While accusations of Islamophobia are being bandied about, conflating dislike of Muslims with the real issue, dislike of the tenets of Islam (in particular, those tenets that are violent or oppressive), nobody’s much worried about a real phobia: “Judeophobia,” which I’ll coin as a neologism for what it really is: anti-Semitism. In terms of hate crimes in the U.S. and Europe, there are roughly five times more committed against Jews than against Muslims.
All of which is to say that while Islamophobia is used as a common epithet (especially in the atheist blogosphere), we don’t hear much about a genuine animus against individuals of another ethnic group: Jews. (This, of course, is not to justify discrimination against anyone.)
So here’s a real instance of hate speech from a college campus. The University of California at Santa Barbara’s student senate voted Friday on whether to join the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement against Israel, which aims to bring Israel to its knees—and, ultimately, to dissolve that state—with economic and social pressure. The divestment resolution barely lost (12-12, with 5 abstaining), but Margaux Gundzik, a Jewish student who attended the meeting to oppose the resolution, wrote a letter to The Bottom Line (the UCSB student newspaper) detailing her experiences. I’ll excerpt just one paragraph to show the slurs that were raised by advocates for BDS:
Furthermore, I am disgusted by the normalization of anti-Semitic language so casually thrown around at the meeting. In those eight hours, I was told that Jews control the government, that all Jews are rich, that Zionism is racism, that the marginalization of Jewish students is justified because it prevents the marginalization of other minority groups, that Israel sterilizes its Ethiopian women (this is obviously not true), and that Palestinians in America who speak out against Israel are sought out by the IDF and denied entrance into Israel (also a ridiculous conspiracy theory). I heard a senator—someone who is supposed to be my representative—say that people were only voting against this resolution because they were afraid of losing “Jew support.” I heard my peers laugh at the mention of terrorists hurling stones at the heads of Israeli civilians intending to kill them. I saw students smile and cheer enthusiastically as a woman stood up and said the words, “I am ashamed to be a Jew.” The rhetoric I heard from students opposing Israel at this meeting could easily be equated to arguments that I have only seen in quotes at museums or mentioned in textbooks for their use in the justification of historical persecution of the Jewish race.
Well, Jews are not a race but a religious group, but that’s irrelevant here. They are a minority that, it seems, are reviled even more than Muslims. Many of the slurs above, like Jews being rich, in charge of the government, and so on are old staples of anti-Semitism, and the idea that “the marginalization of Jewish students is justified because it prevents the marginalization of other minority groups” is reprehensible—but typical of the distorted thinking of today’s college Social Justice Warriors.
Of course if such talk had been aimed at Muslims, blacks, gays, or anyone else, the campus would have recoiled in outrage. Gundzik notices this:
Ironically, it was the people who made these statements who also argued that this resolution was not anti-Semitic and that my personal feelings of it being anti-Semitic were invalid.
If any other minority had voiced these same concerns regarding any other resolution, no administration would dare question the validity of their feelings. The resolution would be dismissed without question. Yet, my community is forced to stand in front of hundreds of people year after year and explain to them why something is racially offensive to us.
By all means try to boycott Israel if you want—it’s your right to frame such resolutions—but be aware that the BDS movement’s explicit goals are to completely eliminate the state of Israel. And also be aware that the kind of statements made above (and I’ll take Gundzik at her word, because these accusations are so common) are not accusations against the state of Israel, are not accusations against the tenets of Judaism, but expressions of hate against Jewish people. I heard these more often when I was a kid, but thought that they had simply vanished from my country. Apparently they haven’t: they’ve just gone underground. And nowhere outside the Middle East are they more pervasive than on American college campuses.
UPDATE: Today’s New York Times has a story about anti-Semitism among European soccer fans, something completely new to me. An excerpt:
An ugly vein of soccer fan excess — the chanting of anti-Semitic slurs — recently disgraced a Dutch soccer game, prompting officials of the home team, Utrecht, to apologize for shocking outcries from the stands like “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas” and “Jews burn the best!”
Anyone who has been to a European match knows how badly things can get out of hand when pushed by brutish fans in the stands. But the Utrecht outrage in a game against Ajax Amsterdam laid bare what soccer supporters say is an epidemic of anti-Semitic outbursts.
The problem is getting worse, according to Kick It Out, a British watchdog organization, which said in March that there were more than 30 instances of anti-Semitic slurs reported in the first half of the season, surpassing last year, with chants of “Yids” and “Kill the Jews” heard at games attended by Jewish fans.
Seriously, in the Netherlands? Dutch readers, please explain! “Jews to the gas?”
h/t: Malgorzata
I keep hearing about the rise of anti-semitism and I wonder if it is something that is truly on the rise or it was the same as always and we just didn’t notice it. It is so repugnant that people have these attitudes.
It is truly on the rise. The statistics of antisemitic both physical and verbal attacks – especially in Europe – are quite clear. Maybe it was always there, in private attitudes, but it was not “fashionable” to give any kind of expression to them. Now, it seems, intellectual elites gave permission and it all comes out. It started around year 2000 and is growing.
What do you think has caused this. I think you’re correct in thinking it was always there to some extent. But what made us slip back from our trajectory toward equality and respect?
I think that the reason is the incessant stream of news from Israel. They are often lies, half truth or distorted truths. There are more foreign journalists in Israel than anywhere else (per capita); Israel is a subject of more condemnations by U.N. than any other country in the world; HRW and AI devote more of their reports to Israel than to any other single country. And the reason for that is that there are 57 Islamic countries in the world and in the Sovjet era the concerted efforts of USSR plus Islamic countries was to eliminate Israel. Sovjet propaganda remained in use even after USSR collapsed. When people who already harbor negative feelings toward Jews hear non-stop condemnations of a Jewish state it is easy to conclude that now they are allowed to say what they think. It was decades long work and now it came to fruition.
Oh, I forgot to write about a quite important factor: Internet. Previously the public space was free from antisemitism (or almost free) and each antisemite thought that he/she is alone or that only a tiny circle of intimate friends is sharing their attitudes. Now, anonymously, they can contact each other, discover that there are many more of them than they thought, exchange antisemitic literature etc. There are plenty of antisemitic sites all over Internet.
