The Jewish journalist Frits Barend, who has been fighting racism for decades, is deeply disappointed in KOZP leader Jerry Afriyie. Barend has been committed to Afro-Dutch society since the 1980s, and he is very pleased to see that self-proclaimed anti-racists suddenly show up in anti-Semitic pro-Palestine demonstrations.
Since the 1980s, journalist Frits Barend has been looking at Zwarte Piet differently, he does not see anything innocent in it. For years he has tried in his way to fight injustice and racism. The leftist clubs that shared his ideals and then supported them sometimes have a nasty side, which is an overly anti-Israel attitude. Something that sometimes even tends towards anti-Semitism, and since Barend himself is of Jewish descent, this is a painful observation for him.
Jerry Afriyie attended a pro-Palestine demonstration a while back, and this was a painful awakening for Barend.
“Unfortunately, often goes together: left-wing activism and anti-Semitism. And that is hard. I don’t think left, I don’t think right, I think in people. In almost all Arab countries there is still a lot of discrimination, a kind of slave trade still exists. In that world they have no democracy and then the so-called social-feeling people always know how to make Israel a scapegoat, the only democracy in that region. There is a hidden message behind that, yes. A message full of anti-Semitism. ”
It is indeed painful to see that the biggest screamers among the anti-racists sometimes hate Israel and its people.
“No of course not. Neither do THINK and BIJ1 people. Do they not see that Jews have been persecuted like blacks through the ages? Is there one country where Jews have power and that would suddenly be the worst state in the world? In an African country like Zimbabwe, bad things happen than in Israel. I too think the annexation of the West Bank is backward, I am not a fan of Prime Minister Netanyahu. If I have to write a column about the conflict, I will call my left nephew in Gedera. He lives within bounds of Gaza, often sits in bomb shelters, but has more Palestinian than Jewish friends. They whisper to him, “We shouldn’t think about a Palestinian state coming. We are better off in Israel than any other Arab in the Middle East. ” But they dare not say it out loud. And then there are people in the Netherlands who just keep hacking at Israel. ”
