Issue No.590
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13 - 19 June 2002 Issue No.590 Region |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
True colours
The wife of the European Central Bank president sparked a controversy and started a trend in the Netherlands when she hung a Palestinian flag outside her home. Judit Neurink reports from Amsterdam
The wife of European Central Bank President Wim Duisenberg has started a new trend in the Netherlands. After participating in a demonstration in Amsterdam in support of the Palestinian people in April, Gretta Duisenberg hung a Palestinian flag on one of the balconies of her Amsterdam home. She has since been forced to remove the flag, but others have followed her lead and begun to display the Palestinian symbol in a show of solidarity.
Although the Netherlands has been a close friend of Israel for decades, Duisenberg's action has divided Dutch society. There is a widespread sense of national guilt over the deportation of thousands of Dutch Jews to concentration camps by the German occupiers during World War II. But since the Intifada began, support among the Dutch for the Palestinian cause has been growing, slowly but steadily. This change is due not only to the outspoken support for the uprising by Holland's large Moroccan community, but also increasing criticism by many Dutch of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's handling of the Palestinian situation.
Gretta Duisenberg, a well connected left-wing intellectual became a household name when her neighbours complained about the flag six weeks after she had put it up on her balcony. A Jewish cardiologist and his wife, a liberal town councilor, wrote the Duisenbergs a letter in which they said that their children were living in Israel and were suffering from the "blood-thirsty regime" and that the flag was a symbol of the Palestinian government. The Jewish couple described the display of the flag as constituting "visual harassment" and asked their neighbours to remove it. When Duisenberg phoned the couple to respond to their letter, the conversation ended in an argument.
The cardiologist took the matter to a Dutch Jewish weekly, accusing Duisenberg of anti-Semitism, alleging that she said "it is thanks to rich powerful Jews in the USA who support Israel that it is able to oppress the Palestinians".
When the Jewish Federation in the Netherlands submitted a complaint to the courts about Duisenberg's action -- against the will of her neighbours -- the matter gained considerable publicity. Because the organisation also informed the World Jewish Congress about Duisenberg's action and asked it to explore whether her husband could be prevented from entering the US for displaying the Palestinian flag, Gretta Duisenberg took the flag down, saying about her husband, "I do not want his work to suffer. He doesn't have anything to do with it."
Duisenberg has said that she discussed with her husband hanging the flag before doing so and he said that although he would not take such an action, he did not object to her displaying the symbol. "I climb the barricades, he does not," Gretta Duisenberg says.
Duisenberg claims the comments that her neighbours attributed to her about Jews in the US were incorrect. "I said that I hated the way Palestinians have been abandoned by the Netherlands and by Europe. The 5.5 million Jews in the USA form a powerful lobby that is very involved in supporting Israel, which is why the US is doing nothing."
Duisenberg expressed shock at being accused of anti-Semitism. She says she is protesting against the Israeli government, "against Sharon and his actions -- not against Israel or against the Jews".
"I am a fighter and feel for the underdog. I have many Jewish friends, some of whom are in the US. I reject the Palestinian attacks as well, and I did not hang the flag for [Palestinian Authority President Yasser] Arafat, but for the Palestinian people."
Although Duisenberg received many messages of support, she also received a death threat, which led to provision of special police security for her and her husband. "I am not easily shocked, but it was a nasty letter," she says. In addition to other letters conveying threats, the Duisenbergs suffered a broken window caused when it was smashed by a brick.
People in many Dutch cities have taken up Duisenberg's manner of protest. In Haarlem, a town in western Holland, a former alderman is displaying the Palestinian flag and is encouraging other people to follow suit.
Since Duisenberg's action made the papers, Palestinian flags are in high demand. The Palestinian delegation in The Hague reports sending 200 flags to people throughout Holland who requested them. The Palestine Committee, a Dutch solidarity group, is also sending people flags on request. A Palestinian seamstress is making the flags on demand, as is a small Turkish firm in Holland.
Meanwhile, the other side has taken up the challenge. A pro-Zionist group last week launched an appeal to Dutch citizens to fly another flag: the Israeli blue and white.
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