On Wednesday afternoon around a quarter to 2, the doorbell rings. Shirli is just sitting at her computer, looks at the images from her smart doorbell and sees a blonde woman standing with sunglasses on. “I thought: oh, that’s someone from the evangelical church. They often walk around here,” says Shirli, who does not want her surname in the newspaper for her privacy.
She opens the door and sees a second woman. She is wearing a headscarf and a face mask and is filming her. A third person stands a little further away with a phone in his or her hand. What the three probably don’t know is that they are also being filmed by her smart doorbell. They are clearly recognizable on the screen and can be heard.
“Madam, is it true that your daughter murdered children in Palestine? I ask what you are doing here, when you have so many children… on your conscience. I think this is really serious,” the blonde woman shouts.
Shirli, whose daughter is in the Israeli army, is now heard calling 911 while standing in the doorway. The women remain there for a few minutes and then leave again.
Video on Instagram
Shirli is quite upset. She has been dealing with harassment since mid-February, which started on social media. She had a surprise visit with her daughter, whom she had not seen for months, in November brought into Israel. She filmed that visit and sent it to her daughter. The video shows her daughter hugging her mother with euphoric joy. Her daughter then posted it on her Instagram.
“The video was shared en masse shortly afterwards, including by influencers. They soon found out my name because I was tagged in it. I then received a lot of very negative reactions on Instagram.”
One of the responses was from influencer Selma Omari, who has more than 550,000 followers. Shirli shows this influencer’s text: ‘I will personally do my best for you[w] to bring her daughter to court (…) for the war crimes she is committing in Palestine (…) I hope that our paths may one day cross.’
Previous incident at work
Shortly afterwards, Shirli, who works as a nurse, receives a call from the police that an incident had occurred at her work. “Two women with a Palestinian flag were walking around my workplace looking for me. I wasn’t working that day. But when I heard it, the ground fell from under my feet. It evoked fear.”
It didn’t stop there. In the first week of March, flyers were distributed in her neighborhood with a photo of her daughter with the text: ‘There is a child murderer living in the neighborhood!!! (…) As local residents, you have the right to know that such an individual can come near your children.’
Below the photo is the name and age of Shirli’s daughter with her mother’s address in Amstelveen. It also shows where Shirli works as a nurse. Both are accused in the flyer of murdering babies.
“It was very intimidating and scary,” Shirli says. “I felt attacked and very unsafe. My privacy has also been compromised.” She doesn’t want to be too scared. “I am alert, on my guard. I will go out into the street, but I will look over my shoulder.”
Declaration
On Wednesday, with the visit of the trio, it was enough. Shirli will report the crime on Thursday. “I don’t just do that for myself, I do that for the future of the children.”
She wants to tell this story to the media. “This has to come out. Everyone needs to know how far anti-Semitism has gone. It continues step by step. I want these people to be brought to justice quickly.”
The police are investigating the incident. According to Shirli’s lawyer Herman Loonstein, this is a case of doxing, the spreading of personal, sensitive or private information. “In addition to doxing, there is threat and intimidation. And perhaps incitement,” said Loonstein.
Rutte annoyed about actions against Jewish Dutch people
Prime Minister Mark Rutte calls on everyone to leave Jewish Dutch people alone because of the war in Gaza. Harassing Jews in the Netherlands is completely inappropriate, says the Prime Minister: “We are a civilization, this is really going in the wrong direction. We have to tackle this collectively.”
A large part of parliament speaks of anti-Semitism that must be tackled head on. Prime Minister Rutte also rejects the protest actions: “The fact that people are being harassed in this way worries me greatly,” he said on Thursday before the start of the cabinet meeting. “Someone who is Jewish and lives in the Netherlands has nothing to do with the situation in Israel. The state will intervene if we can, with all its might, but we are together with 18 million people in this civilization. We have to speak to each other.”
About the author: Hanneloes Pen has been a news reporter at Het Parool for over thirty years. She writes reports and personal stories about Amsterdam residents who have fallen into oppression or have become victims of violent incidents. She also writes articles about the Second World War.
Tags: Woman Amstelveen visited home intimidated daughter Israeli army felt unsafe
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