Anne Frank Foundation: Right-Wing Violence Soaring in Holland

22 August 2007

By Cnaan Liphshiz

Extreme right-wing violence in the Netherlands soared by 75 percent last year, according the annual Anne Frank Foundation report on extremism, which was released yesterday.

In its joint report with Leiden University, the foundation counted 67 incidents of extreme right-wing violence in 2006, compared to 38 reported the previous year.

The report's co-author told Haaretz that anti-Semitic hate crimes - which constituted 13 percent of all cases - are often falsely represented as anti-Zionist.

According to Willem Wagenaar, 2006 saw 35 anti-Semitic instances out of a total of 265 hate crimes. The overall number of racial offenses dropped by 10 percent from the previous year, which saw 41 anti-Semitic attacks.

"The distinction between crimes that stem from anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is hard to make," says Wagenaar, who is an expert on the extreme right in the Netherlands. "We're seeing neo-Nazi criminals relabeling their anti-Semitic crimes as anti-Zionist. The reason is that racial crimes mandate harsher sentences, so the criminals hide behind that false label of anti-Zionism.

"For example, one group of extreme-right youths, who were found guilty of torching both a synagogue and an Muslim school, claimed they had set the synagogue on fire to protest Israel's policy."

The report lists two cases of arson of Jewish property and eight cases of threats throughout the country. Other offenses included vandalism, defamation and bullying and other forms of intimidation.

About a quarter (23 percent) of all hate crimes in 2006 were directed at Muslim immigrants.