Tag: netherlands
Danziger: That French Paradox

Danziger: That French Paradox

Jeff Danziger’s award-winning drawings are published by more than 600 newspapers and websites. He has been a cartoonist for the Rutland Herald, the New York Daily News and the Christian Science Monitor; his work has appeared in newspapers from the Wall Street Journal to Le Monde and Izvestia. Represented by the Washington Post Writers Group, he is a recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army as a linguist and intelligence officer in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. Danziger has published ten books of cartoons and a novel about the Vietnam War. He was born in New York City, and now lives in Manhattan and Vermont. A video of the artist at work can be viewed here.

Europe’s Far Right Is Propagandizing The Brussels Bombing

Europe’s Far Right Is Propagandizing The Brussels Bombing

Following the attacks in Brussels, Belgium that killed at least 30 people and injured many more, EU heads of state issued a joint statement condemning the attacks and reinforcing “European values and tolerance from the attacks of the intolerant.”

Yet while the European Council urged members to “be united and firm in the fight against hatred, violent extremism and terrorism,” right-wing party leaders around Europe used the attacks to justify and extend their xenophobic platforms.

 

In Austria, according to the Wall Street Journal, Heinz-Christian Strache, who serves as one of the leaders of the far right Austrian Freedom Party (FPO), responded to the attacks by saying “[These attacks highlight why] irresponsible mass immigration from the Arab world must be ended once and for all.”

Austrian anti-discrimination organization ZARA has said racism in Austria is higher than ever, with 1201 reported and recorded xenophobic attacks.

With roots dating back to the 1800s, the Freedom Party advocates against EU integration. In the midst of the uncertainty and unrest over Europe’s migration crisis, the FPO managed to win 30 percent of votes in September’s local elections, and sustained that victory in October’s general elections.  

 

In the wake of the Paris terror attacks, France’s far-right party, Front National, aggressively pushed their anti-EU, closed border platform, to huge success: In France’s December election, Front National won a record six million votes in the first round.

After the Brussels bombings, party leader Marine Le Pen made a statement to a Canadian crowd after attending meetings in Quebec:

“We need to take seriously the criminal networks of Islamic fundamentalists that exist in our countries… I’ve maintained this position in France for months. And I will repeat the same thing everywhere I go… I don’t get the sense that Islamic fundamentalism is being treated like the threat it really is. And just like I saw in France in the past, here in Canada, whoever condemns Islamic fundamentalism is accused of Islamophobia.”

Marie Le Pen has been impugned for “thinly veiled racist positions” — positions her father, Jean-Marie, pioneered without any veil — and has been outspoken about the deterioration of French society at the hands of multiculturalism.

 

Under Chancellor Angela Merkel’s leadership, Germany has been incredibly welcoming of refugees. After a video of Germans congregating to warmly welcome the first round of refugees, the world began to look to Germany, and in particular Chancellor Merkel, as a beacon of strength amid global disequilibrium.

But in September 2015, when Deutschland Trend conducted a public opinion poll to measure Germans’ opinions towards the resettlement, results showed that German support for migrants had decreased since Merkel’s initial announcement, and Merkel’s approval ratings had plummeted, with one in two Germans believing that Merkel acted inappropriately.

Germans’ growing discontent with Chancellor Merkel and the Christian Democratic Party have yielded a rise in nationalistic sentiment and right-wing politics.

The right wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) — with slogan “Asylum requires borders – Red card for Merkel” — has benefited from increasingly resentment towards Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the migrant crisis has fueled support for the anti-immigration AfD party, and recent public opinion polls show support for the AfD rising while approval for Merkel’s Christian Democratic party decreases.

In the wake of the Brussel attacks, the Alternative Fur Deutschland leader Frauke Petry said “The dream of a colorful Europe is dead, bombed away yet again… Finally accept it. It is time for change!”

 

In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders of the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) has suggested that Europe should close its borders to Muslims to avoid the “Islamic invasion.”

The PVV advocates for strong assimilation into Dutch culture, and prides itself on being Eurosceptic. With many Dutch dissatisfied with the European Union’s agreement to resettle refugees, the PVV is building a base in Holland.