Is it too much to speculate it is a product of the mainstreaming of Muslims, and concern for validating their tender beliefs?
Or that, thanks to the Israeli right’s policies and rhetoric, which potentially makes Muslim victimology more sympathetic, Judeophibic remarks are now seen as “punching up”?
It’s just hard for me to imagine where UCSB students are picking up tropes from The Protocols of the Elders Of Zion if not from their pro-Palestinian peers. But who knows: the id of white Americans certainly seems to have been activated in a certain way in the last six years especially (I wonder why that would be …), so this could well be home-grown ugliness.
My generation managed to make it through the “No Nukes” and anti-Apartheid years without turning into haters; maybe we just got lucky.
MooT, you didn’t mean to imply that Jews can’t be white, did you?
Also, I’m having trouble parsing your last paragraph; perhaps I’m reading it wrong.
Gosh, no, I did not mean the “white people” comment in that way: a certain segment of Caucasian America suffers from ODS (Obama Derangement Syndrome) and it’s that segment to which I meant to refer. Being a Jew myself, I am not one to make a distinction between Caucasians and Jews!
As for my inartful last paragraph, the unstated part is that every generation has its trendy causes, and for mine it was “No Nukes” and anti-Apartheid. I was being a bit sarcastic saying we were “just lucky” that our causes did not turn us into “haters.” I am concerned, though, that casual anti-Semitism appears to be a side effect of anti-Israel sentiments among these kids today – and since my operative theory is that most people don’t think very deeply about the causes they take up, I think (and hope) that a large number of involved students don’t realize the context or history of the things they are saying. It’s an accident of birth that we had in my day they causes that we did; I don’t think my generation is necessarily any smarter or more thoughtful than are today’s college students.
Well, your and my generations’ causes were better founded, if you ask me…
Thanks for the explanations–hope I didn’t sound too obtuse; I’m a bit sleep-deprived.
One factor may be time since WWII. We’re talking about college students in 2015, which means people born around 1995. Few of such people would have known or have talked to someone who lived through it. As you say, some level of it was always there. That level is becoming more public now because anti-Semitism does not shock or horrify people (as being associated with Hitler and Nazism) today the way it would have in the ’50s-’70s. Even as late as the mid-80s/early 90s, the cold war with Russia kept the US public “mindful” of WWII and its consequences. But now? To (non-Jewish) kids today, that’s all someone else’s history, not theirs.
I don’t find this explanation convincing. How does the time since WW2 legitimize (in their eyes) antisemitism or any other form of bigotry?
You don’t see this kind of “understanding” towards racism against, say Asians, and they have not been persecuted more than Jews during this time.
Anti-semitism in Europe has changed. Neo-nazi’s are marginalized, the muslims have filled that gap.
Tha’s why you see Le Pen in France shaking hands with Dieudonné M’bala M’bala. One is a christian, the other a muslim, but the hatred of jews unites them.
I just saw a short documentary yesterday about anti-Semitism on the rise in Lyons. It seems to be a combination of the ultra-Nationalist movements, some even to the right of Le Pen, and an increase in disenfranchised Muslims, who have traditionally been bigoted towards Jews.
Whatever the reason, it’s sickening. I can’t even think of a way of counteracting it; because it’s so irrational, reason doesn’t work.
It seems some people just have to have someone to hate. Maybe that’s why religion keeps getting adherents. The mostly “nice” religions like the Anglicans are losing adherents, while the worst are spreading.
Ye might have a time of it, lass, explaining to the Catholics in Belfast how the Anglicans are “mostly nice.”
Jude phobia certainly seems to make more sense than antisemitism. After all, are not Arabs Semites also ?
Judeo phobia makes me envision a person with an irrational fear of martial arts.
I’ve been beaten up by a martial artist (IIRC, he described me and my colleagues a “fucking ignorant rig pigs”, and he was a safety consultant. With a black belt.), and I have a perfectly rational fear of martial arts.
I don’t carry “tools” to compensate. That is just asking for trouble. But I as-sure-as- (… linguistic problem … disregarding the non-existence of Heaven, Hell and Valhalla)-sure-as-hell know where tools are within reach. Furniture, paving stones, whatever. I don’t feel any need to break my knuckles on someone’s teeth (again) when there is a tool I can use for the job. Which includes the ground.
Antisemitism – a word coined in 19th centrury by intellectual Germans because it sounded more scientific and better in polite sociate than “Judehasse” – was aimed exclusively at Jews. Arabs were assured by Nazis that it didn’t involve them. So the fact that both Jews and Arabs are “Semites” is totally irrelevant.
And that history of sounding more “scientific” is exactly why it shouldn’t be used. It divorces the speaker/writer from the reality it ought to describe: Jew hatred, anti-Jewish bias, or some other phrase needs to replace it. Judeophobia is pretty good.
“It divorces the speaker/writer from the reality it ought to describe” — that’s always the purpose of euphemism, isn’t it?
Orwell couldn’t have put it any more succinctly.
Quibbling about the derivation and hence the “true meaning” of “antisemitism” is just like doing the same with “gay” (“They stole our happy word”) and “homophobis (“I don’t fear gays, just disapprove of them”).
The word “antisemitism” has been around for a lot longer that those relatively new terms, and it is well established to mean “hatred/denigration of Jews”. It has never referred to other Semitic peoples. “Semite” was a common rather derogatory synonym for “Jew”, but is less used now. However illogical it may seem, there is no ambiguity in the meaning of “antisemitic”.
Still, it’s no surprise that it strikes each generation as odd on first hearing it. I agree that there’s no need to try to change the term; I think that would just confuse things. But we should expect to have to explain it now and then. (If we can’t expect people to actually Google it themselves! 😀 )
FC Utrecht and AFC Ajax are like water and fire. Feyenoord and Ajax too btw. Amsterdam has always been famous for its Jewish population and before World War II is was refered to as Mokum. That’s why AFC (Amsterdam Football Club) Ajax has the reputation of a ‘jewish’ soccer club. When Utrecht hooligans chant “Hamas, Hamas, joden aan het gas” it’s more anti Ajax than anti judaism.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t antisemitism ofcourse. Historically, hooligans are often nationalist skinheads and sometimes even neo-nazi’s. Today they are a marginalized group. The hatred does not come from the extreme nationalist, but from the muslim community.
