Pro-Palestinian Dutch Group Charged for ‘Jews Control Internet’ Link
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Dutch anti-racism groups filed criminal charges against a pro-Palestinian organization whose website featured a conspiracy theory about Jewish control of the Internet.
The complaint was filed on Feb. 7 against Stop de Bezetting (“Stop the Occupation”) — an organization run by the well-known pro-Palestinian activist Gretta Duisenberg, widow of the first president of the European Central Bank.
It concerned the publication three months ago on the group’s website of an English-language article titled “The Jewish hand behind Internet, Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, Yahoo!, MySpace, eBay.”
The article, written in 2009 by the California-based Freedom Research Foundation, surveys what the text describes as “the Jewish penetration of the Internet” by describing alleged Jewish affiliations of each Internet giant mentioned in the title.
“The Jews — contrary to the ‘liberal’ views they officially say they profess — in their suppressive acts practically demonstrate that they always seek to dominate the information flow, they don’t tolerate any dissent,” reads the article, which is still accessible on the website.
The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, or CIDI, called the text “offensive to Jews” and filed the complaint along with the Dutch Complaints Bureau for Discrimination on the Internet, or MDI, against Stop de Bezetting.
The Netherlands, like many European countries, has laws against disseminating material with intention of inciting hate or discrimination.
Duisenberg, founder of the pro-Palestinian group, told JTA her assistant placed the text online three months ago. She does not consider the text anti-Semitic but her organization is not guilty of incitement to hatred anyway because it only reproduced the text, she said.
“We have made it clear that material placed on the website does not necessarily reflect our point of view. We didn’t write the text. If they want to go to the police, fine. It’s propaganda, it’s a trick. I won’t remove it because why should I,” said Duisenberg.
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