In fact, according to public opinion polls, the PVV has attracted such a strong following that it could win an election immediately. In a statement issued to Breitbart London, Wilders claimed:

“It is time to act. First of all, we must close our national borders and detain all the jihadists whom we have foolishly allowed to return from Syria. We must also tell people the truth. The cause of all this bloodshed is Islam. We need to de-Islamize the West. That is the only way to safeguard our lives and protect our freedom.”

In a later interview with Breitbart, Wilders continued to denounce the attacks by saying:

“I fear that we ain’t seen nothing yet. According to Europol 3,000 to 5,000 European jihadists, who went to Syria to fight in the ranks of IS and similar terrorist groups, have meanwhile returned to Western Europe. Some of them hid among the hundreds of thousands of Islamic asylum seekers that entered Europe from Asia and Africa… Two of last November’s terrorist in Paris had fought in Syria. So had the terrorist who, last August, attempted to attack the high speed train between Amsterdam and Paris. So had the two terrorists who, in January 2015, massacred the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo. So had the terrorist who, in May 2014, shot four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.”

European Commissioner Hermann Kelly, commented that “[it] is amazing to me that these people can kill people abroad, come here, and then walk free in the centre of Brussels.”

In response to Kelly’s observations,  Wilders said “Returned Syria fighters are a huge threat. They are dangerous predators roaming our streets. It is absolutely unbelievable that our governments allow them to return. And it is incredible that, once returned, they are not imprisoned… In the Netherlands, we have dozens of these returned jihadists. Our government allows most of them to freely walk our streets and refuses to lock them up. I demand that they be detained at once. Every government in the West, which refuses to do so, is a moral access have pushed for closed borders if one of these monsters commits an atrocity.”

Wilders is one of many European leaders that have pushed for closed borders in the wake of recent tragedies.

In addition to his public interviews, Wilder tweeted:

“If I become Dutch Prime Minister next year, I’ll crush Islamic terrorism, close our national borders, and De-Islamize The Netherlands. #nomore”

A few hours later, Wilder posted another tweet that directly blamed Islam for the attacks:

“What are the causes of all these terror attacks?

Islam

Islam

Islam

#StopIslam”

 

Hungary, like many European countries, responded to the migrant crisis with increased nationalistic sentiments.

According to the Hungarian government’s website, the Orban government sent Hungarians a questionnaire to gage their opinions about the migrant crisis. However, economics professor Gyorgy Malovics explained that the questionnaire was framed in nationalistic terms, as it included warnings of Hebdo-style killings and reminders of Hungarian pride.

NPR reports that over one million Hungarians responded to the survey, and the results have been used to justify Hungary’s strictly anti-migrant policies.

According to Express, Orban’s government commissioned the construction of a 110 foot wall along its shared border with Serbia in order to keep migrants out of Hungary.

Yet Orban’s hardline stance was not enough for some Hungarians. The Jobbik Party is even farther to the right, and 20 percent of Hungarians supported them in April elections, a huge increase in support.

Although support for Jobbiks has decreased since April, it should be noted that they were the ones that proposed the fence as well as the military deployment that followed.

Following yesterday’s attacks, Hungarian Foreign Minister stated that “There is no doubt that illegal migration is behind the rise in terror threat”

Representatives from the Orban government responded to the attacks by saying “We’ve said many times: [the] EU have to fully stop illegal migration,

 

As Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi agreed to European Union demands to accept refugees amidst funding threats, the Italian public began shifting in favor of the Northern League, which boasts a strong anti-immigrant record.

Northern League leaders Gian Marco Centinaio and Massimiliano Fedriga commented to the Wall Street Journal:

“We are astonished and heartbroken for the lives broken by Islamic hate. We aren’t responding, the E.U. institutions are weak, fragile, helpless and are turning the other way, allowing these massacres.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Northern League has also called for the closure of Mosques.

Photo: Belgian troops on patrol in cenral Brusselsl following Tuesday’s bomb attacks in Brussels, Belgium, March 23, 2016. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler

First MH17 Bodies Arrive In Bereft Netherlands

First MH17 Bodies Arrive In Bereft Netherlands

Eindhoven (Netherlands) (AFP) – The first bodies from flight MH17 arrived in the Netherlands on Wednesday almost a week after it was shot down over Ukraine, as the conflict flared yet again near the Malaysian airliner’s crash site.