I’m also said to say the jewis population in Amsterdam was almost completely exterminated in World War II. 80% died in the holocaust.
*sad to say
It was just a month or so ago that Dutch soccer fans rioted in Rome and damaged the historic Barcaccia fountain. Something is amiss with these young thugs associated with football in the Netherlands.
I suspect that the “something amiss” is with thugs in general, rather than Dutch soccer fans.
I … cannot … politely express the depth of my loathing for fitba. I hav re-written this post several times, failing each time. Living arguments in favour of thermonuclear retroactive birth control … sorry, I’m off again.
This is the point of the matter.
(i notice you elaborate below so I’ll keep it short)
There is a kind of elaborate “play acting” among football fans where different clubs assume different “identities “, often even as “nom de geueux ” (hope that’s a word).
So supporters of PSV Eindhoven identify as “boeren” (farmers) even though few of them are – because Eindhoven is outside of the urbanised Randstad, where Ajax and Feyenoord are from – and those of Feyenoord Rotterdam as “kakkerlakken ” (cockroaches) because of the harbour (cockroaches supposedly being brought in via the ships).
I don’t believe there is a particular hatred of real Jews, farmers (not so sure about cockroaches) among Dutch football supporters.
Conversely I don’t think that Ajax supporters are so pro Israel despite the high number of Israeli flags they carry around – again that’s part of the taken identity.
Jerry, it is well known (to me at least) that soccer fans and their fan clubs are often Anti-Semitic, anti-socialist, racist, homophobic, and violent. I assume they would be atheophobic too, if atheists could be picked out in a crowd. When you see a ‘hate-flag’ — one bearing a swastika, sun-wheel (Celtic Cross), black-sun, or Christian Falangist symbol — in a stadium or carried in a street demonstration, you can be pretty sure you are witnessing the syndrome.
It’s why I have a sour attitude toward the World Cup. When I see people being nationalistic toward their team based on their ethnicity that is fine and nice but this often degenerates into fights between groups.
When I see people being nationalistic … what was that comedy film title? “There will be blood.”
The example of soccer fans is one of the main things that has put me off the game.
Rugby fans don’t often behave like that – there’s enough going on on the field to keep them interested and excited without them needing to revert to chanting, racist or otherwise. They come away from the game exhausted from the excitement, and not needing to get rid of the pent up energy soccer fans still have when the score is 0-0 after ninety minutes.
Remember the World Cup in South Africa? New Zealand is not a great soccer nation – we rarely even make it to the World Cup. But we were the only team that finished the tournament unbeaten. That would never happen in most sports. Usually there is a good competition on the field and the best team wins. Soccer seems to be designed so the fans will try to fight it out later.
Aussie rules football has very passionate supporters but none of the soccer violence stuff.
Rugby fans don’t often behave like that – rugby players do.
There, ftfy. 🙂
That is actually nothing new, I am 35 years old and as long as I can recall supporters from other clubs have been calling Ajax for Jews and have had slogans like that.
And I agree that it’s more anti Ajax than anti Jews, although that doesn’t make it sound any more pretty of course….
As far as I know ‘jews’ is what the Ajax fans call themselves.
Wanting to use non-violent means (such as divestment and other economic sanctions) to control the actions of the state of Israel does not make one either Judeo-phobic or anti-Semitic. Even if it can be argued that the state of Israel is doing everything right (and good luck with argument, by the way), as long as the target is the actions of the state of Israel, this is not religious persecution and to claim that it is misrepresents those with whom your are arguing and hurts those who are suffering from actual religious persecution.
1 out of 10
Would not bang.
I think you need to go back and re-read the quoted letter. Jerry explicitly said there was no problem with boycotting Israel but it is quite another to spew what what spewed at this student senate. Furthermore, getting behind something that calls for the elimination of Israel is repugnant.
But the spew reveals the true motive.
If these people were at all interested in social justice, they would be standing up for the rights of women and non-Muslims in Muslim countries.
If a teacher is always picking on just one child in his class, no matter what that child or other children are doing, this child is persecuted by the teacher and – by example – by other kids as well.
>as long as the target is the actions of the state of Israel, this is not religious persecution
nor is it racism.
But those supporting divestment undermine the moral structure of their case if they are arguing for it by saying about “The Jews” the types of things reported from UCSB.
It seems you missed this.
“In those eight hours, I was told that Jews control the government, that all Jews are rich, that Zionism is racism, that the marginalization of Jewish students is justified because it prevents the marginalization of other minority groups, that Israel sterilizes its Ethiopian women (this is obviously not true), and that Palestinians in America who speak out against Israel are sought out by the IDF and denied entrance into Israel (also a ridiculous conspiracy theory).”
billiefromockham:
“Wanting to use non-violent means (such as divestment and other economic sanctions) to control the actions of the state of Israel does not make one either Judeo-phobic or anti-Semitic.”
Coyne:
“In terms of hate crimes in the U.S. and Europe, there are roughly five times more committed against Jews than against Muslims…. By all means try to boycott Israel if you want—it’s your right to frame such resolutions—but be aware that the BDS movement’s explicit goals are to completely eliminate the state of Israel.”
(emphasis added for those who didn’t bother reading it the first time around)
billiefromockham:
“Even if it can be argued that the state of Israel is doing everything right (and good luck with argument, by the way)”
— Has anyone argued that here? To repeat your painful sloganeering, good luck with finding anyone who has.
“as long as the target is the actions of the state of Israel, this is not religious persecution and to claim that it is misrepresents those with whom your are arguing and hurts those who are suffering from actual religious persecution.”
Coyne:
“Of course if such talk had been aimed at Muslims, blacks, gays, or anyone else, the campus would have recoiled in outrage.”
Notice a pattern here, billiefromockham? You’ve sent off half a dozen shots in a small paragraph. All of them are tiresome and predictable, and none of them are in the least relevant to what Jerry Coyne actually wrote.
I have recieved a LOT of BDS propaganda from a highly-regarded friend.
I still have not excluded it from consideration. However, taking the esteemed (by me) Prof.CC’s views into account, I will examine closely before considering giving support.
