Brian of London here: forgive me if I go in a strange direction at first, this is going to circle round and talk about halal and kosher again.
I’ve been involved in a discussion on why Holland has been taking a more decent line with regard to Israel and, especially, toward groups who seek to destroy the Jewish home. This report of the Dutch Foreign Minister taking steps to withdraw funding from the BDS movement is a prime example:
Dutch FM says he’ll work to stop funding estimated at 10m. euros organizations calling for divestment, boycott, denying Israel’s right to exist.
….
The Foreign Ministry under Rosenthal has begun to institute sweeping reforms to stop Dutch charities from funding anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activities and NGOs that deny Israel’s right to exist.
For sure a great deal of the credit for this must go to organisations like NGO Monitor but what about Geert Wilders?
He is a strong leader, he knows the subject he’s talking about and he has a love of Israel that puts many Jews to shame. I don’t understand why this is not more widely recognised as having some effect. I’m no expert on internal Dutch politics but surely his pivotal power must be moving some of the fence sitters?
Right now the counter Jihad is on a knife edge and might take a very stupid decision on the issue of halal meat: I’m one of those trying very hard to stop elements of the counter Jihad (including Geert Wilder’s party in Holland) from making animal rights the central attack issue. One way or another halal in Europe will be attacked: I believe there are plenty of grounds other than a (misplaced) belief that slaughter without stunning is cruel.
My longer thoughts can be found here Halal: It’s Just Not Kosher which was also published at Gates of Vienna. There are some very good comments that I hope to address soon.
Unfortunately, if the counter Jihad movement goes after stunning of all meat as a goal (which aligns with the more moderate animal rights people) then halal will adapt and allow it (90% of halal meat in Europe has been stunned to some degree) and Kosher will be wiped out in Europe. It would be a personal disaster (in my opinion) for Geert Wilders to be the one that does this but it could happen in Holland.
Also unfortunately, because Geert receives scant support from established Jewish leaders all over Europe and those same Jewish leaders have decided that the best way to save Kosher is to join with Muslims on the issue of “religious freedom” (oy vey), Wilder’s payback for opposing the very strong, left dominated, animal rights lobby doesn’t seem large. He is regularly condemned by European court Jews and it’s disgusting in my opinion.
It’s possible that someone will appeal to Geert’s underlying sense of the best elements of Judaism to convince him of the massive difference between Islam and Judaism, especially with regards to overall animal cruelty, but this is a very difficult issue to communicate. Again: this is made tremendously hard when official Jewish groups attack Wilders incessantly without listening to what he is saying and take the incredibly stupid decision of joining forces with Islam, without understanding the nature of halal. Halal is not a religious requirement (why can they substitute Kosher at the drop of a hat?) and it is all about Islamic political control of food supply for infidels. Jewish leaders have no clue about this because they refuse to study.
While kosher and Israel are separate (and religious people in Israel just shrug and say, who cares, more oleah hadash for us) and just as I believe that much of today’s anti-Zionism is really Jew hatred, there is a very strong Jew hating element in the anti religious slaughter crowd.
So which way does the counter Jihad jump? Stay tuned.