Uniformed Dutch military personnel solemnly hoisted 40 wooden coffins from two planes and placed them in individual hearses at Eindhoven airport in the south of the country in a powerfully somber ceremony, as a trumpeter played the Last Post and a large crowd of the bereaved watched.

Church bells rang throughout the country as the planes touched down in a much-delayed return for the first as-yet unidentified remains of the 298 people killed in the disaster, most of them Dutch.

In a dramatic new development in the conflict hampering the recovery and investigation effort, Kiev said a missile fired from Russia — accused by the West of provoking the MH17 disaster — took down two of its warplanes in the rebel-controlled area.

The Netherlands has been united in grief and growing anger because of delays in getting bodies home and over the way pro-Russian separatists have treated the crash site, bodies and personal possessions.

The planes left from Kharkiv in Ukraine, where the remains were carried on board by army cadets before a small party of officials.

Around 1,000 bereaved relatives of the 193 Dutch dead, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, Prime Minister Mark Rutte and representatives of the other nations that lost citizens on the flight met the planes.

The bodies are to be transferred under police escort to a military base at Hilversum, southeast of Amsterdam, where forensics experts will identify them.

Flags of the 11 nations that lost citizens in the crash flew at half mast at the airport.

Motorways along the 100-kilometer (65-mile) route from Eindhoven to Hilversum were closed for the long convoy of hearses to pass.

A minute’s silence was observed nationwide, during which no flights landed or took off at Amsterdam Schiphol airport, from where the doomed Boeing 777 took off on Thursday.

U.S. intelligence officials have said they believe rebels mistakenly shot down the plane that was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with a surface-to-air missile.

Violence erupted again Wednesday in the zone of the crash, as the International Committee of the Red Cross said it considered Ukraine to be in a state of civil war, and warned both sides to abide by the Geneva Conventions on conduct in conflict.

Ukraine said it appeared that missiles that shot down two Ukrainian fighter jets in the volatile east were fired from Russia.

“According to preliminary information, the rockets were launched from Russian territory,” Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council said.

A spokesman for the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic told AFP its fighters shot down the two aircraft.

Both pilots managed to parachute out of the Su-25 jets, which the security council said were flying at an altitude of 5,200 meters.

It said the planes came down close to the village of Dmytrivka, some 45 kilometers (25 miles) south-east of the MH17 crash site towards the Russian border.

Experts and world leaders have expressed concern that not all remains have been recovered from the sprawling impact site in rebel-held territory.

Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans and his Australian counterpart Julie Bishop will travel together to Ukraine on Thursday for talks about completing the repatriation of bodies and the investigation.

The rebels controlling the crash site released the first bodies and handed over two black boxes to Malaysian officials only after intense international pressure.

The black boxes were delivered to Britain for expert analysis, including whether they might have been tampered with.

Rutte has warned it could take months for the bodies to be identified, although some are expected to be returned to families soon.

Dutch police have been visiting the bereaved for counselling but also to retrieve DNA samples such as from hairbrushes, details of tattoos and fingerprints, as well as medical and dental records, to help with the identification.

A truce has been declared by rival sides around the impact site, but international investigators still face massive obstacles. Dutch officials confirmed receipt of only 200 of the 298 victims’ bodies.

Monitors say more remains are left at the vast site, littered with poignant fragments from hundreds of destroyed lives.

Kiev said the Netherlands and other countries that lost citizens are proposing to send police to secure the area, amid concerns vital evidence has been tampered with.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday pledged to “do everything” to influence the separatists and ensure a full probe into the crash.

Putin is staring down fresh European sanctions just a week after the latest set was unveiled over its role in the Ukraine crisis, which has chilled East-West tensions to the lowest point in years.

And Ukrainian government troops are pushing on with their offensive to wrest control of east Ukraine’s industrial heartland from the pro-Moscow separatists.

