WOMEN IN BLACK - SOME MORE BACKGROUND

My view of the Bay Area Women In Black is formed by my exposure to their anti-Israel rhetoric, their participating in demonstrations alongside rabid anti-Semites, and their support for terrorists and terrorist sympathizers.

Well, the Bay Area is more loopy than the rest of the country. And it is quite likely that what was not a bad idea a long time ago got taken over by a bad crowd.


So, for comparison, I decided to look at other Women In Black. Specifically, I decided to see what the Dutch WIBs were like.
The reason being that my bilious perspective on Europeans has been caused by a decade's worth of reading Dutch Newspapers, blogs, and discussions on the internet - and surely there can be no better example of the thought-world of a liberal Western European democracy than that of the country which started the whole liberal humanist political tradition? A country which is probably the prime exemplar of successful liberalism?

[Having lived there for the better part of two decades, I have been much exposed to Dutch ideas and political ideologies. Plus I speak, read, and write Dutch fluently - that, too, determined my choice.]


Result below. Translation in square brackets underneath the large text, commentary underneath the translation.


Vrouwen in 't Zwart Amsterdam houden een wake op
Vrijdag 4 mei 2007
[Women in Black Amsterdam will hold a wake on Friday May fourth 2007]

Comment: May fourth is the day when the Netherlands remembers the occupation in WWII, and commemorates those who perished during that period (in the Netherlands, over three quarters of the Jewish community was wiped out, largely with the active co-operation of Dutch civil authorities and the proportionately largest collaborationist movement of occupied Europe). Many Dutch were betrayed by their fellow countrymen - that also is, in theory, remembered.

By this choice of day the Women In Black of Amsterdam seek to draw a comparison, and hijack what should be a non-political and solemn event. Given their support for the Hamas, notabene listed as a terrorist organization even by the European states, this is obscene.


vanaf 12:45 uur
op het SPUI in Amsterdam (bij 't Lieverdje)
[From 12:45 onward, on the Spui (by the statue of 't Lieverdje']


ISRAEL: Stop de invasies in Palestijns gebied, landconfiscaties, uitgaansverboden, omsingeling van steden, uithongering van de burgers
[ISRAEL: stop the invasions in Palestinian territory, landconfiscations, movement restrictions, encircling of cities, starvation of citizens.]

Comment: PALESTINIAN ORGANIZATIONS: Stop launching rockets, kidnapping, shooting, and attempts to commit atrocities! ARABS: Stop funding the most violent and psychotic of Palestinian groups! EUROPE: Stop voicing support and understanding for acts of terror and anti-Semitism!


5 jaar Intifada en 39 jaar bezetting: meer dan genoeg!
[Five years of Intifada and 39 years of occupation: more than enough!]

Comment: I agree. So does Israel. Unfortunately, unless the Palestinians become more willing to take responsibility for their own security and clamp down on terrorists, the only alternative to occupation is withdrawing, and subsequently attacking every time another rocket crosses the border. Realistically they would also have to create a strip of no-mans land as wide as the range of Palestinian missiles to ensure safety, increasing it every time and at each point where a missile crosses over into Israel. That does not seem like the optimum desired result, does it?


Beëindig de bezetting van de Westoever en Gaza
The wall must fall - Weg met de annexatie muur
Ontruim alle sinds 1967 gestichte nederzettingen
Jeruzalem, hoofdstad voor twee volkeren!
[End the occupation of the Westbank and Gaza / The wall must fall - away with the annexation wall / Evacuate all settlements founded since 1967 / Jerusalem, capitol for two peoples!]

Comment: Gaza is no longer occupied, much of the westbank is administered by the locals, the wall has proven very effective in preventing terror attacks (less attacks each year despite ever more attempts), the Palestinians are NEVER going to get Gush Etzion back (we do remember what was done to it between 1948 and 1967), and you might as well forget about Jerusalem, which was not granted to Israel by the UN solely because the Catholic nations did not want the Jews to control the city. Does that influence what the world thinks should be done with Jerusalem? Is that why they refuse to acknowledge the permanent Jewishness of the city? Is that why so many Europeans and their American sympathisers can overlook the fundamental place that Jerusalem has in Judaism and Jewish identity?

