Gazan faces hate-crime charge for Holocaust wreath vandalism in the Netherlands An asylum seeker who kicked a memorial object and allegedly inveighed against Israel failed to convince a judge that he did not know the site was tied to Jews.

February 17, 2025   

(JNS) A judge in The Hague last week dismissed the legal defense of an asylum seeker from Gaza who had claimed that his destruction of a wreath for Holocaust survivors last year was not motivated by antisemitism.

The defendant, Muayad A., and another man destroyed the wreath in November at Rabbi Maarsen Square in The Hague on Nov. 9, 2024, the anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogroms against Jews in Germany, Austria and parts of France in 1938.

The trial of Muayad A. is taking place amid heightened awareness of antisemitic violence in the Netherlands following the events of Nov. 7, 2024. On that day, hundreds of Arabs and Muslims were implicated in the coordinated assaults of dozens of Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam.

Read more.

Related Articles

Government & Politics

Freshman lawmaker calls Israel a ‘regime,’ secures coveted committee seat She spoke to CNN and defended a tweet she posted in 2012 that claimed that 'Israel has hypnotized the world.'

January 17, 2019   

(Jerusalem Post) Ilhan Omar, a newly elected Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota, secured a seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday, bringing to that high-level forum experience as a Somali refugee, perspective as one of the first two Muslim women elected […]