Dutch novelist, essayist and journalist Arnon Grunberg speaks at a cultural event in Amsterdam in 2015. Photo courtesy of Milliped via Wikimedia Commons.
JNS
A prominent Dutch writer has stepped down from a Belgian magazine that ran a column from another author who said that the death of Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip made him want to “stab every Jew in the throat.” The incendiary article, which was taken down five days after publication following a public outcry and legal action, comes at a time when anti-Jewish hatred is escalating around the globe, including in Belgium, in the wake of Hamas’10-month-long war in Gaza.
“You are free to downplay and welcome revisionism in your magazine, but that does not mean that I wish to publish alongside the revisionist,” the Dutch writer Arnon Grunberg wrote in his resignation letter to the magazine’s editors, ending a quarter century of collaboration.
Grunberg’s decision to leave the magazine highlights the depth of the crisis gripping the Belgian Jewish community, since he has long been a sympathetic voice for the Palestinians and expressed a left-wing worldview.
He has previously said that anti-Semitism comes almost entirely from the far right, called the far-right and staunchly pro-Israel Dutch political leader Geert Wilders an anti-Semite, and noted that he sees himself as much a German as a Jew when asked to join the far-left Jewish Voices for Peace that, along with Students for Justice in Palestine, has led the anti-Semitic riots on U.S. campuses.
The offending piece, penned by the Flemish writer and columnist Herman Brusselmans in Humo magazine, begins with a personal broadside against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reminiscent of the depiction of Jews in Nazi German propaganda, continues by citing a grossly falsified ratio of civilians to combatants killed in Gaza, and culminates with talk of killing every Jew the writer meets.
‘Stab every Jew’
“I see an image of a crying and screaming Palestinian boy, frantically calling for his mother buried under the rubble, and I imagine that boy is my own son Roman and the mother my own girlfriend, Lena, and I become so furious that I want to stab every Jew I encounter in the throat with a sharp knife,” Brusselmans wrote.
“Of course, you always have to remember: Not every Jew is a murderous bastard, and to embody that thought, I imagine an elderly Jewish man shuffling through my street, dressed in a faded shirt, fake cotton pants, and old sandals, and I feel pity for him and almost tear up, but later I wish him to hell, and yes, that’s a mood swing, and my upcoming collection will unfortunately be full of them,” he continued.
Satire or incitement to murder?
The magazine and the author claim that the article is a work of satire, and falls under the right to freedom of expression.
Jewish groups and others counter that it is incitement to murder, and pure anti-Semitism.
The article caused Jewish groups, spearheaded by the European Jewish Association, to announce plans to file a lawsuit against the magazine, the columnist and the publisher, leading to the removal of the article.
“It cannot be tolerated that in a democratic society, respectful of universal values, freedom of expression is thus used to stir up hatred,” read a statement from the Coordination Committee of Jewish Organizations of Belgium. “Here, it is not a question of satire, or even bad taste humor, but of incitement to violence and murder against Jews”.
Between 40,000 and 50,000 Jews live in Belgium, mostly in Antwerp and Brussels.
