Coming soon to a country near you: decoy Jews?
Decoy Jews are now being used by police departments in the Netherlands—that is, cops disguised as Jews—a response to increasing reports that Jews wearing skullcaps cannot travel the streets of some European cities such as Amsterdam without being harassed:
Since 1999, Jewish organizations in the Netherlands have been complaining that Jews who walk the Dutch streets wearing skullcaps risk verbal and physical attacks by young Muslims. Being insulted, spat at or attacked are some of the risks associated with being recognizable as a Jew in contemporary Western Europe.
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.
Rather ironic, indeed. Ironic, also, that in Amsterdam, the city where Anne Frank’s family took refuge, this sort of behavior is still happening—mainly at the hands of other newcomers and their children, not the Germans this time but the Muslims from various countries.
And ironic, also, that the left is up in arms about police entrapment of those same Muslims:
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.
If the laws about provoking a crime are at all similar to the entrapment laws here, the Greens have no case at all. But if merely walking about while looking Jewish is considered a provocation to violence, then Europe (and the world) is in even worse trouble than I thought.
Four years ago when on vacation in Portugal I stayd for a day in a friends’ house in Setubal near Lisbon. My friend Leah is Jewish and look it; she also wears Mogen Dovid pendant.
She told me when she visited Germany for a few days she was approached by a well-meaning Samaritan on teh street, who advised her to take the pendant off, “so as not to get any trouble with Turks”.
“We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us.” – Jens Orback, Minister for Democracy, Metropolitan Affairs, Integration and Gender Equality, Government of Sweden
This is what we are dealing with:
When the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, one of his first legal reforms was to reduce the marriageable age of girls to nine years old, exactly in line with the example of the Prophet, announcing: “It is a blessing for a family to have a daughter out of the house before her first blood.”
“Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all!…Islam says: Kill the [ non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. … Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! … Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to paradise, which can be opened only for holy warriors!
There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and hadiths [sayings of the prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.” Ayatollah Khomeini, 1942
“… those who study jihad will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. All the countries conquered by Islam or to be conquered in the future will be marked for everlasting salvation. For they shall live under [God’s law].
“Those who oppose the mullahs oppose Islam itself; eliminate the mullahs and Islam shall disappear in fifty years. It is only the mullahs who can bring the people into the streets and make them die for Islam– begging to have their blood shed for Islam.” -Ayatollah Khomeini
“There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun [or] joy in whatever is serious.” Ayatollah Khomeini
Why are moderate Muslims so silent? Because they know that the radicals are on firm theological ground and that a moderates reluctance to engage in violence has no theological support. Thus they condone the violence and by our legal and ethical standards are culpable in that violence.
How today’s supposedly intelligent western academics can ignore the violent and intolerant 1400 year history of Islamic ideology and action is a great mystery.
@Stark: One word…fear.
Works for me.
Stark,
Those supposed intelectual giants are so enamoured of the fantasy worlds in their minds that they never do a reality check. And as for the greenies, most are dumb as rocks. Just ask them about dihydrogen monoxide.
But I thought it was a religion of peace. That’s what our leaders say.
If Iran gets the bomb, Israel is history.
Mr. Frank.. If Iran gets the bomb Manhattan is history, as well as a few other US coastal ports and refineries. The Israelis have an advantage the US has not, they are not wearing blinders.
As for Europe, I recommend all to Claire Berlinski’s book Menace in Europe, especially the last chapter “To hell with Europe”.
“If Iran gets the bomb, Israel is history.” Mr. Frank
Not necessarily. There is a way for Israel to stop Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.
Iran is going to get the bomb. Israel can’t stop them and Obama won’t stop them.
Israel is the West’s canary in the coal mine and as such they can show the way. But to do that, first Israel must accept certain realities.
“The Israelis have an advantage the US has not, they are not wearing blinders.” Bob of V.
Au contraire! The Israeli left and Israel’s MSM are powerful influences, keeping the Israeli public divided.
For an eye opener, see: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=176343
“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. ”
How ironic that here in “historic Palestine”, the Muslims all tell us Jews to go back to Europe whence we supposedly came…
The oldies still work well.
“The more things change, the more they remain the same.”
King of the hill changes from century to century, as laid out by international borders. But human nature hasn’t changed a bit.
I am still amazed at what I see to be the self hate and guilt I see in my own country. Of course, those screaming about change are fine with it, as long as it is anyone else but them who has to do the changing. I admit, it has changed me. I want literally half the population of this country to pack up and go elsewhere. Some are blood relatives.
