Sterilize the Palestinian people, Dutch writer Leon de Winter says with Israeli ambas

[freepalestine]

Sterilize the Palestinian people, Dutch writer Leon de Winter says with Israeli ambassador listening

Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Thu, 11/22/2012 - 19:20

http://electronicintifada.net/sites/electronicintifada.net/files/styles/large/public/600px-leon_de_winter_20060317.jpg
Leon de Winter (source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leon_de_winter_20060317.jpg))
(Elke Wetzig (http://electronicintifada.net/people/elke-wetzig) / Wikimedia Commons (http://electronicintifada.net/people/wikimedia-commons))




On the night a ceasefire came into effect ending eight days of Israeli slaughter that left162 people, the vast majority unarmed civilians, dead (http://electronicintifada.net/content/father-and-two-sons-among-162-slain-israel-gaza/11931) in Gaza, Dutch columnist and author Leon de Winter proposed adding chemicals to Gaza’s water supply to sterilize the population.

The website PowNed reported (http://www.powned.tv/nieuws/buitenland/2012/11/leon_de_winter_steriliseer_pal.html) that de Winter “made his proposal for forced eugenics yesterday evening in Amsterdam at a solidarity meeting of Dutch Jews,” and that the speech by de Winter was broadcast this morning by Dutch mainstream and publicly-funded Radio 1.
PowNed said:


De Winter responded in his speech to the accusations of genocide leveled against Israel, saying that the population of Gaza had only increased over the last few years. “Maybe we should secretly add some means of birth control to Gaza’s drinking water,” De Winter proceeded to propose.
The suggestion was met with roaring laughter by the public. Among the participants that evening were the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands, Hiam Devon, and the cheerful leader of the [religious ultra-conservative] SGP party, Kees van der Staaij.

De Winter blogged until 2008 on the mainstream liberal news site Elsevier (http://www.elsevier.nl/web/Opinie/Leon-de-Winter/347134/Charmante-Badr-Hari-verdient-dit-niet.htm). He is also an“an adjunct fellow” at the Hudson Institute (http://www.hudson.org/learn/index.cfm?fuseaction=staff_type&CFID=7624295&CFTOKEN=68750248), a right-wing American think-tank.
While de Winter, known for his “humor,” might have intended his suggestion as some sort of sick joke, the reported reaction suggests that the audience were only too ready to mock an already dehumanized population.

De Winter’s comment fits neatly with Israel’s racist conception of Palestinians as a “demographic threat (http://electronicintifada.net/tags/demographic-threat)” simply because they are not Jews.
Such genocidal comments are particularly disturbing in The Netherlands given the upsurge of Islamophobia and xenophobia in recent years, and because the country had a particularly shameful history of collaboration with the Nazis in deporting Jews to their deaths during the Second World War.

Event backed by major Dutch Jewish communal and Zionist organizations


The 21 November event (http://www.nik.nl/2012/11/wij-staan-achter-israel/) where de Winter spoke, titled “We Stand with Israel” and held at Amsterdam’s Jewish Cultural Center, was co-sponsored by a who’s who of Jewish communal and Zionist organizations, among them CIDI (http://electronicintifada.net/tags/cidi), Christians for Israel, WIZO (the Women’s International Zionist Organization), Collectieve Israel Actie (Israel Action Collective) and Mifgash, an organization that aims to encourage Jews to leave their home countries and emigrate to Israel.

De Winter’s repulsive comment is reminiscent of a genocidal call (http://electronicintifada.net/content/harvard-fellow-calls-genocidal-measure-curb-palestinian-births/8692) by American “academic” and former Harvard University fellow Martin Kramer at a conference in Israel in 2010 for the “surplus” population of Gaza to be reduced by cutting off humanitarian aid.
Daniel Bugel-Shunra, who translated the PowNed post, noted that the reader comments below it indicated little support for de Winter’s statement.
“Quite the contrary, which is a big surprise to me, especially since this website has strong anti-Islamic and anti-immigrant tendencies,” Bugel-Shunra told The Electronic Intifada.