I respect my friend’s thinking abilities (he beats me hollow at Go) ut I also respect Prof CC’s opinions. So, examine. Closely.
You want to explain the last two lines of your comment before you say anything else, please?
And you clearly didn’t read my post. Go back and try again.
Keep in mind that the Netherlands exterminated 75% of it’s Jewish population 70 years ago. Looks like the haven’t learned anything at all. The rise of “anti-Zionism” (a polite term for “anti-Semitism”) in the Europe just shows that they haven’t learned a thing from the Holocaust either. Shame on them.
Correction: The nazi’s exterminated 75% of its jewish population. And some of those nazi’s were dutch, but as long as the Dutch were rulers of their own country, the jews were safe.
Also, the rise in anti-semitism has nothing to do with the memory of the holocaust supposedly fading away. The rise in antisemitism is caused by muslim immigrants, many of whom have read in the koran (sura 5:60) that jews are apes and pigs. The face of antisemitism has changed and you can’t draw a straight line from the holocaust to the present. Rightwing anti-semitism is often protestant/catholic/nationalistic and home-grown. Current anti-semitism is islamic and has been imported.
That is correct. Muslim immigrants do tend to be more anti-semitic than the native population. But the thing is those Dutch soccer hooligans, weren’t Muslim immigrants, they were native Dutch. I can’t help but wonder if there is some lingering anti-semitism that hasn’t gone away.
I already explained above that it’s more anti-Ajax than anti-judaism. When FC Utrecht hooligans chant “Hamas, Hamas, joden aan het gas.” (Hamas, Hamas, jews to the gas), they direct their hatred towards Ajax players and Ajax supporters.
Unfortunately, the slogan has been heard outside the stadium as well. That’s where those hooligans and people like them cross the line into anti-semitism territory.
Right, anti-Ajax. But they chose what they perceived to be an easy target. They didn’t say: guys with blue eyes, die, or guys name Jan, die, or any other variant that would target the dominant population. Instead, they pick a target–Jews–that they know will be both an insult to their target and horrifying to the collateral damage–actual Jews who hear it.
remember the Ajax fans call themselves jews.
>Ajax fans call themselves Jews
This I didn’t know
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/football-why-tottenham-and-ajax-fans-have-a-jewish-identity-a-926095.html
“They call themselves the “Yid Army” and “Super Jews”: For decades, the fans of football clubs Tottenham Hotspur and Ajax Amsterdam have maintained a Jewish identity despite lacking links to the religion. ”
Is this racist of them to do?
It’s certainly bizarre.
Don’t forget all the Dutch that were waiting eagerly at the border for the arrival of the Nazis who would come and help them get rid of their pesky Jews.
Don’t forget the NSB and the broad support it got from from the general population gaining an impresive 44 seats in the Dutch pariament in 1935. By comparison, the largest party currently holds only 40 seats.
Don’t forget the centuries old Bevolkingsregister (Population Register) kept by local councils that had the specific details needed by the Nazis to know who was “Jewish enough” to be destroyed.
Needless to say, such was the mood in the country by the time the Nazis arrived that the Bevolkingsregisters were geefully turned over to them so they could get busy with the necessary task of extermination.
The Dutch are – and always have been – anti-semites and xenophobics. There is simply no denying how much they hate foreigners and persecute them in society and the job market.
They like to tell everyone that “in Holland alles kan” (everything is possible in Holland) yet in reality it only works like that if you have blond hair and blue eyes and a Dutch sounding surname.
I wouldn’t say that about ALL Dutch. But yeah, the xenophobia and anti-semitism in their society hasn’t entirely gone away and it shows.
Of course they are not all bad. But Holland is far from the tolerant paradise of it’s international reputation.
Just last week a political party in Rotterdam suggested forced contraception for the mentally handicapped, psychiatric patients and drug addicts.
This could be dismissed as just a crank talking nonsense but the poll in the article shows a 75% approval for people who supposedly don’t meet their high standards of members of society.
http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/1012/Nederland/article/detail/3964648/2015/04/18/Een-vrouw-de-pil-opdringen-kan-dat.dhtml
So, if they would go so far as discriminating against this group of people who deserve a modicum of compassion because of their circumstances, you can imagine there is absolutely zero compassion for any foreigner of any stripe.
Forced *contraception*. Not, like, sterilisation then. The alternative is to allow mentally handicapped, psychiatrically disturbed and addicts to have children, right? And this would be a good thing?
From your description, it doesn’t sound as if they’re going to be deprived of a sex life, just of the privilege of producing brats they can’t look after. Sounds eminently sensible to me.
Your post is such a mess, I don’t even know where to start cleaning up.
1) The NSB never got more than 4 of 100 seats in the parliament, only 4%. You group all of their seats in provincial elections together.
It’s like grouping all the seats in the houses of representatives in the State legislatures, and then saying the Republican Party has 2802 seats in Congress. Are you really that stupid?
2) The largest party has won 41 seats at the last election. But you can’t compare the current house of representatives with the pre-1956 one, because the current one has 150 seats. If you were to make a comparison, the NSB would have 6 seats.
3) The bevolkingsregister wasn’t gleefully turned over. The building with the register in Amsterdam was attacked in 1943.
4) You’re completely oblivious to reality. The Netherlands is one of the least racist places on earth. This is stuff you can read anywhere in the news or on the internet. You should have been able to pick this up just by being alive.
Seriously, to what depths are you planning to sink?! You have simply lied about the anti-semitism in my country during the holocaust. You have lied about the seats the NSB had in the holocaust. You have lied about the current state of affairs. If you want to talk about persecution, try to find atheists in Bangladesh or Saudi-Arabia.
Especially the second to last paragraph shows what you really are: you paint a whole people as bad, racist and xenophobic and your ‘proof’ is just a bunch of lies and unsubstantiated insinuations. You, kazoonga, are flatout racist.
Yeah, because “Dutch” is a race.
If you want to know what racism looks like in Holland just try being a foreigner there.
Obviously being white and Dutch in the Netherlands means you don’t get discriminated in public or in the workplace so you wouldn’t know what that’s like.
http://www.joop.nl/leven/detail/artikel/24155_arnhems_bedrijf_wijst_zwarte_sollicitant_af_om_huidskleur/
I also have to ask you, wil je meer of minder marokkanen in Nederland?
