Over half the Dutch would vote for a Jewish prime minister

Considering the biased way in which the Israeli-Arab conflict is reported in the European media (although they are careful to state that criticism is only levelled at the government and not at the people of Israel or the Jews, the confusion is inevitable), it is not surprising that only 53% of the Dutch would vote for a Jewish PM. Manfred Gerstenfeld comments in TJP: "A poll taken earlier this month found that only 53 percent of the Dutch would consider voting for a Jewish prime minister. In the rankings, Jews figured far behind women (93%), homosexuals (78%) and blacks (75%), but well before Muslims (27%) and people over 70. … a report by the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI) on the steep rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the Netherlands was not even mentioned by most major dailies, according to Elma Drayer, a prominent Dutch columnist writing recently in the daily Trouw. She stressed that, on the other hand, there was huge interest in improving the chances of survival of a chestnut tree that the late Anne Frank could see from her hiding place. Drayer drew attention to the tendency of many Dutch to embrace dead Jews while keeping their distance from living ones. … Much has been written about how Jews have supposedly successfully integrated into the Netherlands. This poll, however, proves again that the widespread social anti-Semitism so prevalent before WWII has far from disappeared. Nowadays, moreover, the main characteristics of classic anti-Semitism have mutated into a "new anti-Semitism" which expresses itself in the double standards applied in Dutch circles to Israel, compared to their criticism of other countries. One former senior Dutch cabinet minister told me recently: "If I were a Jew, I would not want my children to grow up here. I would tell them to emigrate to the United States, Israel or Australia. In view of the present mood and developments in the Netherlands, Jews should realize that there is no future for them here as they will continue to be less and less welcome." … People can learn much from the Netherlands poll. The Dutch should ponder what it means that so many of them are still discriminating against Jews - of which there are so few, who so much resemble other Dutch, and whose ancestors came to the Netherlands 400 years ago."