The portion liberated in 1967 was largely the old Jewish quarter; please remember what the Jordanian army did there in 1948. Besides, any thought of returning the Kotel to the Arabs is absurd, and considering that the Muslims can still worship at the mosque of Omar, which is still administered by the Waqf, there is no reason for any further concession on the issue of Jerusalem.


De Israëlische regering is verantwoordelijk voor:
[The Israeli government is responsible for:]


Dagelijks tientallen doden, niet alleen in Gaza , maar ook in de West Bank door het Israëlische leger. Na de grootscheepse bombardementen afgelopen zomer op de electriciteitscentrale en watervoorzieningen in Gaza als collectieve strafmaatregelen tegen de Palestijnse bevolking, waardoor honderduizenden geen stroom en water hebben, ziekenhuizen niet kunnen opereren, medicijnen en voedseltransporten het land niet in kunnen,is Gaza nu hermetisch afgesloten, ter land door roadblocks, ter zee -de haven is verwoest en geblokkeerd en in de lucht. Leden van de wettig gekozen- Hamas regering en vele parlements-leden zijn gearresteerd zijn en zitten in de gevangenis!
[Daily tens of dead, not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank, by the Israeli Army. After the massive bombardments last summer on the electrical plant and the water suppliers in Gaza as collective punishment against the Palestinian population, whereby hundreds of thousands lack current and water, hospitals cannot operate, medicines and food transports cannot enter the land, now Gaza is hermetically sealed - by land because of roadblocks, by sea because the harbour is destroyed and blockaded, and by air. Members of the legally chosen Hamas government and many parliamentarians have been arrested and are in jail!]

Comment: The Israeli government is responsible for the safety and security of her own citizens, and it would be lovely if the Palestinian organizations showed as much concern for theirs, instead of daily attempting to kill Israelis.
That they are not as successful at whacking Jews as Israel is at interdicting murderous Palestinian ventures is not the fault of the Israeli government - it seems somewhat suspect and patronizing to blame the Israelis for the failures of the Arabs. Yes, those massive bombardments were horrible - so were and are the barrages of Qassams, killings, terror attempts, and ongoing weapons smuggling and bomb-making in Gaza.

Earlier it was claimed that Gaza was occupied, here it appears that it is not - which, of course, is the reason why the amount of Palestinian war-materiel that has entered Gaza in the last year has shot through the roof. It can also in no way be argued that Qassams and bomb-vests are defensive in nature.

As regards the legally elected Hamas government members, what is overlooked is the fact that Hamas is a terrorist organization devoted to destroying Israel and harming Jews everywhere, an organization which additionally advocates the destruction of the west, and the imposition of Islamic law in Europe and North America.

Need I remind you of the many times Hamas have urged their followers to kill Americans? Why should Israel tolerate them? And why should we criticize Israel for interfering with the plans of what is one of the more murderous branches of the Muslim Brotherhood (an organization that has also given us inter alia Al Qaeda and the Salafi thugs in North Africa)?

Asserting that the Hamas government was legally elected is immaterial. That murderers and racist thugs could even stand for election is more than fairly disgusting, and that Palestinian law permitted that is unacceptable. That it was legal does not mean that it was right. Chinese law permits the execution of homosexuals for being gay (as do the laws of several other 'exemplary' states), Saudi law circumscribes the rights of women, Jews, and Christians, Russian law is draconian. Many Muslim countries legally permit and encourage wife-beating, dictatorships utilize their laws for repression, and apparently our own laws permit incarceration of foreigners in Guantanamo without recourse.

Further, Palestinians are no great respecters of law - unless extrajudicial killings of accused prisoners is legal, unless honour-killings are legal, unless assassinations of political rivals is legal, unless advocating the murder of Jews and Christians is legal.

And if that is indeed so, their law needs much reform.