AFP Photo/Genya Savilov

Dutch To Recover MH17 Bodies From Morgue Train

Dutch To Recover MH17 Bodies From Morgue Train

Kharkiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Dutch experts on Tuesday prepared to take custody of some 280 bodies recovered from downed Malaysian flight MH17, as a train carrying the remains arrived in the government-held Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

Rebels controlling the crash site released the morgue train under intense international pressure, finally allowing a great majority of the 298 crash victims to begin the long journey home.

Their remains are now to be flown to the Netherlands, which had 193 citizens on board the doomed flight and is taking the lead in investigating a disaster that has brought Ukraine’s bloody three-month conflict to the doorstep of countries as far away as Australia.

Pro-Russian separatists — who stand accused of bringing down the aircraft, possibly with a missile supplied by Moscow — bowed to a furious clamor for the bodies and black boxes to be handed to investigators five days after the crash.

The rebel concessions came as European foreign ministers were meeting in Brussels to weigh possible new sanctions against Russia for its perceived support of the insurgency rocking ex-Soviet Ukraine.

Both black boxes, which record cockpit activity and flight data, were handed to Malaysian officials by the prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Alexander Borodai, before scores of journalists.

As world leaders denounced the “shambolic” situation at the crash site, international experts finally managed Monday to inspect the bodies, kept in refrigerated train cars away from the sweltering summer heat, before they left for Kharkiv.

Borodai also announced a ceasefire within 10 kilometers of the impact site, hours after Kiev’s pro-Western authorities said they would halt all fighting in a broader zone.

The localized truce will at last allow international monitors to examine the vast area, a forensic minefield littered with poignant fragments from hundreds of destroyed lives.

Elsewhere in Ukraine’s east, fighting between government forces and rebels continued unabated with local authorities in the besieged cities of Donetsk and Lugansk reporting 10 civilians killed in 24 hours.

In a sign tensions are still running high a senior security official in Kiev claimed that Russia had massed over 40,000 soldiers along its border over the past week.

Despite the apparent progress in getting the investigation going, leaders warned the rebels’ handling of the crash site had already done much damage.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, whose country had 28 citizens and nine residents on the plane, said: “There is still a long, long way to go.”

“After the crime comes the cover-up,” he added. “What we have seen is evidence tampering on an industrial scale. That has to stop.”

Experts from Malaysia, reeling from their flagship carrier’s second disaster in only four months after flight MH370 went missing in the Indian Ocean, said the black boxes were “intact with only minor damage.”

“We have not found the black boxes from flight MH370, so (we) are happy to be able to recover these,” said a member of the Malaysian team.

Malaysia’s deal with the pro-Russian rebels caps a disaster response praised at home as swift and clear, unlike the widely mocked handling of missing flight MH370.

But the flag carrier Malaysian Airlines had to defend itself after confirming it diverted a flight over Syrian airspace when its usual route over Ukraine was closed following the crash.

The airline said in a statement that MH4’s flight path over Syria was along a route approved by the UN’s aviation agency.

In Brussels, European foreign ministers were meeting to discuss possible new sanctions against Russia, which has been accused by the United States of supplying the missile allegedly used to shoot down the plane.

Obama put the onus on Moscow to lift the suspicions weighing upon it, saying President Vladimir Putin must prove “that he supports a full and fair investigation”.

An under-fire Moscow hit back, saying records showed a Ukrainian military plane was flying three to five kilometers from the Boeing 777 before it crashed.

“With what aim was a military plane flying along a civilian aviation route practically at the same time and at the same flight level as a passenger liner?” asked Lieutenant-General Andrei Kartopolov.

Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko dismissed the suggestion the army was to blame, calling it an “irresponsible and false statement” by Russia.

The U.S. embassy has confirmed as authentic recordings by Kiev of an intercepted call between an insurgent commander and a Russian intelligence officer as they realized they had shot down a passenger jet.

The Washington Post said Ukraine’s counterintelligence chief had photographs and other evidence that three Buk M-1 anti-aircraft missile systems moved from rebel-held territory into Russia less than 12 hours after the crash.

The separatist uprising is the latest chapter in a prolonged crisis sparked by Kiev’s desire for closer ties with the EU, a goal many in the Russian-speaking east do not share.

AFP Photo/Sergey Bobok