This is akin to the common and oft-repeated claim that “Muslims are the new Jews,” i.e., opposition to jihad terror is exactly equivalent to genocidal anti-Semitism. It is a peculiar malady that we see ever more frequently on the Left: no matter how many jihad terror attacks there are, no matter how many Islamic supremacist boasts of imminent takeover, no matter how much Westerners are manipulated into granting special privileges and accommodations to Muslims, Muslims are always seen as victims, never held accountable for the supremacist bloodlust that is leading so many Muslims in the West to join the Islamic State, and always offered the solicitude and support of bemused Leftists like Pieter Broertjes.
“Dutch Mayor: ‘Jihadis Are Like Jews Who Left for Palestine,'” by Cynthia Blank, Arutz Sheva, October 26, 2014 (thanks to Maxwell):
A Dutch mayor was quoted as saying that the government in Holland should not prevent or oppose Islamists from leaving for Syria to fight for the Islamic State, just as it allowed Jews immigrate to pre-state Israel after World War II, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported Friday.
Pieter Broertjes, the mayor of Hilvrsum – a small, affluent community near Amsterdam, considered Netherland’s media capital – made the comparison on Thursday, during an interview for Radio 1.
The theme of the broadcast was about possibly confiscating the passports of jihadists.
In September, Broertjes, a politician in the Dutch Labor party and the former editor-in-chief of the highbrow Volkskrant daily, heard that a family with four underage children had left for Syria to join ISIS.
He responded by saying. “You have to have a good reason to take a passport. Someone must have committed a criminal offense. And you don’t know if someone is going there for war.”
Broertjes was asked during this particular interview whether he thought jihadists leaving to fight in Syria and Iraq should be prevented from departing the country.
He answered that he opposed such steps, and added: ““It comes down to adults. Dutchmen after World War II went to Israel to fight the English. We didn’t prevent them then.”
The interview sent shockwaves through the country (and the Jewish world), particularly as Broerjes’s comment came only two months after a remark by another member of his party, who described ISIS on Twitter as a “Zionist plot.”…
Diane Harvey says
Yeah, just like the Jews after WWII!
Then, like now, Muslims had dozens of Muslim-ruled countries all over the world to which they might go.
Those Muslims going to IS are simply carrying on the 1400 year old war on the world at large in order to advance Islam. Jews going to Israel were simply returning to their ancient homeland, the ONLY one in the world.
For Muslims, whatever you as a non-Muslim may have, it’s theirs by right.
James says
Obviously an Islamic sympathizer and knows very little of the Qur’an.
Keith says
Just the way the left and Islamists like to keep it.
mariam rove says
what an idiot he is. Comparing apples to oranges. M
Matthys van Raalten says
Unfortunately, this mayor did a successful hit-and-run attack. He made his anti-Semitic statement. Got criticism and thus to save his career offered apologies that he didn’t mean a word of.
He helped making anti-Semitism more mainstream. He ought to resign.
Beagle says
Don’t be one of the last Jews left in Europe this time. I have not mentioned that in a few months. Probably time to do so again.
CogitoErgoSum says
Actually, aside from the specious comparison with the Jews, I tend to agree with the man on letting the Muslims go. I would add this, however: ONCE THEY HAVE GONE, DO NOT LET THEM COME BACK. By so much as even stating their wish to fight for the Islamic State, such people make evident their willingness to overthrow all other forms of government. They are potential traitors and enemies from within who should be allowed to leave with no hope of return.
Gail Griffin says
I and Geert would agree. Farewell and good riddance.
Jerry says
Jews went to Israel either to save themselves or, out of love, to save their fellow Jews.
The Muslims join ISIS not to save themselves, nor for the love of their fellow Muslims, but out of hate towards all the rest of the world.
The “love of Allah” the false God of death, or the self proclaimed false prophet is no excuse.
Small difference.
Peter Castle says
There is NO comparison! The Jews were persecuted. Islamists are terrorizing.
See “Terror Strikes America – Again!” at http://t.co/nurkdy0GI6.
bobm says
not apples and oranges…. light and darkness.
jewdog says
Wrong. They are like the Klingons going to fight the Federation of Planets and the Enterprise.
fair_dinkum says
head in the sand. fingers in his ears, eyes shut yelling lalala i cant hear you
Kepha says
I demur, Mijnheer Bjoertjes–especially since some of my Christianity cem to me via the Doleantie of your country (a group that has more than its fair share mentioned among the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem).
The Jews of Europe (AND THE MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA TOO!) went to ‘Eretz Yisroel out of a profound sense that the Europe that had come close to exterminating (not converting, not assimilating) them continued to have no place for them. Further, in many cases they were right, as the Lublin pogroms carried out under the noses of the Red Army “liberators” and other incidents showed. The anti-Jewish actions of the Reshid Ali regime in Iraq before it was overthrown by the British were also handwriting on the wall–to borrow a metaphor from a book written near that same patch of ground many centuries earlier.
