Netherlands protests Archives

At least ten people are injured and three others, ominously, are missing in Amsterdam Friday after rampaging mobs of Muslim migrants hunted down and beat Jews on the street after a soccer match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax Amsterdam. The establishment media initially cast this as a case of violence among soccer hooligans. The New York Times’ headline was “Violence Tied to Soccer Game Prompts Dozens of Arrests in Amsterdam.” But it was something much worse than that.

After being called out for the inaccurate and misleading nature of its coverage, the Times changed its headline to “Israeli Soccer Fans Injured in Attacks Linked to Antisemitism in Amsterdam.” That was better, but it still didn’t capture the full horror of the incident, which got so bad that Israel sent rescue planes for Israeli citizens in Amsterdam.

Dutch politician Geert Wilders had a more accurate assessment: “A pogrom in the streets of #Amsterdam,” Wilders said. “We have become the Gaza of Europe.” The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement, “The harsh pictures of the assault on our citizens in Amsterdam will not be overlooked. Prime Minister Netanyahu views the horrifying incident with utmost gravity and demands that the Dutch government and security forces take vigorous and swift action against the rioters, and ensure the safety of our citizens.”

That was going to be a tall order, as the attackers were Muslim migrants whom the Dutch government, like governments all over Europe, have welcomed in large numbers in recent years. Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) reported, and later removed from its report without explanation, that “at least ten Israelis were reportedly injured by the Muslim attackers and their helpers, and three were missing. Police later said five people were treated at hospitals.”

Even with JNS’ editing job, however, it was clear who the attackers were. Geert Wilders noted that they were “Muslims with Palestinian flags hunting down Jews.” The New York Post reported that “Israeli soccer fans were ambushed and brutally assaulted in Amsterdam overnight Thursday by gangs of anti-Israel thugs shouting ‘Free Palestine.’”

The Post added that video showed “one assailant who screamed ‘Free Palestine’ as a victim cowered in fear.” The video exists because, as the Israeli Embassy to the United States pointed out, “The mob who targeted these innocent Israelis has proudly shared their violent acts on social media,” which jihadis the world over have done in the recent past. “More disturbing video,” says the Post, “shows a victim surrounded by several people, including one that appears to be holding a Palestinian flag, as a preparator [sic] kicked him to the ground. A separate assault shows a victim lying on the ground as he is kicked repeatedly. A car also barreled into a victim, causing the man to flip over the hood of the vehicle.”

The embassy said that “the days of chasing Jews down European city streets should remain in the dark annals of history,” but obviously those days are here again. JNS reported that “the Israeli National Security Council stated in Hebrew that Israelis in Amsterdam should remain in their hotel rooms and avoid the street, refrain from wearing visible Jewish or Israeli symbols and notify Dutch police and the Israeli mission about any threat or attack. The council also advised Israelis to return to home, with more planes expected.”

Canadian politician Melissa Lantsman wrote: “The scenes from the streets of Amsterdam tonight are absolutely horrific. This is what ‘globalize the intifada’ looks like.” Yes.

Dutch authorities welcomed these migrants without giving a moment’s thought to what the implications of doing so might be for the cohesion and peace of their own society. Although hardly anyone is aware that it even exists and few among those wish to discuss it, Islamic antisemitism is deeply rooted in the Qur’an, which designates the Jews as the worst enemies of the Muslims (5:82), says that they are under the curse of Allah (2:88-9; 9:30), states that Allah transformed them into apes and pigs for their disobedience (2:63-6; 5:59-60; 7:166); and calls upon Muslims to make war against and subjugate them (9:29).

Obviously not all Muslims read the Qur’an and act exactly as it directs, any more than all Christians do with the Bible. Some do, however, and no government in Europe or North America has ever pondered the question of what it might mean for their countries to bring in large numbers of people who believe this way. Not only is this Jew-hatred in the Qur’an, but as The History of Jihad demonstrates, Muslim countries have behaved with singular hostility to Jews, contrary to the fond wishful thinking and mythmaking of modern-day multiculturalist professors, throughout the history of Islam.

Yet most Westerners, in the Netherlands and elsewhere, have been convinced by this point that any critical word about the Qur’an or Islam in general is “Islamophobic” and evidence of some irrational prejudice. Many Europeans and Americans pride themselves on rejecting such “bigotry” despite having never cracked open a Qur’an or learning even the basics of Islamic theology. This uninformed naivete is endangering people, as the events in Amsterdam show yet again. Because this willful ignorance is near ubiquitous, however, what just happened in Amsterdam will be repeated all over the West many, many times in the months and years to come.

