Europe: 60 years w/o Jews and missing them terribly.

Europe's foreign policy is virtually non-existent (unfortunately). All Europe does is support whatever the US wants to do. Besides I don't know about other countries but I do know that the NL has supported Israel with military technology and apparel for decades and in just about every war you can think of, and I'm pretty confident that other European nations do the same. In short, stop whingeing about a lack of European support.

 

Yes why not. People seem to forget how many Jewish refugees were refused entry into the US in the years leading up to WWII, for example. The Frank family notably. It was Congress who decided on letting in only a very restricted number. I can list an x number of links to antisemitism being just as or even more prevalent in the US prior to WWII than in Europe. Anyway makes you wonder how the US population would've reacted to a nazi invasion - I'm guessing there were just as many Americans as Europeans who didn't exactly care about what happened to the Jews. Antisemitism (and religious hatred in general) is of all nationalities. The Israelis themselves aren't exactly alien to the concept themselves.

 

Those Mythical Europeans that only exist in the minds of some people across the great pond.

 

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054494.html

 

You cannot be serious. I mean, even for you, this is quite remarkably a stupid thing to say. Care to read some of the regulations from say, I don't know.........1940 to 1945?

 

So the Netherlands killed 70% of its Jews during the Holocaust just for the hell of it? Never institutionalised? Are you serious?

Also, never is a pretty damned long time. Ever heard of the Spanish Inquisition? There was a fair bit of institutionalised antisemitism when that was going on, wouldn't you say. Can you guess what empire controlled the Netherlands during the time of the Spanish Inquisition? I'll give you a hint (fill in the blanks). It was the S_a_ish Empire.

You made it relevant by bringing up the history of antisemitism in America and trying to somehow say it was just as bad as the history of antisemitism in Europe.

See, the reason why the story of Anne Frank was so notable was that most Dutch people told the Germans who the Jews were and made no effort to hide them. More Jews were sent to concentration camps from the Netherlands than from Italy, Germany's strongest European ally.

So please explain to us how rough the Jews have had it in USA again.

 

Haven't you people ever heard of Ajax - the greatest team in Dutch history. Jews were even so popular that a sports team had to use their insignia

 

Dude, maybe I should tell you that there's democracy in Europe where people have the right to organize demonstrations! And since Muslims are citizens of the EU, they have the right to gather and demonstrate. As far as I know, the Jews did that as well in many European cities during the last days.

Who told you that?

Yep, that's the reason why "Old Europe" supported Mr. Bush's plans to invade Iraq...

 

The only people who ever undertook the systematic genocide of the entire Jewish population of the Earth were Europeans. Period. End argument. You lose.

 

This may have completely passed you by but it wasn't the Dutch who ruled the Netherlands in that period of time. The US congress by contrast was independent when they decided to let a very minimal number of jewish refugees in.

 

Again considering antisemite sentiments in the US in the early 20th century I don't think Americans are in a position to judge the Dutch who as early as in the 16th century started to allow Jewish refugees in when they basically weren't welcome anywhere in the western world. Who are you to judge how the Americans would have acted under Nazi oppression? Fact remains the Dutch never prosecuted or institutionalised discrimination of the jewish people UNDER DUTCH RULE. Youre not seriously going to blame the Dutch for how their occupiers behaved towards the jewish Dutch are you? FFS. You might want to read up on William of Orange who kicked the Spaniards out and who was a strong supporter of Erasmus, the Dutch philosopher, founder of humanism, and a strong believer of freedom of thought and religion. It is Erasmus's thoughts on which the first Dutch constitution, one of the oldest in the world, was based. And guess what, it was mostly about freedom for all long before the American declaration of independence was even thought of.

It was the Dutch who let the Frank family into their country (unlike the US who I might add were not under the pressures the Nl were at the time) and it was indeed the Dutch who kept the Frank family hidden and fed, it was the Dutch who saved Anne Frank's diaries and it was indeed the Dutch who helped the only survivor of the Frank family, Otto Frank, to get back on his feet and helped him to get the diaries published when he got back in the Netherlands. Were there traitors among the Dutch population? Yes definitely but it is beyond naive to believe that your own people would have behaved better. Worse still, it shows a complete misunderstanding of the pressures an occupied people can be under and that in turn goes a long way towards explaining how many pro-Israel Americans feel about the Palestinians. Israel itself by the way went to great lengths to investigate who betrayed the Frank family and not even they ever discovered the truth. So it's not even a fact that the Dutch betrayed them. On that note it is funny how even Israel has a lot more respect for how the Dutch behaved in the war than the Americans do. I guess Israelis understand better than the Americans what Nazi rule was like.


