THE HAGUE (JTA) — Citing anti-Semitic statements by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, a Dutch-Jewish novelist has vowed to withhold taxes so they won’t reach Cairo.
Leon de Winter, a best-selling writer, made the pledge in a column published on Jan. 12 in De Telgraaf, Holland’s largest-circulation daily. He said he would calculate how much of his tax payment would go to Egypt in the form of aid by the European Union and withhold that amount.
“Offering aid to Egypt is the same as giving billions to support Nazi Germany,” he wrote.
The Middle East Media Research Institute this month released videos filmed in 2010 in which Morsi, who became president in 2012 as a representative of a party affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, is seen calling Zionists “descendants of apes and pigs” with whom there can be no peace.
“I know I am entering a long process at the end of which I will have to appear before a judge, and I am looking forward to it,” de Winter wrote.
Last year the EU pledged $6.4 billion in aid to Egypt. The aid package was approved earlier this month by the European Commission in Brussels.
The Dutch ruling party, the center-right VVD, asked the European Commission on Jan. 13 for “clarifications” as to the conditions under which aid to Egypt is disbursed.
The anti-Muslim Party for Freedom led by Geert Wilders said it opposed “giving even one cent to a Sharia dictatorship,” lawmaker Joram van Kalveren told the news agency Novum in reference to Islamic law.
