Following news that Dutch police are going undercover as orthodox Jews to combat anti-Semitism, a new report published in the Netherlands shows that anti-Semitism has been on the decline in the country.
Reviewing discrimination trends in the Netherlands, the study commissioned by the Ministry of Housing for the 2009 Racial Discrimination Monitor finds that while violence against Muslims in the country has increased, discrimination in general, including anti-Semitism, has shown a slight decrease in the country.
The findings stand in contract with figures published by the Centre Information and Documentation (CIDI) last week that found a rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the Netherlands.
The report, like others from neighboring European countries, ties many recent anti-Semitic incidents to developments in the Middle East.
“Far Right street formations with anti-Semitic ideology seem to have declined in size,” the report notes, however the Internet remains “an important medium of discriminatory acts and the dissemination of extreme right ideology.”
Identifying some of the major anti-Semitic trends in the country, the report finds that “specific forms of anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, or such incidents around cemeteries and war memorials, remain a persistent problem in the Dutch society. As with other forms of racist violence,” the report explains, it is difficult to trace anti-Semitic offenders.
Overall there were 65 incidents of anti-Semitism recorded in 2005, 108 in 2006, 50 in 2007, and 49 in 2008.