Your congress knew the jewish people were in danger and still decided to let only very few of them in right before WWII. That is at best xenophobic.

 

Thats like saying the US were the only people who ever undertook the systematic genocide of the entire native Indian population.

 

I still say that Johann is screwing a Palestinian.

 

Which would be incorrect, because a systemic genocide did not happen, at least not in the US.

Hell the Government and the Churches of Canada did a better job of it than the United States.

 

That would only be true if all Jews lived in Europe. Its not.

 

The point is that this holier than thou behaviour is ridiculous. You can't know how you yourself would behave if the safety of your own family were at stake. You are aware of what the strategies of the Nazi occupier in occupied territories were, I hope. Besides, the story of the Dutch jewish people who got taken away to concentration camps is a lot more complex than you simplistic minds think, as anyone who's ever read a couple of autobiographies of holocaust survivors would know.

Besides, I don't take this personally one bit as my own dad was a trade unionist who got sent to a labour camp for staging strikes against the razzias, and my own home town is known for having the highest percentage of jewish survivors of any Dutch town thanks to its catholic and protestant resistance movements. Still doesn't make me judge people who didnt behave as heroes though as my grandparents told me all about what it was like and it is downright lacking an insight into human nature to judge people in a hopeless situation from your comfy sofa. Peacetime morals are totally irrelevant in situations like that. For the upteenth time: read Primo Levi.

 

So you're going to blame all of Europe for Hitler's wrong doings or the Soviet Union's wrongdoings? Surely you're not that simple.

 

That's fundamentally false.

Again, this isn't true.

No, we're blaming the Dutch on how they cooperated with the occupation.

I know it excites you to think of a time when Holland was relevant, but that's got nothing to do with Jews. Lets be realistic here - the Dutch wanted to be free of Spanish Catholicism (not Catholicism, mind you). That it gave Jews freedom too was irrelevant to Erasmus and William of Orange. I'm glad they didn't actively try to kick all the Jews out of the Netherlands, but I don't know why I should give you credit for such a "high" standard.

Except that numbers show that not only did the Dutch collaborate, they collaborated very willingly. The highest proportion of Jews in Western Europe that died were in Holland.

No, Israel is a country. It has political relations; it makes no sense to stand up and blame Holland for mostly irrelevant things. But you are not Holland's representative, yet come out with some ludicrously stupid and historically incorrect assertions. Thus we can tell you to stuff it. And we do.
Americans don't go around claiming to be experts on model race relations. There's a reason for that.

The 30s in the US were a very xenophobic time, yes. There were some xenophobes in the US immigration services, yes. But the truth is that the US did NOT know the extent of atrocities in Europe until quite late; even in 1942, Felix Frankfurter didn't believe what refugees from Europe were telling him. The notion that the US "killed" Jews in any way in WW II is a pretty stupid accusation.

 

Are you claiming you're not European? Or do I really need to lecture you on the history of anti-semitism in Europe? Your silly insistence that the Dutch were always friends to Jews is at odds with the record. Sure, you were better than the French (although even that's debateable). Do you want a cookie?

 

The Spanish weren't too bad at it either. Hey, they are European!

But the Dutch were fair. $24 for Manhattan was a good deal.

 

No matter how an argument/discussion is going or what points are on the table, when someone asks me this question, the answer is pretty much always yes. Who wouldn't want a cookie?

And speaking of Europe, who moves from a pony country to a non-pony country?

[youtube]0RDLqb3umsw[/youtube]

 

I never said that there never were any antisemites in the NL. I did say it was never institutionalised under Dutch rule. Not a single Jewish person was ever prosecuted for his faith under Dutch rule, and discrimination against them was on a par with the discrimination of the catholics. Feel free to prove me wrong and good luck with that. You seem to be unable to look beyond WWII and again completely forget that the Dutch were under Nazi rule then. Does it occur to you that the Dutch in general didn't exactly like Nazi rule? We had 200,000 civilian deaths FFS.

 

Does Holland have the same people who write history books for the Japanese, write the books on Dutch history?