But if merely walking about while looking Jewish is considered a provocation to violence, then Europe (and the world) is in even worse trouble than I thought.
I have often meditated in recent years on the “average” German, French, English, or Italian, even American man or woman of the 1930’s.
If you could go back in time, wouldn’t you ask very excitedly, didn’t they see the great cataclism ahead! Can’t they see how their own blindness and inaction will cause unimaginable harm and suffering! How the world they thought was real was about to explode and would never be there again and couldn’t they stop it somehow?!!!
They would say, ‘Oh things are not perfect. But we have a lot of problems, and anyway things aren’t that bad. You’re very extremist and excited for thinking so. Get a grip!’
America is Germany 1930’s right now. Europe is past saving I think. The persons we need more than any other are two: 1) Paul Revere and 2) The Minutemen.
> Thus they condone the violence and by our legal and ethical standards are culpable in that violence.
I believe that, in the end, they are culpable, but more an act of omission, not one of commission.
The moderate Muslim is just as concerned about the fanats as anyone else, and wants to mostly be let alone just like most other people. If they confront the fanats the fanats are on very firm religious fanatical grounds to turn and act violently towards them.
Hence, they are unfortunately, as a group, trying to ignore the problem away — hardly a behavior unique to Islam.
It does not excuse their behavior, but it does make it far less unforgivable.
It does not excuse their behavior, but it does make it far less unforgivable.
The Germans, French, etc. who turned their gazes away from the lines of Jews being loaded into box cars would get exactly the same understanding from you.
Therefore, you are the problem as much as anyone. That’s a fact. Wake up and see it.
Hannah Arendt wrote a great book post WWII called “The Banality of Evil”. You should read it and think about it because you and people like you are the subject of the book.
One thing I never forgot was that she actually found that in those rare German towns or villages where the locals actually stood up to the Nazi thugs about the Jewish population, the Nazis left them alone. Since Nazis, Democrats, Islamists (all the same basic type of person) are bullies, thugs, tyrants, and cowards, this stands to reason. It is proverbial how the bully blusters and scares. It is also proverbial how he is a coward and backs down when courage is mustered to confront him.
We can’t count on the excuse makers like you though.
Grow a pair man.
I think it a bit nutty for any non-muslim to aver what goes on in the minds of the moderate muzzies who are alleged to be out there, presumed to be out there in their many millions.
They may indeed resemble us; got many shared features, arms,legs etc. But that does not make a coyote the same as a lap dog. It ignores the facts of their religious belief system. Passivity is not moderation.
Let us not project our feelings onto others. Projection is what gave us the present POTUS. Projection is a symptom of disordered thinking.
I prefer the KISS method, which leads me to lump all muzzies together. It is a repellant religion, it means us major, major harm, and I want no part of anyone who is aboard, however “moderate” they appear to be.
I live and work around “moderate” Muslims, and ignore the problem of theologically-motivated violent extremists is exactly what most of them do. Some of the more assertive and committed do attempt to fight “battles of the Quran” against the extremists, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, but most just go along to get along, and hope the extremist crocodiles eat them last.
Mike McC..”I have often meditated in recent years on the “average” German, French, English, or Italian, even American man or woman of the 1930’s”
Sebastian Haffner, who grew up in Germany between the wars, wrote a very thoughtful and important memoir on this period, which is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand how Germany became “a pack of hunting hounds directed against humans,” as he put it. My review, which includes extensive excerpts, is here.
sorry, mis-linked: part one of the review is really here.
Moderate Muslims are moderately Muslim. They are the Islamic equivalent of Christians being half way, more or less, between the fanatical Christians (seen one lately) on one end and the Christmas?Easter Christians on the other.
Whether being moderately Muslim fits with our vague idea of “moderate” is yet to be determined. The dual use of the word “moderate” clouds the issue.
Several years back a Muslim in Tulsa wrote an op-ed saying Islam must abandon violence. He was thrown out of his mosque, threatened with violence. If he’s moderate, what was he doing in a fanatical mosque in the first place? So, presumably, that was a moderate mosque. ?????
Christians who disagree with a congregation’s doctrine go to a different church, or, in groups, start their own. I’ve been trying to find out if that Tulsa congregation split up over that issue. No luck, either way.
