Dutch Racists - Using the "Decoy Jews" to spread Anti-Semitism - Who is using Whom ?

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Dutch may use 'decoy Jews' to fight racism
By TOBY STERLING (AP) – 1 day ago

AMSTERDAM — A hidden-camera video showing Jews being harassed on the
street in a Moroccan neighborhood of Amsterdam has led Dutch
authorities to consider combating hate crimes with "decoy Jews" —
undercover police officers wearing yarmulkes.

Enthusiasm for the unusual idea is a sign of the ongoing tension
between the Muslim minority and the rest of the Dutch population over
issues of immigration and crime.

The idea of using "decoy Jews" to detect and arrest bigots has been
embraced by both a prominent Moroccan politician and by Amsterdam's
acting mayor, who is Jewish. Law enforcement officials say the idea is
feasible but would only be of limited practical use due to entrapment
concerns.

"It's important that it not provoke any intent to commit a criminal
act that wasn't there in the first place," Justice Minister Ernst
Hirsch Ballin told parliament in a debate Thursday night on how to
combat discrimination.

Of course "it would be wrong to consider wearing a yarmulke itself a
provocation," he said.

The idea of using police disguised as Jews was first mooted by member
of parliament Ahmed Marcouch in a speech earlier this month.

"We've done similar things with other kinds of crime," he said. "I'll
act as a decoy Jew myself if necessary."

But the idea gathered momentum after the hidden-camera video aired on
television last week. It was produced by the Joodse Omroep, a small
Jewish broadcaster that gets an allotted amount of airtime each month
on Dutch public TV stations.

For the video, two youths and a Rabbi wearing yarmulkes went walking
in a primarily Moroccan neighborhood in Amsterdam. The footage showed
them quickly being subjected to a range of ill-treatment, from dirty
looks to insults — and even, from one man, a Nazi salute.

Decoy Jews are "not a solution to fighting anti-Semitism in general,"
said Ronny Naftaniel, the head of the Center for Information and
Documentation Israel, a pro-Jewish group that has lobbied for the
idea.

"But they could be used to fight a certain aspect: that Orthodox Jews
are becoming unable to walk in public without being afraid of
intimidation," he said.

Naftaniel said the main problem in policing hate speech crimes is that
they are difficult to prove after the fact. With an undercover agent,
offenders would be caught instantly, he said.

The number of instances of reported anti-Semitism in Amsterdam rose in
2009 from the previous year, according to government data, from 17 to
41. Discrimination cases on the basis of skin color or country of
origin rose from 232 to 336 in the same period, while anti-gay cases
rose to 89 from 55.

But those rises may reflect a public campaign encouraging people to
report hate crimes. Hirsch Ballin told parliament Thursday police had
seen no real increase in anti-Semitism.

"The number of incidents rises and falls, and is connected to tensions
in the Middle East," he said.

He promised to devote more resources to investigating hate crimes, as
well as to more education in schools and a quicker legal process for
discrimination-linked cases.

His spokesman Wim van der Weegen said Friday that it would be up to
individual prosecutors to decide whether or not they wanted to use
decoy Jews. He said such sting operations need be approved in advance
by a judge.

Using surveillance cameras in certain areas is another option, Van der
Weegen said.

Amsterdam Mayor Lodewijk Asscher told a local television station this
week he was open to the idea of using decoy Jews and other "unorthodox
methods" to combat racism and homophobia.

However, his spokeswoman, Tessel Schouten, said Friday the city
doesn't yet have any specific plans to do so.

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