Dutch Jewry Divided over Geert Wilders

Many Jews in the Netherlands seem to appreciate Islamophobic politician Geert Wilders. But not everyone:

Annette Atiya said she took offence at the callous way Wilders singled out one minority. “Precisely what happened in Jewish history,” she reflected. Many in the Jewish community share her opinion, Rabbi Menno ten Brink, of the Liberal Jewish Community in Amsterdam, for instance. “Wilders is stigmatising an entire segment of the population,” he said “This has led to a lot of trouble for us Jews in the past. I will not stand for it.”

Exactly right. To single out one ethno-religious group the way Wilders does is xenophobic. His attacks on Islam and Muslims have very little to do with sincere criticism. He hates Muslims, and like Christian anti-Semites before him, he blames an entire group of people for the crimes of the few. Jews who likes Wilders’s bigoted ideas should perhaps read what Theodor Herzl wrote about Alfred Dreyfus and the collective guilt that was placed upon French Jewry for his alleged crimes.