A hidden-camera video showing Jews being harassed on the street in a Moroccan neighborhood of Amsterdam has led authorities in Holland to consider combating hate crimes with “decoy Jews” — undercover police officers wearing yarmulkes.
The idea of using decoys to detect and arrest bigots has been embraced by both a prominent Moroccan politician and by Amsterdam’s acting mayor, who is Jewish. Law enforcement officials say the idea is feasible but would only be of
limited practical use due to entrapment concerns.
“It’s important that it not provoke any intent to commit a criminal act that
wasn’t there in the first place,” Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin told parliament in a debate last week on how to combat discrimination.
In the video, shown on a Dutch public TV station last week, two youths and a rabbi wearing yarmulkes are subjected to a range of bad treatment — including a Nazi salute — during a walk in an Amsterdam neighborhood. — ap