” a young Jew who is leaving for London told De Standaard. “Muslim immigrants blame us for what is happening in Israel.” Another young Jew, who is leaving for New York, says: “New York is a paradise for Jews. Unlike Belgium, non-Jews in America are pro-Israel.”

Americans can feel great about that, but let's not think it's impossible, even today, for anti-semitism to occur in the US as it can/does. Just look at university grounds, for example. That should have one worried, as it's still a problem.

In Holland's case, I hope we have Geert Wilders to thank for the current security measures being laid out.