The Dutch Version of Jimmy Carter

This story on Haaretz:

He speaks at controversial solidarity events alongside Hamas officials, lamenting the Dutch government's boycott of the Islamist organization branded by numerous governments as terrorist. He is also outspoken in accusing Israel of state-terror.

Van Agt says: his "eyes were opened" during a catholic pilgrimage to the Holy Land."

Here is what he is quoted to have said:

"All the other Arabs, in some way or another, happy or unhappy, dictatorial or not, have their only states. The only Arabs that never got a state were the Palestinians. "

Arabs have an inalinable right to their own states, you see. But not the Jews. The Jews have no rights, even when he openly admits that

"without the worst crime in the history of humanity, the Holocaust, Israel would not have come into existence in that time and in that formula."

You see, Palestinians who became refugees during a war (and have inexplicably remained so for 60 years) are fully justified and should be supported in the quest for their own statehood, even if it means the destruction of Israel. But the Jews who lost a third of their numbers in the "the worst crime in history of humanity" have enjoyed a gratuitous, unwarranted gain by getting their own state. Note please the easy and cold dismissal of the exterminated 6 millons...

>>>>>>

The similarities between this person and Carter are striking. Both former heads of states, both old, both fanatically religious, both have religious-type "epiphanies", after which they feel they finally see clearly and penetratingly and are in a moral position to preach to the unconverted and prescribe insufferable and dangerous solutions. But the similarities go even further: They are also both possessed of great human compassion, directed exclusively towards the enemies of the Jews. The selectiveness of their compassion is really the definitive symptom of their disease.

In the case of Van Agt: In 1972, when he was justice minister, Van Agt told a journalist: "I am only an Aryan" in speaking about his intention to bring about the release for health reasons of the last three Nazi war criminals still in Dutch prisons.

In the case of Carter: “One day, in the fall of ’87, my secretary walks in and gives me a letter with a Georgia return address reading ‘Jimmy Carter.’ I assumed it was a prank from some old college buddies, but it wasn’t. It was the original copy of the letter Bartesch’s daughter sent to Carter, after Bartesch had already been deported.“

In the letter, she claimed we were un-American, only after vengeance, and persecuting a man for what he did when he was only 17 and 18 years old.“

.... On the upper corner of the letter was a note signed by Jimmy Carter saying that in cases such as this, he wanted ‘special consideration for the family for humanitarian reasons.’

Of course, like Jimmy Carter, Van Agt denies that he is motivated by any antisemitic sentiment. I wonder what these people think antisemitism means. They seem to really believe in their own words, as if antisemitism begins and ends with the desire to see Jews in gas chambers. As if the kind of words they use, they kind of causes they advocate or excuse, do not eventually lead, as they know very well from history, to the kind of antisemitism from which they feel exonerated.

For my past posts about Jimmy Carter, scroll down here.