Actually, don’t answer that, I already know.
http://www.nu.nl/politiek/3766518/vooral-ouderen-willen-minder-marokkanen.html
Kankerland.
As a member of the LGBT community, I know damn well what it’s like to be discriminated against. The attitude of many non-Western foreigners towards women, LGBT, is embarrassing, to say the least. I don’t generalize, because I’ve also learned from non-Western foreigners how to defend myself. They were among the kindest people I’ve met. That doesn’t change the statistics though.
I take it you have emigrated? For our english-speaking friends, I don’t think ‘Kannkerland’ requires translation, just change the k’s to c’s.
“Dutch” is far more a race than “Muslim” or even “Jew” is! Is “Maroccan” a race?
Your first link is an isolated incident. Of course there are individual people who make thoughtlessly racist comments in all countries. It hardly proves that the majority of people in Holland (or any other part of the Netherlands, for that matter) are racist.
Your second link provides no evidence for racism being the reason for people’s attitudes towards Moroccan immigrants. Did the same survey show different attitudes towards immigrants from other countries outside the EU; e.g., Eastern Europe? Anyone might have reasons other than racism to oppose immigration.
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PS. ¼ Dutch.
In Holland, “Moroccan” is practically a synonym for “immigrant.” Some of them can certainly be badly behaved and there much room for improvement in their society in general. It doesn’t help that they are Muslim and view non-Muslims with suspicion.
However, the deep rooted xenophobia in Holland makes their integration more difficult and sometimes impossible. The tide has turned noticibly since the murder of Pim Fortuyn (a Dutch guy killed him) who was an outspoken critic of Islam and Muslim culture.
Fine, I also despise Islam and Muslim culture but I don’t treat people any differently based on my private opinions. The Dutch can’t help themselves but to show foreigners how they feel about them
There was a website set up by the PVV called “Meldpunt Midden en Oost Europeanen” which was a place where people could complain about their central and eastern European neighbours who, stereotypically, drank too much and played loud music.
As far as isolated instances of employment racism is concerned, it hardly matters how many make the newspaper. I’ve been advised several times to include a photo in job applications so that people can see that I’m white. As I have a non-Dutch sounding surname it’s very likely that a resume without a photo goes straight into the trash can.
And even though I’m white, when I occasionally grow my beard and start to look a little Muslim, there is a noticeable change in tone and attitude in communication.
Holland is not a paradise…, it’s not a sea of tolerance. It’s just as racist and bigoted as the next place. The Dutch have no right to claim that they are better than the rest.
And you have no right to claim that they’re worse, yet that’s what you continue to imply (”the deep rooted xenophobia in Holland” [sic], “the Dutch just can’t help themselves”).
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Wrong. The Nethwelands did not exterminated 75% of its Jewish population. Many Jews went there for their own safety until the German Nazis began exporting Jews out of the Netherlands and sending to concentration camps where they were worked and most eventually killed by the Germans.
Correct in that it was the Germans who did the killing. It must be said, however, that the Germans were helped in their actions by collaborators who betrayed Jews.
For example, the Henneicke Column ( a group of Dutch Nazis) arrested and handed over about 8,000 Jews to the Germans and that about 25,000 Dutch males volunteered to fight with the Germans.
Anne Frank was betrayed by a collaborator – who was never identified post-war.
Not by a long chalk as clear cut as people have made out.
Further thought: if Matthew Cobb is on here, he will almost certainly be able to fill in the details.
Errr, sorry, why?
Apart from MC’s interest in Rennaissence France … I fail to connect the two.
He is also an authority on WW2 with his book, Eleven Days in August, taking as its subject the liberation of Paris in 1944.
I knew he’d done the Paris book – his Twitter feed shows such tendencies too – but I’d got the impression that it was specifically the French stuff that interested him rather than WW2 in general. But I’m sure he can speak for himself on that front.
In 2005, my parents offered a Canadian war veteran a room for a week or 2 for Remembrance Day (May 4th) and Liberation Day (May 5th). This veteran told my brother and I: “We did not fight the Germans, we fought the nazi’s.”
An important lesson for me as a youngster. Not all Germans and not all Dutch were bad. Some were and some were not. But because our country was conquered by nazi-Germany it’s much easier to paint ourselves as victims, overlooking those that joined the SS and the wehrmacht. Reality is, often, much darker.
Yes and today, among The Dutch who left after the war, you hear of rumours about whose family was a collaborator. I’ve met a few who I’ve known to be in the underground but I’ve also met a few that I’m pretty sure we’re Nazi sympathizes (often the most zealous of Christians as well).
My province (Groningen) and my hometown was liberated by Canadians. Thanks for that, eh. 😉
Yeah, Canada I think still gets tulips from you guys and there are liberation day ceremonies sometimes. I’m just happy for the dubbel zout. They should send those instead of tulips but most Canadians would think they were gross. My dad has a lot of Dutch friends so I was exposed to them early along with pickled herring.
*were liberated. Emotion made me make a spelling mistake.
This can’t be discrimination because obviously these students feel they are “punching up”…
That is exactly why they feel they can express antisemitism so boldly. They believe they’re going after people who are all rich bankers in control the media who are de facto citizens of a country with nuclear weapons, that is mistreating Muslims.
If you are patient, the scum rises to the surface. Jews to the gas is the underlying sentiment behind all of this.
I was unaware that a goal of the BDS movement is to dissolve the state of Israel. I haven’t been able to substantiate that claim.
Check Omar Barghouti, the founder of BDS movement – one state with a Muslim majority is his goal. Other leaders of BDS movement agree. The name of this state is not mentioned.
Of course, he calles it one democratic state where every citizen have equal rights, but Jews lived as minorites in both Christian and Muslim states and they know what it means. Example of the fate of Christians, Yasidis and other minorities is not giving any hope either.
He wants a secular democratic state which upholds the rights of all citizens? That sounds good to me. I’ll settle for a two-state solution, but that sounds pretty good. Certainly preferable to the status quo.
OK, just look at Lebanon and the fate of people there. You cannot think about those states like about Switzerland. Their neighbors would not allowed it. Lebanon had all the chances in the world to be like Switzerland, if not for Syria and Iran and their interference. And do not blame Israel – Israel would never go into Lebanon if Hezbollah hadn’t shelled cywillian Israelis from Lebanon, against the wishes of Lebanon’s democratic (but maktless) government.