In contrast, the Muslims of Europe have not been subjected to anything as horrible as the Holocaust. Prejudice, yes. Discrimination, yes. Violence of others, yes. But 20th-21st century European Muslims have not been subjected
to anything like the officially sanctioned, planned, and executed extermination program launched by National Socialist Germany and its collaborators.
I have known Jews of the generation older than mine who refused to go to any part of Europe except perhaps for Britain because, having known WWII, they thought the whole of the Old Continent a coffin. In contrast, the dominant political class of today’s Europe bends over backwards to accommodate Muslims.
I will always acknowledge that many tribes, peoples, groups, and whatnot have just grievances great and small. Even Muslims may, on occasion, truly be victims. But what Muslims in Europe today have received is simply not comparable to what the Jews experienced under the Third Reich, and Mihnheer Bjoertjes needs to bite his tongue.
Renee says
The only thing I can say to this is: a majority of Dutch people see the threat of islam, but the politicians are saying peace peace. But let’s see who are the first to leave the country when push comes to shove: the same ones that are now saying “peace peace” and call all others islamophobes or racists. If they are so confident islam is peace, then why don’t they take a holiday to Saudi Arabia with their wife? Or to IS? Many leftist Dutch politicians hate jews and christians, and they are sort of happy to see them butchered. But they will admit it.
Silvia says
Europe has lost its shame and any integrity it ever had, if it had any to begin with.
It’s amazing how they don’t see it even as they are being annihilated by the enemy they welcomed with open arms.
ApolloSpeaks says
PIETER BROERTJES HAS STARTED A NEW CHAPTER
in the history of Jewish conspiracy theories:
Israel is the center of an emerging global KIKELIPHATE.
profitsbeard says
Hilversum is also the city, back in May of 2002, where freedom-championing politician Pim Fortuyn, then running for leadership of the Dutch government, was assassinated because he opposed Islam. Shot in the back by a Dutch “animal rights activist” who homicidally sympathized with the “poor Muslims”.
The Dutch leftwing media had venomously demonized this gay, liberal politician as “a new Hitler” because of his “intolerance” of Islam, which paved the groundwork for, and transparently encouraged his assassination .
Suicidal and murderous lunatics are a current sub-culture in The Netherlands.
Trying to atone for their abandonment of the Jews, they witlessly mistake those who were allied with Hitler during WWII, the Muslims, with the Jews.
Only self-blinded imbeciles- or West-hating, Other-glorifying, multi-culturalist maniacs- could make such a fatal error.
Those who do not know more History than the approved p.c. whitewashing of Islam- what their propagandists slant and spew- are doomed.
brtzg says
Every Dutch citizen who has not committed a crime should be allowed to leave the country. That’s his/her right. But if he goes and supports terrorism, he then has committed a crime and not be allowed to come back. Good riddance.
yohanan says
Actually the “new Jews” of Eurabia will soon be his fellow Christian Dutch — to the surprise of Mayor Mihnheer Bjoertjes and his blind, historically distorted and biased ilk…
Kepha says
“Christian” Dutch? Not even the former Gereformeerde Kerken are quite what they used to be.
The Netherlands, like most of Europe, is very much a post-Christian country. Maybe there are still lots of folks who get their kids baptized and observe Christmas for the sake of tradition, but they’re probably more ignorant of Christian doctrine and ethics than many a tribe in sub-Saharan Africa.
I’ve said this before, and will say it again. I am just superstitious enough to believe, after much reading of the Old and New Testaments, that the Islamic surge may just be God’s payback to a Western civilization that received much from God’s hands and ended up scorning it (I’m not a “supercessionist”–just an “additionist” who sees the Chosen People of God as those of every people, tongue, and nation, starting from Judaea and Jerusalem, who gather about God’s Messiah).
gp says
Muslims have never wanted to assimilate into their host country, rather they have total disdain for our rule of law, our freedoms, liberties, rights, and differences. They have seized upon the liberties and rights we enjoy and exploited these along with our legal system to advance their laws, culture, and myopic world view.
A common sign at angry muslim protests is “Freedom Go To Hell”. Our freedoms are an affront to their senses. They would love to take all of our freedoms away so we would be, under penalty of death, exactly like them. They would turn your world into another one of their wretched hives. A world lacking grace, beauty, dignity, equality, and freedom.
They have been habitually aided and abetted by leftists, liberals, socialists, academia, and the media to a large extent. It boggles the mind.
Elisheva14 says
Maybe he needs a refresher’s course on world history. Doesn’t he remember the Diary of Anne Frank? His analogy is so off base it shows him to be a stupid man. Another biased ignoramus.