AUTHOR

Robert Spencer

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The New York Times covered a protest rally Saturday by Geert Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party in The Hague Parliament in the Dutch community of Spijkenisse handing out cans of pepper spray. That was a send up on the Muslim male migrant misogyny in Cologne Germany and other German and European cities by what he calls: “Islamic testosterone bombs”. As if to verify this threat the Imam in Cologne, Germany said the women who suffered sexual assaults and worse on New Year’s Eve by upwards of 1,000 Muslim males gathered at the main railway station brought upon themselves: “they were half naked and wore perfume.” Absurd! They were attired in warm clothing. Doubtless, the Imam thought they should have been immured in tip to toe niqabs. We had posted on the threats facing Dutch and other European women when Wilders and a fellow PVV Hague parliamentarian raised questions of the ruling coalition led by PM Mark Rutte were doing to protect Dutch women.

The New York Times report chronicled this latest protest rally by Wilders, “Dutch Lawmaker Wilders Gaining Support Amid Migrant Crisis:”

Wilders, surrounded by bodyguards and police, visited a market in the largely blue-collar town of Spijkenisse on Saturday to hand out the sprays, which contained red paint. Amid stalls selling vegetables, fish, flowers and bicycle parts, Wilders got a rock-star welcome from dozens of supporters, while a small group of protesters chanted and waved placards including one that read, “Refugees are welcome, racism is not.”

The publicity stunt fits into Wilders’ uncompromising anti-immigrant, anti-Islam rhetoric that has propelled him to the top of Dutch opinion polls, just over a year away from parliamentary elections.

In between shaking hands and posing for selfies with supporters, the Freedom Party leader said that, if elected, he would, “close the borders immediately and have no more asylum seekers. We just cannot afford to have more. The Dutch people in a big majority don’t want it and we cannot afford it and it makes our people and women only more unsafe.”

His message is gaining traction here amid the Europe-wide migrant surge and following attacks by Islamic extremists in Paris last year. It echoes Republican front-runner Donald Trump’s call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States and is similar to other populist, nationalist groups in Europe like Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France.

“The tendencies across Europe are very similar,” said University of Amsterdam political science professor Wouter van der Brug. “Across Europe, right-wing populist parties are picking up support as a result of the asylum crisis that we’re facing now, and also as a result of terrorist attacks.”

Leontine Maris was one of the first women to get a spray from Wilders on Saturday.

The 53-year-old said she votes for him though she disagrees with some of his more extreme comments. She said she was afraid not just of migrants, but also Dutch men.

“The whole society is going down the drain,” she said.

As Wilders’ popularity soars on the back of such disenchantment, Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s two-party coalition is in a slump, losing ground mainly to Wilders.

“Wilders is getting support across different layers of society,” Van der Brug said.

Whether Wilders is able to parlay his current popularity into parliamentary seats next year and a tilt at power in the splintered Dutch parliament remains to be seen. He propped up Rutte’s first administration, a minority coalition of the Liberal Party and Christian Democrats, from 2010-2012, but walked out amid drawn out negotiations over austerity measures. Two days later, the government collapsed.

That decision could yet come back to haunt Wilders.

“The only logical coalition he could form would be with the same parties again and I think it’s quite unlikely they will do this again with him because of the negative experience they have in the past,” Van der Brug said. “They don’t really trust him.”

Rutte has ruled out cooperating with Wilders unless the Freedom Party leader takes back comments made in 2014 that he would see to it that there were fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands. Those same comments also landed Wilders in trouble with Dutch prosecutors, who plan to put him on trial on charges of discrimination.

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Despite the political naysayers, Dutch voters have come out in support of Wilders. There have been protests at Dutch reception centers amid reports that some migrants have left the Netherlands because they did not receive a warm welcome and had problems trying to apply for family reunification. The estimated annual cost of handling the flood of Muslim migrants in Holland fleeing conflicts from hotspots in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa is nearly 1 billion Euros. Wilders’ Kafkaesque show trial in The Hague occasioned by his “fewer Moroccans” comment at a 2015 campaign rally is scheduled for March 2016.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Tag Archive for: Netherlands protests

Massive Protests in Holland against Muslim Migrant Invasion