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Tags:incitement (http://electronicintifada.net/tags/incitement) The Netherlands (http://electronicintifada.net/tags/netherlands-0) Netherlands (http://electronicintifada.net/tags/netherlands) Leon de Winter (http://electronicintifada.net/tags/leon-de-winter) Martin Kramer (http://electronicintifada.net/tags/martin-kramer)demographic threat (http://electronicintifada.net/tags/demographic-threat) #GazaUnderAttack (http://electronicintifada.net/tags/gazaunderattack) CIDI (http://electronicintifada.net/tags/cidi) Mifgash (http://electronicintifada.net/tags/mifgash) WIZO (http://electronicintifada.net/tags/wizo) NIK (http://electronicintifada.net/tags/nik)
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http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/sterilize-palestinian-people-dutch-writer-leon-de-winter-says-israeli-ambassador

[Yuppie Grinder]

And Zionists are looking more and more like Nazis every day.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

What a scumbag.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

He writes shit books anyways.

[Sasha]

No one, and i mean no one takes Leon de winter serious around here, he is a nutcase with a severe second generation holocaust trauma.
Interestingly enough did his nephew, the millionaire tv-producer Harry de Winter, form the most prominent dutch jewish anti-zionist group "een ander joods geluid" (a different jewish sound/voice)
One can safely say that they can't stand each other, although when theo van gogh (who now is a martyr for the zionist right but in real life was an equal opportunity bigot) published a vicious anti-semite attack on Leon and his wife in a magazine harry bought every single paper of that issue and shredded them.

[Q]

Endlösung, Zionist style.

But yeah, Leon is a big nutcase and fortunately very few take him seriously.

[Avanti]

class

is more than a matter

of income

or relations with production

there's nothing

nothing

the bourgeoisie

and the middle class

hate more

than people

who you cannot

extract

surplus value from

because they have none

soon

the entire world

will consist of

israelis and palestinians

[hatzel]

I'll just quickly point out that the rather prominent inclusion of this paragraph...


Event backed by major Dutch Jewish communal and Zionist organizations

The 21 November event where de Winter spoke, titled “We Stand with Israel” and held at Amsterdam’s Jewish Cultural Center... etc. etc....strikes me as a pretty sketch move. I can think of absolutely no reason whatsoever to include that as a big ol' title in bold - emphasising the involvement of 'Jewish communal organisations,' even though a look down the list of logos on the side there suggests that explicitly Zionist organisations played a somewhat more prominent role than organisations with wider Jewish communal engagement (correct me if I'm wrong, I can't quite identify all the logos) - apart from attempting to draw links between the Dutch Jewish community in general and this guy's comments, to suggest that Jewish communal organisations were all totally 'cool' with those comments (though for some reason I doubt that all 20 of the mentioned organisations had much active involvement in the planning of the event beyond footing the bill, and certainly wouldn't have all been booking speakers and telling them exactly what to say, nor would they all agree with every word spoken at the event, so I'm not sure how strong a connection could and should be made), and to imply that Jewish community centres (which seem to have an unfortunate tendency to have their windows smashed in, let's remember) are little but meeting places for people to spout a load of racist bile. I mean, I wouldn't normally complain - perhaps it was just a careless oversight putting that subheading there, in bold and everything, I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt sometimes - but as the writer also made a point of picking out a quote from PowNed, that de Winter "made his proposal for forced eugenics yesterday evening in Amsterdam at a solidarity meeting of Dutch Jews," before going on to say the event was in fact "was co-sponsored by [...] Christians for Israel" and was attended by such figures as noted Calvinist (that's not a Jewish thing, by the way) Kees van der Staaij...well, perhaps we can see why I've been rubbed up the wrong way here, I see some seriously lax journalistic standards here...

...that said, the Wikipedia article for this guy is enough to convince me that he's a massive tool...

[piet11111]

I agree with Hatzel that the reporter is really setting a tone in the article.