How about the former Czechoslovakia, where the Czechs and the Slovaks couldn’t live together. How about the former Yugoslavia, where the various ethnic groups couldn’t live together. How about Syria and Iraq, which, as we sit here today, are undergoing civil wars between different ethnic groups. I don’t see how Jews and Palestinians could live together, given their current animosity. In fact, it appears that the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank can’t live together.
Given their current animosity, and I have heard that there has long, long been a considerable amount of anti-Jewish sentiment in the whole area before Israel was created. I would like to learn more about that, personally.
No. It’s not preferable to the the status quo.
Sorry, but I don’t wish to be slaughtered like other minorities in the Middle East. If you like the idea, you can travel to the Islamic State and try it. Don’t experiment on me and my child, please.
Interesting info. Thanks. I shall follow this up. Or down.
Which is why there must be a two-state solution for Israel to remain both Jewish and democratic (which I, for one, certainly hope it does). The demographics are writ large on the population wall.
I do not see that it does in plain language, but what is being promoted would have that effect. The three measures that the BDS calls for are (from Wikipedia):
1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall.
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and..
3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.
I will leave it to you to identify which one would dissolve the state of Israel.
Wikipedia is not the best source – words of the leaders of the movement are. There are videos of Barghouti saying that he is against two state solution and for one state solution to which all Palestinians from the whole world (5-7 million) woud have the right to go. Just now I do not have time to look for these videos (there are a few, by other leaders as well) but maybe this will be enough: Norman Finkelstein, not a friend of Israel
Thanks. Please don’t trouble yourself further. The information you’ve provided has been very helpful.
Yes, that is helpful. Although I think that goal #3 is also problematical for the existence of Israel. Maybe the majority of those in the U.S. and elsewhere who are sympathetic to the overt goals of the BDS do not realize what #3 can really mean; let alone the other things you pointed out.
Iirc, th BDS movement considers all Israel traditional Arab land, therefore the first would see the end of Israel.
People have every right to boycott etc Israel if they are so inclined. I think we need to find a way to make the two state solution work, but there are currently many on both sides who deliberately undermine efforts to make that happen. There are also some who are trying to make it happen who don’t take the fears of each side seriously enough (like John Kerry, who doesn’t seem to accept that Hamas will try to kill Jews whatever the outcome).
I’m really not in favor of further polluting the meaning of ‘phobia’ though. Are anti-semites really *afraid* of Jews, or do they just hate them?
It’s like homophobia – this isn’t a fear, it’s a hatred. It shouldn’t be named like a fear – instead we should be calling these things what they are. Fear is pitiable, understandable – blind hatred is not.
Homophobia: hatred of homosexuals caused by the fear of possible latent homosexual feelings. Note that some do not even have latent homosexual feelings, but are afraid they might or that other people might think they do, therefore, hate gays. The phobia is not gay people, it’s being gay.
I know I’m just being pedantic, but wouldn’t that be better named as autohomophobia in that case? Or something like that…
And surely in the ‘judeophobia’ case it certainly isn’t that the ‘sufferers’ are afraid they might secretly be Jews…
It’s not unheard of for anti-semites to have, or fear that they have, Jewish ancestry. What better way to convince others, or yourself, that you have no Jewish blood than to talk about how much you hate Jews? Paging Schicklegruber . . .
Roy Cohn, anybody?
I remember, when I was nobbut a lad. At first, I didn’t know that cave diving existed, so I had no feelings about it.
Then I started caving, and struggling through crawls and fighting against water taught me that cave divers were auicidal idiots.
Then I became moore condident in my caving. But I stll considered cave diving to be extremely abnormal.
Then I learned to dive (in what we call “open water”).
That is when cave diving became really, really scary.
Then I became a better caver (though no experience as a better diver).And cave-diving was a wake-up terror.
And then … the Darkness Beckoned. And cave diving became so utterly terriying that I couldn’t talk abuot it.
Then I faced my fears, kitted up and went into the Darkness. The experience is so … other … You run n (in a trite line from an otherwise unremarkable film) “110% pure adrenaline”2
A month later one of my fellow cave divers died in our sport. The first UK fatality in the 100-odd (for many the 100-very-peculiar) community for a decade. And cave diving really still scares te lving 7-colours of shit out of me. But I am working to re-start it.
People go throough fear+ignorance, through terror+knoledge, to acceptance. And when you’re on the Other Side (in the Darkness, if yoou like) you remember the path you took. I believe it is called “growing up”2
While composing this I was interrupted by a friend who told essentially the same story, but in terms of being a crane operator.
Stuff this. I’m going for a pint.
College kids have always been an obnoxious breed; at least, that is what I remember from Berkeley in the 60s. Remember that some of these youngsters are just a few years past the stage of playing with dolls. It is no surprise that they are so intolerant and so convinced that they are absolutely right.
But I was also young and ignorant, but during the Sixties. And at least among the hippies I ran with, it was “why can’t we all love each other” and “brotherhood of man stuff”. We marched for civil rights, we marched against the wear, we didn’t demonize anybody (except maybe Nixon and Robert McNamara!). It just seems so different now, with everybody all balkanized and hating.
Similar experience for me in California in the 60s and 70s, Jerry. Mary, we must have almost overlapped at Berkeley.
That’s a sentiment I’ve wanted to share many times. We fought against the war, for civil rights, for gay rights, for womens rights. We felt our causes were noble ones, ones that could be won on the merits of the arguments. We didn’t feel the need to demonize, or silence the opposition as our opponents did us. In fact for the most part I don’t even recall feeling animosity towards much of the opposition, we simply felt they were misguided.
I feel now that many of my tribe have resorted to the same methods we prided ourselves on not having to resort too.
Well shit, the following decades were very violent and things didn’t start to cool off until the 80s and 90s. Don’t tell me this shit is going to start all over again! I’m too old for decades of violent BS.
Add my voice to Jerry’s, Merilee’s, and Mike’s about the 60’s & 70’s college experience.