I’m interested in the small stuff. If a couple of Muslim guys rough up a woman because she’s dressed “like a whore”, what happens if a Muslim juror refuses to vote guilty because of solidarity? What happens if it occurs, say, three times in two years in the same town?
But you have to give the Dutch credit. At least they’re making the effort.
David Foster,
Thanks for the review. The last bit I find to be very interesting:
“Turning to his own subject—the question of why the Germans allowed Naziism to happen—Haffner continues:
Indeed, behind these questions are some very peculiar, very revealing, mental processes and experiences, whose historical significance cannot yet be fully gauged These are what I want to write about. You cannot get to grips with them if you do not track them down to the place where they happen: the private lives, emotions, and thoughts of individual Germans…There, in private, the fight is taking place in Germany. You will search for it in vain in the political landscape, even with the most powerful telescope. Today the political struggle is expressed by the choice of what a person eats and drinks, whom he loves, what he does in his spare time, whose company he seeks, whether he smiles or frowns, what pictures he hangs on his walls. It is here that the battles of the next world war are being decided in advance. That may sound grotesque, but it is the truth.”
I hate that it has become this way. I hate it. But I think it is true now that it is in the very “private lives” of everyone that sides are being taken, decisions made, lines drawn, characters improved, or not, virtues cultivated, or not, that will determine where we are going and what good or evil will result.
One small example, but I think in light of your review not so small: On my refrigerator, and therefore in a space where outsiders could see it, I have a letter from Scott Brown thanking me for my small donation to his campaign in January. I still feel a little uneasy with it there. What if someone should come in who is not on that side? What will they think of me? It could be a great divide in a relationship.
So strange. $25 or $50 dollars to a now-Senator from Massachusetts could be the difference between people and world-views, and a small bit of courage to be open about it. The letter could be thrown out, or in a drawer or on a refrigerator. I chose the refrigerator and it is most a trifle and also very significant.
That’s the world we live in now.
Mike Mc., I feel the same way, my family is all liberal etc. and while part of me says that it’s just politics, what’s the big deal, but deep down I know that it’s not just politics. This is another recurring topic on this blog – what to do when people you are close to just don’t see how evil their chosen trajectory is. I have often questioned whether it is better to shut up and keep the peace, or try to evangelize harder because of the evil on the horizon. I keep trying in little ways, such as suggesting the Wall Street Journal for good articles, etc.
Display your Scott Brown letter proudly. I have a Ronald Reagan calendar that I have been debating putting up at work – it might cause a stir.
For many moderate Muslims I suspect their position is somewhat like that of moderate whites in the South during the civil rights violence of the 50’s and 60’s. Speaking up could get your house fire bombed by the KKK crazies.
Mr. Frank,
Maybe.
However, they did not belong to a religion or culture which validated, by reference to the Big Document, that segregation was God’s plan.
Some nutcases thought so, but they were few, and no seminary taught it.
david forster and Mike Mc.: another important book on the subject is one I’ve discussed here and here.
I’ve also written on the topic of resistance to evil (especially during WWII), here and here.
Oh, and one more thing—that Haffner piece points out a historical fact that I’ve tried to hammer home several times, to little avail: that the majority of the German people did not vote for Hitler, but they got him anyway. It is astounding how many people are ignorant of the facts of Hitler’s rise to power.
It all boils down to one question: How long to follow the rules that now work to ensnare us?
Peter Drucker, the seminal writer on management and astute social critic, left Germany in 1933. In his memoir, he wrote about three men he knew who became Nazis or Nazi enablers:
—Reinhold Hensch, who came from a working-class family, became an SS officer. He summed up his motivations to Drucker thusly: “Now I have a party membership card with a very low number and *I am going to be somebody*.”
—Paul Schaeffer became editor of a major newspaper, believing he could influence the regime toward moderation. He disappeared when the front that he provided was no longer needed.
—An un-named professor, a distinguished biochemist and a “great liberal,” was expected by many to raise objections at the faculty’s first meeting with their newly-appointed Nazi watchdog. His main concern was about maintaining the level of research funding.
