| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Jan 11, 2003 11:55 pm Post subject: Anti-Israel Remark Draws More Protest (Remark is Accurate) |
| http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/11/international/europe/11DUTC.html?tntemail1=&pagewanted=print&position=top
The New York Times
January 11, 2003
Anti-Israel Remark Draws More Protest
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
NIJMEGEN, The Netherlands, Jan. 10 Gretta Duisenberg, wife of the European
Central Bank president, Wim Duisenberg, generated more controversy and
accusations of anti-Semitism today when she compared Israeli policies to
the World War II Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Ms. Duisenberg met
this week with Yasir Arafat and toured the West Bank and Gaza as chairwoman
of a pro-Palestinian Dutch group, Stop the Occupation.
"With the exception of the Holocaust," Mrs. Duisenberg told a Dutch
newspaper, "the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is worse
than the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands."
One Jewish group requested an investigation into her remarks; a second
called on Mr. Duisenberg to distance himself from his wife's politics. | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Jan 12, 2003 12:18 am Post subject: ECB head's wife says Sharon provokes violence |
| Subj: ECB head's wife says Sharon provokes violence
Date: 1/11/03 8:32:01 AM Pacific Standard Time
From: BGJDAVID
We need more political figures like Gretta Duisenberg even if she is only the wife of one. God bless her for her courage to speak. As usual, when anyone disagrees with Israeli crimes and makes criticism of their actions, prominent U.S. Jewish groups, and in this case, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, called on Friday for Wim Duisenberg to either resign or be fired if he supports what it called anti-Semitic comments by his wife over the past year. When will this Jewish form of threats and extortion ever end? More important, when will someone stand up and tell them to go to hell and shove their threats and forms of extortion up where the sun don't shine? Is freedom of speech only a freedom when it isn't critical to Israel?
ECB head's wife says Sharon provokes violence
By Mohammed Assadi
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Jan 11 (Reuters) - The wife of European Central Bank chief Wim Duisenberg on Saturday described Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories as "inhuman" and accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of provoking violence.
Gretta Duisenberg has stirred international controversy by using a diplomatic passport to visit Palestinian President Yasser Arafat this week, urging an end to Israeli occupation and making remarks that Dutch and Israeli officials have called biased and Jewish groups said verged on anti-Semitism.
The ECB chief's spouse, who heads a pro-Palestinian activist group in the Netherlands and last year hung a Palestinian flag from her family home, said after further talks with Palestinians she wanted to look into alleged Israeli human rights violations.
"The power of the Israeli government to humiliate (Palestinians) like that -- I cannot stand it ... If you see it yourself, it's more inhuman," Duisenberg told Reuters after a meeting with Palestinian lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi.
She blamed Israel for the violence afflicting the region since Palestinians launched an uprising in September 2000 for a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Duisenberg condemned suicide bombings by Palestinian militants that have killed scores of Israeli civilians, but added: (Sharon) always provokes (violence) in my view... and then he blames the Palestinian people."
Israel reoccupied Palestinian-ruled sections of the West Bank and Gaza last year in response to a rash of suicide bombings in the uprising, which has killed at least 1,766 Palestinians and 692 Israelis.
Gretta Duisenberg, 60, was quoted by a Dutch newspaper this week as saying that the Israeli occupation was worse than Nazi Germany's occupation of the Netherlands.
The Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI), one of the most prominent Jewish organisations in the Netherlands, called on Wim Duisenberg in an open letter to clarify whether he supported his wife's controversial remarks.
Duisenberg had earlier in the week said he was 100 percent behind his wife in a letter to Dutch foreign minister who had criticised her use of a diplomatic passport for her trip.
A prominent U.S. Jewish group, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, called on Friday for Wim Duisenberg to either resign or be fired if he supports what it called anti-Semitic comments by his wife over the past year.
Gretta Duisenberg denied again on Saturday that she was anti-Semitic, saying that she only opposed Israeli policy in the West Bank and Gaza.
"If (Israelis) want really to have peace, they should stop confiscating land all the time for all those (Jewish) settlements. It goes on and goes on and that's not logical." | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
