Holland is planning to hold its own Holocaust Memorial Day on May 4, in a show of somber solidarity for the victims of Nazi Germany and a stand against anti-Semitism.
One Dutch Muslim group has planned its own memorial day, however - and will be commemorating "the ethnic cleansing of Palestine" on that day instead.
The Platform Bewust Moslim group, whose name means “Platform Aware Muslim,” is planning to hold its own counter-ceremony on May 4 in Hilversum, near Amsterdam, Jewish news agency Joods Omroep reported Monday.
The event, dubbed ”Palestine, the Shadow Holocaust,” was advertised as a symposium offering “a review of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the passive attitude of the international community” and is slated to take place at Hilversum’s Al-Amal mosque.
May 4 is Holland's Remembrance of the Dead day, a Memorial Day both for Dutch civilians and military personnel killed in national wars and for victims of Nazi Germany - on the front and in the death camps.
Since the event was announced, the municipality of Hilversum has received 45 objections urging it to prevent or postpone the event, Joods Omroep reported. Some complaints also were made to the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, or CIDI, a watchdog group based in The Hague.
Hilversum Mayor Pieter Broertjes told the news agency he is discussing the relevant issues with organizers, “including the possibility of postponement.”
Dutch anti-Semitism is on the rise, experts say.
In February, a Simon Wiesenthal Center official sent a strongly worded letter to Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Lodewijk Frans Asscher urging him to combat the trend, after a statistic from the University of Bielefeld surfaced showing that 39% of Dutch citizens believe Israel is conducting a "war of extermination" against the Palestinian Arabs.