Knowing these people led Drucker to object to the Hannah Arendt “banality of evil” formulation:
“Evil works through the Hensches and the Schaeffers precisely because evil is monstrous and men are trivial…Man becomes the instrument of evil when, like the Hensches, he thinks to harness evil to his ambitions; and he becomes the instrument of evil when, like the Schaeffers, he joins with evil to prevent worse…I have often wondered which of these two did, in the end, more harm—the Monster or the Lamb; and which is worse, Hensch’s sin of the lust for power or Schaeffer’s hubris and sin of pride? But maybe the greatest sin is neither of these two ancient ones; the greatest sin may be the new twentieth-century sin of indifference, the sin of the distinguished biochemist who neither kills nor lies but refuses to bear witness when, in the words of the old gospel hymn, “They crucify my Lord.”””
Mike Mc,
to your question about Italians at the time of Il Duce: I just finished a brilliant book by Italian Jewish writer, Primo Levi. It’s called Periodic Table.
Highly recommend.
the difference between moderate(good) muslims and radical(extremist)islam is the ability to agree with the separation of church and state.that’s it . liberals have to square away their hatred of conservatives with the awareness that radical islam ‘s goal is the replacement of the US constitution and common law with sharia.
they may think that they can deal with the radicals later but they will have thrown away their best sword.
Neo – Thanks for the links and info.
Tatyana,
Thanks.
More from Prof Drucker: this from his first book, The End of Economic Man (1939), an analysis of the factors driving the acceleration of totalitarianism:
In a chapter titled “The Return of the Demons,” he addresses the psychological roots of Fascism. One of these was the experience of the Great War—”Modern war appeared to be the denial of all tenets on which the mechanical and rational conception of society is based. This was not because war is amechanical and arational, but because it reduces mechanization and rationalization to absurdity…the war showed the individual suddenly as an isolated, helpless, powerless atom in a world of irrational monsters.” Another factor was the Great Depression, which “proved that irrational and incalculable forces also rule peacetime society: the threat of sudden permanant unemployment, of being thrown on the industrial scrap heap on one’s prime or even before one has started to work. Against these forces the individual finds himself as helpless, isolated, and atomized as against the forces of machine war.” As a result of these factors, “The European masses realized for the first time that existence in this society is governed not by rational and sensible, but by blind, irrational, and demonic forces.”
In a later chapter, Drucker specifically addresses the rise of anti-Semitism: “The real explanation for racial anti-Semitism in German, and even more in Austria, is that the substitution of the Jews for the hostile forces of bourgeois capitalism and liberalism was made possible, if not mandatory, by the unique social structure of the German bourgeoisie..Unlike the middle classes in western Europe, it was liberated from above. Its emancipation was not a social end in itself; it was effected for the purpose of national unification. Politically and socially the bourgeoisie therefore never became a ruling class.” (He means prior to Weimar) He then provides data indicating extensive intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews in the German and Austrian middle classes, so that whereas the ruling classes before the war had been entirely non-Jewish, “the mixture with Jewish blood was the specified distinction of the new ruling class…When this class failed and when its rule led to the emergence of the demons, it became therefore “rational” to hold the Jews responsible and to personify the demons as Jewish.”
and
“(Anti-Semitism) has nothing to do with any qualities of the Jews themselves, but exclusively with what the internal tension in Naziism requires the Jews to look like…The real enemy is not the Jew, but the bourgeois order which is fought under the name of the Jew. Nazi anti-Semitism stems from the failure of Naziism to replace the bourgeois order and the bourgeois concept of man with a new constructive concept. And this makes it imperative to denounce bourgeois liberalism and capitalism, yet impossible to resort to class war”….”“It must be understood that for the convinced Totalitarian the personification of the demons and their persecution and oppression appear not only justified but alone reasonable. He is genuinely unable to understand why the outside world does not see the demons.”
Reg,
The terms “Church” and “State” are both Western (Christian) terms. Applying them to Islam is probably a mistake unless you know ahead of time it’s an analogy and only goes so far.
There is no Muslim “Church”. There is no Muslim “State”. There is the Dar al Islam and then everything else.
Even the term “moderate” is a Western term. It basically derives from Aristotle’s Ethics, and today it is even mostly misunderstood in the West.
The main and central reason why we are in so much trouble today is that we’ve been dumbed down for over a generation now. People say things and use terms and they don’t know what they mean any more.
The concept of a moderate muslim is like the concept of a robotic potato. The two terms don’t belong together at all and they only seem to make sense since each term has its own meaning.