Not that the era was without tumult. Sit-ins became violent. Peaceful demonstrations were met with tear gas. Armed black students took siege of the Cornell student union. There were Kent State and Jackson State. The Stonewall riots. Within a few years the most radical left-wing groups were incubating home-grown terrorists.
Pretty amazing when you think about it that the hippies and protesters for the most part managed to hang onto their ideals and embrace of nonviolent protest, their commitment to peace and inclusiveness.
In those days, most times the entrenched authorities resorted to violence against peaceful protest and democratic change, it was clear that they were losing. There were exceptions of course, but in this century the rule runs the other way.
I’ll recommend a book again: David Nirenberg’s: ‘Anti-Judaism – the Western Tradition’, which is a searching historical analysis of how ‘anti-Judaism’ is fundamental to an understanding of Western history, and to the present.
I think, Jerry, in many ways we were a very lucky generation when we were young and ignorant, after the great blood-letting of the World War II, though there was a lot of nastiness going on, in addition to the Vietnam War, that we were not so aware of. I, too, feel a near despair at the ‘balkanization’ and the hating.
I have different memories of the 60s, Prof. Coyne. At the U of C the SDS quickly devolved from its foundational idealism to a kind of cannibalistic Jacobinism–who was the radicalist of them all?!–while the Black Panthers ‘occupied’ one of my classes at Chicago City College in order that the students and I should learn the truth about whitey. All I learned from this was that I didn’t care for coercion, nor would I ever be radical enough for the ‘revolution.’
The bigoted and ignorant mentality of some people against Jews will never be ended because stupid people cannot be ended either. The same is true of the same toward African Americans. Isn’t it odd these same people reject education as well.
Sub
*sigh* Anti-semitism (by what ever name) will never die.
It’s one thing to critize the current politics of Israel, but spewing all the old conspiration theories about jews is plain old Judenhass.
There is a strong neo-nazism stain in football hool groups, and the neo-nazi groups recruit from hooligans. Some 15 years ago I worked in a football fan project, there were groups who were only in because it gave them a “reason” to fight with someone, in this case with groups from the other team. Provocation was also a recuring theme, the easiest way was to show the Hitler-Gruß and chanting Sieg Heil. If you talked to these young men they had no clue about the meaning, it wasn’t really anti-semitic but seen as something that provoked strong reactions, and being a crime in Germany too.
<blockquote?' Anti-Semitism…will never die.'
“Never” is a long time…especially near the end. Let us not be so pessimistic.
Recall, after all, the immortal words of the (demonstrably mortal) Mitch Miller: “This Rock and Roll stuff will never last.”
I’m a white USian of classic Midwestern parentage; my parents moved to California in the 1940s and encountered their first Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, and East Asians (there weren’t many South Asians around their part of CA then). So I grew up hearing all kinds of bigoted remarks against these groups. I was also attending Catholic schools, where it was made clear that bigotry of any kind was unacceptable; so I ended up ultimately attributing my parents’ attitudes to fear of the unknown. “They” (pick any group) *were* culturally different, and that was scary. Over their lives I watched my parents lose their bigotry against some of those cultures. Jews were not among the people who became “acceptable”.
Mom and Dad were never on the Internet, though, and believed that it was socially unacceptable to share one’s bigotry outside the immediate family. As an adult, I’ve noticed two trends in the US: many people no longer believe it’s socially unacceptable to be a public asshole, and even those that do don’t see the Internet as public.
So maybe things haven’t really changed.
That trend seems especially pronounced among those who sound off publicly but pseudonymously. Not the main reason I eschew a nom de net — but it does help curb the rare impulse to be an even bigger asshole.
Yes, Jews control government. I mean, look at President Obama; clearly a Jew, at least that’s what the Republicans accused him…oh, wait. Ok, another example, Sheldon Adelson, not only a Jew, but the 8th richest man in the world, and as we all know, the presidential candidate he bankrolled, Newt Gingrich, was elected president due to Adelson’s money and power…oh, hang on…
I understand at least some of the push for BDS, in that students, seeing things in the usual false-dichotomy and zero-sum way that people newly aware of an issue might tend to do. They are wont to see life as simple good vs evil, as if everything in the world has an obvious an answer as slavery, jim crow, apartheid, and nazis. they’ve come new to the scene, make a spit-second decision about who is the aggressor and who is the victim, then failed to see what part the victim plays in perpetrating the violence and aggression because they can’t handle complicated thoughts. I have no idea why seemingly well-educated fully adult professors and administration should fall victim to similar weak arguments however. Prejudice and willful blindness I suppose, allow for one to rage against illegal settlements, building a wall, taking more land, preventing basic building supplies and the like, while ignoring suicide bombings, rocket attacks, and other terrorist activities. Someone needs to explain to these students, if I can steal a quote from Dr. Ben Goldacre, “I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that”.
p.s., if there really is a jewish cabal,being that I have jewish decent from only one great grandparent, can I still join?
All hail President Skroob!
Yes, Jews control government. I mean, look at President Obama; clearly a Jew, at least that’s what the Republicans accused him…oh, wait. Ok, another example, Sheldon Adelson, not only a Jew, but the 8th richest man in the world, and as we all know, the presidential candidate he bankrolled, Newt Gingrich, was elected president due to Adelson’s money and power…oh, hang on…
Someone needs to explain to these students, if I can steal a quote from Dr. Ben Goldacre, “I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that”.
p.s., if there really is a jewish cabal,being that I have jewish decent from only one great grandparent, can I still join?
All hail President Skroob!
well, i don’t know what happened there but…two and a half posts?
I am not a soccer fan (rugby is my sport) but I even I know that the famous English Premiership club Tottenham Hotspurs ( colloquially “Spurs”) has a large Jewish following and, consequently, have been the subject of sometimes quite vicious abuse from supporters of other clubs.
🐾
I think if you’re going to report the relative incidence of anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish hate crimes, you should do it on a per-capita basis, since there are a lot more Jews than Muslims in the US. The article you linked to gives 56.7% anti-Jewish vs 12.8% anti-Islamic in the US (3.4 times more against Jews). Taking population into account, it seems to be about 2x as much rather than 6x as much (“five times more”) per capita. Still disproportionate, though.