-De bouw van de apartheidsmuur [ 2 keer zo hoog als de Berlijnse muur], die de Palestijnen hun land en werk afpakt en hen opsluit in ghetto's. Israël is in hard tempo bezig de muur te voltooien, door hen aangeduid als afscheidingshek , maar door de Palestijnen de apartheidsmuur wordt genoemd. Terwijl velen in het westen denken dat de muur als veiligheidsmaatregel wordt gebouwd, ziet de werkelijkheid er totaal anders uit.
[The building of the apartheid wall (twice as high as the Berlin wall), which robs the Palestinians of their land and employment and shuts them up in ghettoes. Israel is at a rapid rate busy completing the wall, by them referred to as a separation fence, but called by the Palestinians the Apartheid wall. While many in the west think that the wall is being built as a security precaution, the reality is entirely different.]

Comment: I note the loaded terminology here - apartheid, Berlin Wall, Ghetto.

Firstly, apartheid is an inappropriate term, given the huge differences between what the Boers were up to versus what the Israelis are up against. The Berlin Wall never protected either group whereas the security fence keeps bomb-belt wearing Palestinians from showing off their explosive sartorial splendour in Israeli buses and Pizzerias. And the term ghetto is more appropriate to the mellas in which Jews in parts of the Arab world used to live than to the vast areas of Arab-occupied villages and cities.

I for one applaud the building of that wall - I only wish that it had been started earlier, as then the lives of the Schijveschuurder family (five of whom were killed in 2001 when Sbarro's Pizzeria was bombed) would not have been ended.

It is particularly poignant that a Jewish family whose prior generations had been in the Netherlands as long as mine have been in the new world (nearly four centuries) was terminated in the one place on the planet where, more than anywhere else, they should have been safe.

Considering that Palestinians celebrated that despicable act, even gloatingly creating an exhibit of the restaurant at En-Najah University in Nablus, complete with blood spatters and mock human body parts, I really need to ask why anybody would be pro-Palestinian? What moves people to advocate for a group which celebrates the death of innocents? Why do Europeans rationalize such brutality and formulate fig-leaves for such murders? Why do some Americans excuse such murder as understandable and in fact evidence that the objects of their underdog-love are actually profoundly suffering human beings?

By the way, Hamas and Islamic Jihad both claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Do not ask me to forgive or forget that Hamas and Islamic Jihad killed people with whom I have much in common, then boasted about it, and were celebrated for it by their tribe.



De muur loopt voor een groot deel door Bezet Gebied, i.p.v. op de zogeheten Groene Lijn, de na-oorlogse Israëlische grens van 1967. In het noorden zijn tientallen dorpen met ongeveer 25.000 mensen opgesloten tussen de muur en de Groene Lijn. 72.000 mensen in het noorden worden van hun bouwland afgesneden, dus beroofd en meer dan 40 grondwaterbronnen worden geconfisceerd. De Israëlische bulldozers hebben tien-duizenden meters waterleidingen verwoest, die voor de landbouw van levensbelang zijn.
[The wall runs for a large part through Occupied Territory, instead of along the so-called Green Line, the post-war Israeli border of 1967. In the north there are tens of villages with approximately twenty-five thousand people shut up between the wall and the Green Line. Seventy-two thousand people in the north have been cut off from their farm-lands, ergo robbed, and more than 40 groundwater wells have been confiscated. The Israeli bulldozers have destroyed over ten thousand meters of water pipes, which are of crucial importance for agriculture.]

Comment: Until the Palestinians and the other Arabs stop trying to destroy Israel and kill Jews, there is little reason to take their interests into account - the wall exists only because of their actions.

If the world does not demand that Russia return the huge portion of Poland they seized at the end of WWII, Poland return the giant wedge of Germany that they got in return for yielding to the Russians, and Japan allow the Ryukyus to be independent again, among many other examples of territories having changed ownership, then why should only ONE country in the entire world be required to yield on war-borders? If the world really wishes a measure of rectification on this issue, rather than haranguing Israel it would be better to persuade the Palestinians to embrace peace, and to convince the Arab nations to stop cheering Palestinian terror and cease funding Palestinian proxy armies.


