The news about “decoy Jews” in Holland is making the rounds. And I was especially interested in this column by Paul Belien, available from Hudson New York. (Yes, you read that right: no commas no nothin’.) I’ll excerpt a little of the column, or a lot:

Last week, a television broadcast showed how three Jews with skullcaps, two adolescents and an adult, were harassed within thirty minutes of being out in the streets of Amsterdam. Young Muslims spat at them, mocked them, shouted insults and made Nazi salutes. “Dirty Jew, go back to your own country,” a group of Moroccan youths shouted at a young indigenous Dutch Jew. “It is rather ironic,” the young man commented, adding that if one goes out in a burka one encounters less hostility than if one wears a skullcap.

I wonder what those young Moroccans meant by “your own country.” Helen Thomas means Germany and Poland, chiefly. (She did not specify Auschwitz: That was the “peace activists” and “humanitarians” aboard that Turkish ship.) Do they mean Israel? It must be so confusing for a Jew, this “go home” stuff. Where’s home? Poland? Israel? Mars? But the Moroccans clearly have a sure sense of home: Holland, and Europe generally. More of the Belien column:

In an effort to arrest the culprits who terrorize Jews, the Amsterdam authorities have ordered police officers to walk the streets disguised as Jews. The Dutch police already disguise officers as “decoy prostitutes, decoy gays and decoy grannies” to deter muggings and attacks on prostitutes, homosexuals and the elderly. Apparently sending out the decoys has helped reduce street crime. The “decoy Jew” has now been added to the police attributes.

Sounds like a good idea, but how horrifying that it has come to that. Now, check out this bit:

The deployment of “decoy Jews”, however, is being criticized by leftist parties such as the Dutch Greens. Evelien van Roemburg, an Amsterdam counselor of the Green Left Party, says that using a decoy by the police amounts to provoking a crime, which is itself a criminal offence under Dutch law.

Got that? If you go out looking like a Jew, and a Muslim physically assaults you, it’s your fault — kind of like it’s your fault if you’re a girl and your skirt is too short. To be on the safe side: Don’t look Jewish. And if you do look Jewish, you had better be Jewish, or the Dutch Greens won’t like it. Or something. The new anti-Semitism is sometimes hard to keep up with. Or, if you’re a Muslim, and you assault a Jew who is actually a Jew, that’s kind of bad, but if you assault a Jew who turns out to be a decoy — even though you thought he was a Jew — that’s not so bad, because you were tricked . . . or something. The new anti-Semitism can give you a headache. More Belien:

On Monday, the Belgian newspaper De Standaard reported that large numbers of Jews are leaving Antwerp for America, Britain or Israel. Antwerp — nicknamed the “Jerusalem of the North” — is one of the major centers of Jewish culture in the Low Countries. “In London, you are not harassed if you wear a skullcap, but here you are,” a young Antwerp Jew told the paper.

One more paragraph, then I wish to relate a story (the main purpose of this long, excerpt-laden blogpost, actually):

Kleinblatt, a famous Jewish Antwerp bakery, which has been handed down from father to son since 1903, will soon break with that tradition because the baker’s son has emigrated to the U.S. “We no longer feel safe and welcome here,” a young Jew who is leaving for London told De Standaard. “Muslim immigrants blame us for what is happening in Israel.” Another young Jew, who is leaving for New York, says: “New York is a paradise for Jews. Unlike Belgium, non-Jews in America are pro-Israel.”

Americans can take huge, huge pride in that remark: “Unlike [in] Belgium, non-Jews in America are pro-Israel.” Okay, now my story: A few months ago, in London, I was at lunch with some Israelis — long part of the Israeli establishment, and, of course, left-leaning. They were lamenting that Americans were abandoning Israel, as evidenced by the Obama administration. I said (something like), “No, that’s not true: The Americans are more pro-Israel than ever. Getting more pro-Israel by the day. They recognize that the fight against radical Islam is common to all of us: that we’re in the midst of ‘one war,’ to use the cliché. “Don’t be fooled by the Obama administration,” I continued. “America is a strongly pro-Israel country, and this administration will pass before the Americans will.” My lunch companions were skeptical — disbelieving, even. The Americans they encounter, in America, tend to be “coastal elites,” Obama supporters. I doubt they ever meet a Palin supporter, with an Israeli-flag pin on his lapel, or the Star of David on his bumper (Baptist though he may be). The Belgian Jew fleeing for New York said, “. . . non-Jews in America are pro-Israel.” He is right — he has made a correct generalization — and this is cause for gratitude, whatever else is going on in the world.