In this case, the term “moderate” can only mean Muslim who is not going to kill you. If any Muslim who does not murder you is ipso facto “moderate” then we are in differnt intellectual galaxies.
mike Mc
quite right the truly moderate muslim is an elusive beast.they do exist,they do understand the difference between belief and knowledge.but they are easily frightened creatures(decapitation scares them). essentially speaking they ,like the vast majority of the human race, want to be left alone to live their lives in peace.
stupidity is the natural human state. it doesn’t really take much dumbing down.
Today’s threat is much more discrete and subtle than the one encountered in the 1930’s. Read this week’s Krauthammer. Obama is trying to set up an dictatorship of the bureaucrat. The good news is that so many are on to him.
He may be the biggest threat the US ever faced.
I support the Dutch government using “decoy Jews,” and hope the practice spreads elsewhere (for example, Sweden, France, UK).
However, as a non-lawyer, something in the original article puzzled me: “If the laws about provoking a crime are at all similar to the entrapment laws here, the Greens have no case at all.”
While I can understand on a moral basis why this statement is so, the law is often related only tangentially to morality, and if it’s not too complicated, could somebody explain why this would not represent entrapment.
David.
The laws about entrapment here refer to the crime being suggested and enabled by the government agent.
IOW, an agent cannot convince a gang to rob a bank, do some homework on the security system and organize the heist.
Decoys are people who look like easy marks; Policewomen walking where rape attempts have been reported, small cops made up like elderly women in expensive coats, cars with the keys left in them along with lo-jack-like devices and remote ignition stop.
Difference is that the choice in the second case is the perp’s own idea facilitated in no way by the government. He has the opportunity to let the potential victim continue unmolested, the car left at the curb.
Now, if you consider that certain people simply can’t help themselves any more than Pavlov’s dogs could keep themselves from salivating by an act of conscience, then perhaps providing a decoy counts as entrapment.
But if that’s the case, we have really serious problems with these folks and how we get them to announce themselves is secondary.
You will search for it in vain in the political landscape, even with the most powerful telescope. Today the political struggle is expressed by the choice of what a person eats and drinks, whom he loves, what he does in his spare time, whose company he seeks, whether he smiles or frowns, what pictures he hangs on his walls.
and Hux and most others are looking for jack boots and outward symbols, not inward games…
that you cant see it unless you know what to look for
and you dont know waht to look for
unless you have experience seeing it
and so relativism, and the mental games taught over the years neutralized each thing that haffner talks about.
some of these neutralization started 20 or 30 years ago, till we have nothing to replace them with as we forgot how it was.
if we recognized the disparate impact arguments against the Jews, would we have let WOMEN use them to divide the country and people?
probably not since women were so full of creating a new world… as they were back in germany then as weimar just gave them the vote..
and hitlers books point out that the youth and women are important… (the men are the protectors.. so once marginalized the people are defenseless).
david: it’s not entrapment because the decoys are not doing anything except walking around dressed as Jews. This cannot constitute provocation; Jews have every right to walk around.
If they were walking around insulting or taunting Muslims, for example, that might in some circumstances constitute entrapment or provocation.
neo.
You’re right. So am I. Good thing, given how the rest of my day’s going.
You’ll note that the Greens et al have an implication they would probably not want made explicit.
The decoys constitute entrapment because the Muslim attackers CANNNOT HELP THEMSELVES. QED.
Now, of course, the Greens et al don’t actually mean this, but the only thing they can say about this is that it’s entrapment. They have no other path. But the implication, whether they mean it or not, inevitably follows.
Slightly off-topic (and about four years old): Dan Simmons’ short story “The Visitor“. What would a visitor from the near future want to tell us about Islam, and its relationship with the West?
I just reread it; it aged better than I expected it would.
DiB
Lack of leadership and cowardice. This mess has been brewing in Western Europe for quite some time. I saw some some of this aggression when I was in France and Holland a few years ago. The inmates are running the asylum. It’s gotten really bad. I’m on the net with some folks in the UK who are beyond the level of disgust at what’s become of the country. They have to be very, very careful as to what they say or write, lest they be prosecuted for hate crimes. Here, we have a de facto anti-Semite in the White House, and a Vichy Mayor in New York. The rats have been working and gaming the system here, in the same manner they have on the other side of the Atlantic. I don’t need to list the outrages, everyone knows what’s happening. Even unstated, the signals from on high are being interpeted, whether it’s Mexicans from the South, or the Islamic death squad du jour: You’re welcome to come and do what you will, you have friends here, be damned what “those people” want. Personally, I’m becoming increasinly hardened in my feelings on these matters. I hope that things change, I really do.