World Jewish Congress (WJC) President Ronald S. Lauder has welcomed a proposal put forward by the Dutch government which aims to find a solution to the question of kosher and halal slaughter acceptable to the local Jewish and Muslim communities, instead of banning it outright. "This is good news, and we hope that an arrangement can be found that safeguards the right of the Jewish community to practice kosher slaughter," Lauder declared after Animal Rights Party leader Marianne Thieme’s plan to introduce a ban slaughter without prior stunning on Tuesday night had failed to make it through the Senate, the upper house of the Dutch parliament.
Deputy Minister for Agriculture Henk Bleker presented a compromise proposal to the Senate which calls for agreements with slaughterhouses and the Islamic and Jewish community on the length of time an animal is conscious before dying and the number of animals ritually slaughtered per year. The Senate asked the minister for a letter detailing his plan. Thieme dismissed Bleker's proposal and said she would continue to advocate a complete ban.
Thieme argues that animals that are not stunned before they being killed experience extra stress and pain. Her bill calling for a ban was passed by a large majority in the lower house of parliament in June, but in the Senate only the her own Animal Rights Party, the Freedom Party of Geert Wilders and a few smaller groups came out in favor.
During the debate, the Labor Party, Christian Democrats and the orthodox Christian party were critical of the bill, asking the sponsors of the bill whether suffering of the animal would be sufficiently reduced to warrant such a severe limitation of religious freedom. At the moment, religious slaughter is permitted in the Netherlands by way of a legal exception. Many senators argued that the bill was merely token legislation, arguing that kosher (Jewish) and halal (Muslim) meat would simply be imported from abroad. In the end, it became clear that Thieme did not have a majority of the Senate behind her after the Labor Party decided to oppose the bill.
Senators also criticized the legislation because it states that if slaughterhouses can prove that animals do not undergo extra suffering they may be exempted from the ban - which in effect means a reversal of the burden of proof.
WJC President Ronald Lauder added: “We are grateful that kosher slaughter of animals, which has been continuously practiced by Jews for thousands of years and which is – contrary to the views of some activists – not a cruel practice, is now unlikely to be prohibited in the Netherlands. This is a victory of reason and religious freedom over political zeal.”
Ronnie Eisenmann, chairman of the Jewish Community of Amsterdam, said Jews are relieved "that the Senate wants us to look at improving animal welfare but that it didn’t support the proposed bill... We share the concern for animal welfare and in that sense we have respect for the efforts of Marianne Thieme. Our invitation to her to discuss the possibilities remains. A categorical rejection of the Jewish ritual slaughter is contrary to freedom of religion, as she herself acknowledges."
Ahead of the debate, hundreds of Jews and Muslims had pleaded with senators to reject legislation banning religious slaughter. International leaders, including Lauder, had written to Dutch government ministers and parliamentarians to oppose the ban. Earlier this week, a group of leading US Congressmen from both the Republican and Democratic parties made an appeal to the Dutch Senate to reject the proposed ban. In a letter to Senate Speaker Godefridus de Graaf ten US lawmakers said they were "troubled" by the possibility of a prohibition of religious slaughter in the Netherlands.