De hele operatie leidt naar verwachting tot 10% land - confiscatie van de Westelijke Jordaan en kost ongeveer 1,2 miljard dollar. Met veiligheid heeft de muur weinig van doen, wel met vernedering, omsingeling, uithongering, confiscatie. Terwijl vele joodse nederzettingen, zoals de grote nederzettingen stad Ariel door het geschuif met de muur plotseling in Israël blijkt te liggen.
[The whole operation is expected to lead to confiscation of ten percent of the land of the Western bank of the Jordan and costs approximately one point two billion dollars. There is little connection with safety, instead (it is for) humiliation, encircling, starving out, confiscation. While many Jewish settlements, like the large settlement city Ariel, by shifting of the wall all of a sudden turn out to lie within Israel.]

Comment: More loaded terminology. I'm sure that activists on the other side believe every word of it. Note particularly the use of the word "Jewish" - is that to remind good little bigots of the evils of da Jew?

You know, I actually do not have a problem with holding on to a portion of the Westbank. Like, for instance, Gush Etzion, all of Jerusalem, Ariel, many of the settlement blocks, and even such towns as Nablus and Jericho. Violence and stridency will not convince me otherwise.
Though I will concede that from a security point-of-view it is better to have mostly Palestinian areas well within artillery range than anywhere within the wall.



Toestemming voor nog een muur is onlangs door het Israëlische Parlement gegeven. Hierdoor wordt het de facto onmogelijk gemaakt om een Palestijnse staat op te richten.
[Permission for another wall has recently been given by the Israeli Parliament. Thus making it defacto impossible to create a Palestinian state.]

Comment: What makes it defacto impossible to create a Palestinian state is their high level of violence and low level of competence and incorruptibility.
Pyromaniacs should not be trusted with gasoline, thieves and murderers should not be trusted with guns, and, at present, Palestinians can not be trusted with a state.


-Het dagelijks doden van burgers, waaronder veel kinderen vooral in Gaza.
[The daily killing of citizens, among whom many children especially in Gaza.]

Comment: Jews do not have children?


-Buitengerechtelijke executies van Hamas leden ,door de VN veroordeeld als zijnde onwettig, waarbij vooral onschuldige omstanders worden gedood.
[Extrajudicial execution of Hamas members, which the UN has stated as being unlawful, whereby mainly innocent citizens are killed.]

Comment: Israel tries to minimize civilian deaths. Unfortunately, that sometimes means choosing between possible civilian deaths on the Israeli side versus possible civilian deaths on the Palestinian side. I applaud their concern for their own citizens, and wish that the Palestinians would show more concern for theirs.


And so forth and so on. Note that the Dutch text above was taken from the site of Women In Black Netherlands (here: http://www.vrouweninhetzwart.nl/ ).
They have branches in Amsterdam, Groningen, Haarlem, Maastricht, and Utrecht.


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ADDENDUM

Further to the Schijveschuurder family referenced above, the members of the family who were killed are:

Mordechai Schijveschuurder, 43 years old (the father, who made aliyah in 1984)
Tzira Schijveschuurder, 41 years old (the mother)
Ra'aya Schijveschuurder, 14 years old (daughter)
Avraham Yitzhak Schijveschuurder, 4 years old (son)
Hemda Schijveschuurder, 2 years old (daughter)

The four children who were left behind are Meir, Bentzion, Chaya, and Leah.

It should especially be noted that the Schijveschuurder family were friends of Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo (whose ancestors entered the Netherlands at the time when mine were leaving).
[I have a connection of sorts to Rabbi Cardozo, so there was only one real degree of separation.....]

Rabbi Cardozo, as the name shows, is of Sfardi heritage. The Sfardi Jews in the Netherlands enjoyed many years of safety in Amsterdam, until Germans and Dutch collaborators brutally turned off that light. Rabbi Cardozo also made aliyah.


Why have so many Dutch Jews left?

That is not entirely a rhetorical question, as I'm sure you realize.