Yes, I did that in a previous post and came up with the same two-fold per capita difference that you calculated. I wrote this post in the airport and didn’t have time to look up the per capita figure.
And speaking of phobias, in this case, Hollywood’s Official Protector of Islam, Ben “Batman” Affleck is outed in a fascinating article on the BBC today due to the Sony email leaks. The emails suggest that Affleck requested his ancestry be censored for the PBS show Finding Your Roots because they turned up a slave-owning ancestor.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/32372468/ben-affleck-asked-broadcaster-to-hide-slave-owning-ancestor
I know it’s not directly connected to this post, excepting the pathetic way “Batman” defends muslims and accused anyone who said anything bad about them of being islamophobic but is worth a read.
I think he’s stupid to hide it. Having an ancestor that owned slaves doesn’t make you a bad person. What matters is how you’ve lived your own life – I thought that was what America was all about. Such a discovery could easily be made into a teachable moment, especially by someone as well known as him who already has a reputation as a humanitarian.
Yeah I’m sure many of our ancestors were jerks.
Correct, but using your celebrity to try and hide the fact and whitewash history does.
Exactly! hell, I found out I had a slave-owner ancestor while I was taking an African American history course (one of only three non-African-Americans in the class) and while I didn’t have a Hollywood contract or a publicist to worry about, I brought in the copy of the will to share out of pure historical interest. It’s not as if my being distantly related to a slave owner makes me a guilty party, nor does it mean I support it, or in fact gained anything due to it.
The impulse to hide a shameful ancestor is sad — as sad as the impulse to brag about a noble one. They seem to be common impulses, however, and alone do not make one a “bad person.”
Affleck was wrong in what he said on Maher’s show. But he seems like a decent guy whose heart is generally in the right place (and a pretty good actor and filmmaker, to boot). Let’s not make like the SJWs and revel in the narcissism of minor differences — or shiver into splinters every time we hit a wave of contention, like the religious or members of the Comintern.
“Revel in the narcissism of minor differences.” Well put!
All credit due Herr Doktor Sigmund.
So der Herr Doktor was not full of Scheiß on everything;-)
he may or may not be a bad person, with Hollywood (which I invariably mis-type as Hollowood) it is hard to tell. However, it is unpardonable to ask a historian to alter the presentation of your ancestry to whitewash, if you will, the greatness of your family tree. History has rules too, and we ought to rail against the alteration of history with much the same fervor as if he were a scientist urging his lab-mates to bury data to skew the experiment. I don’t see this as a minor difference. I make no excuses; I do not like him or his acting, and this lends no credence to his supposed virtue. That does not mean I do not appreciate his humanitarian work in the DRC, as mentioned in the article above, no matter what may be behind it, but that does not mean I shall alter my overall opinion of him.
Yes, but isn’t knowing that Gigli has been preserved for all posterity punishment enough to expiate anyone’s sins?
Here’s a different response to discovering that you have a shameful ancestor: “My Nazi grandfather, Amon Goeth, would have shot me”:
And a particularly infamous camp commandant at that: Amon Goeth, played by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler’s List.
/@
I grew up around tales that my parents told me that my mothers’ side included a fair number of horse thieves and murderers.
Could be worse, Mark; there’s an alderman and a priest blighting my family tree.
LOL there are a lot of holy people on my family tree as well. I don’t know where I get my atheism from do I’m figuring it’s from my dad’s side which is less known.
I have a hunch that some people experience a kind of free-floating hatred and need to attach it to something. I think the same thing happens with anger and also even love. That is, some people have the emotion without necessarily having an object for it. My private theory is that they look around for something to justify this feeling and latch onto something that is an acknowledged outlet for it. “People hate Jews, I want to hate somebody, so I’ll hate Jews, too.” I suggest this because I am completely baffled by antisemitism and I have thought for a long time that it is some kind of psychosis. I am not a psychiatrist, so my theory could either be (1) old hat or (2) wildly out in left field. Or….(3) right.
What’s gone wrong with the California school system? I would have expected people at UCSB to know that the “Protocols of the elders of Zion” was nothing but badly written propaganda.
I don’t think that there’s much to do about antisemitism among students.
What angers me is the double standards of the administrations of the universities and their very different ways of dealing with any criticism of Islam and open antisemitism.
I find it peculiar because I never experienced this when I was in school and if it happened, people wouldn’t have tolerated it. Where are the voices speaking against this behaviour? Are they afraid of speaking up because of being ostracized by the SJWs?
Diana, I read many reports about similar incidents in American campuses. I have no first hand experience, but I see no reason to doubt them.
Compare the reaction to the incidents that Jerry mentions here and there and the reaction to much more to the point criticism of Islam. I find it hard to see this as anything but double standard.
Urgh!
That was supposed to be a reply to Dian’s post (https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/04/19/judeo-phobia-another-word-for-anti-semitism/?replytocom=1177410#respond)
I wasn’t denying what Jerry said. I was lamenting that it is odd as it wasn’t that way when I was in school (over 25 years ago). Now, I’m also not in America but I suspect things are similar in Canada. My point is, things have changed. I’m not sure why but they have and it seems those who are against this behaviour (I’m sure there are such people) don’t seem to be speaking out against it.
I suspect that many the people you and I would expect to be against it are not really that much against it anymore.
We live in a strange world where “liberals” sympathize with those who oppress women and kill gays, support censorship to avoid hurting feelings and blame the victims of murderous attacks.
It’s no surprise that they justify or “understand” bigotry, so long as it’s directed at the right group.
This is, I think, exactly what stands behind the left’s complicit silence about the rising antisemitism.
disgusting
As if to demonstrate my point, the only proposal that was rejected by Amnesty International annual conference was a campaign against antisemitic attacks in the U.K.
I guess it’s because, you know, the victims of these attacks are merely Jewish.
That is such a damning refusal on the part of Amnesty International! It used to be a very respectable organization, but no longer. Once upon a time, when I was the secretary of a local group, it was all about rigorous even-handedness. AI fought solely for people imprisoned for their opinions and non-violent actions. In the early 70s they branched out into anti-torture, but some members felt that even that was losing the proper focus. Now they are all over the place and constantly banging away about Israel’s supposed “crimes” which in any case have no bearing on their original remit. AI has been hijacked.
This is all very disappointing.