News stories after the murder of Theo van Gogh

"If any event can be said to have triggered this anti-immigrant wave, a good candidate would be the murder, on November 2, 2004, by a Muslim extremist of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, the great-grandnephew of famous Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, triggering widespread violence against Muslims. (See "Dutch Mosques and Churches burning after terrorist murder of author.")

And then, just two weeks later, the Dutch people were given the opportunity to vote on the greatest Dutchman of all time. They rejected Rembrandt van Rijn, Vincent van Gogh, Erasmus, and William of Orange, and selected instead Pim Fortuyn, a harshly anti-immigrant politician who had been murdered two years earlier by an animal rights activist. (See "Dutch vote murdered anti-Islamic polemicist as 'Greatest Dutchman of all time'.")

Since that time, Europe has been trending increasingly towards xenophobia in general and Islamophobia in particular, a phenomenon we've also witnessed in America, as I've previously discussed."

A web site reader from Eindhoven, the city where van Gogh was murdered, wrote to me, questioning whether I had accurately reported the situation.

It's my practice, whenever I write something more controversial than usual, to collect as much information as I can, including contemporary news stories where possible, and fortunately I did so in this case.

Going back and rereading these stories is an amazing experience, because the enormous shock that was felt in the immediate aftermath of Theo van Gogh's murder is barely remembered today, only six years later.

Thus, one article by Holland's Expatica begins, "Amid growing public tension in the aftermath of the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, the Netherlands risks falling into a situation similar to the one that led to the Crystal Night in 1938 and the hardening of Jewish persecution by the Nazis, a Danish newspaper has warned."

This illustrates an important principle about Generational Dynamics: When you want to evaluate a historical event, then you MUST try to obtain descriptions of it from as many points of view as possible AT THE TIME that the event occurred, and then compare those accounts to later accounts of the same event. That comparison can yield a great deal of information about how perspectives change over time, and how different generations view the same event.

This event occurred after 9/11, but it was before the subway bombings in London and Madrid, and other European terrorist acts by al-Qaeda linked Islamist terror groups. Since 2004, the general European public has become inured to terrorist violence, and would no longer react so dramatically the murder of a single person, as horrible as that murder was.

The second thing that's happened is that Europeans have gradually turned away from embracing immigrants, especially Muslim immigrants, and are gradually adopting the kinds of attitudes that gradually developed in the 1930s.

This is a worldwide phenomenon. As massive numbers of people in the West become increasingly xenophogic about Muslims, Muslims around the world are becoming increasingly anti-American and anti-West.

A news story that's going on right now is a growing confrontation between Japan and China over Japan's arrest of a fishing trawler captain found in disputed waters. This confrontation could spiral out of control, though it's much more likely to fizzle within a few days. But either way, it represents the growth of another example of mutual xenophobia.

I now have over 50,000 news stories in my archives, collected over the last ten years to support Generational Dynamics and the reporting on my web site. The following news stories are raw text, straight out of my archives at the time, sometimes including my own notes in [[double brackets]]. I've included the original URL links; many are still valid, though many are now out of date. These stories make fascinating reading.

IHT: Netherlands polarized over Muslims

For Dutch, anger battles with tolerance By Craig S. Smith The New York Times Thursday, November 11, 2004

AMSTERDAM Anger toward the Netherlands' Muslim community percolated among the crowd that gathered outside the funeral for the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was killed by an Islamic extremist a week ago.

The public debate over how conservative Islam fits into Europe's most tolerant, liberal society had already become a no-holds-barred affair before the killing of van Gogh, who had publicly and repeatedly used epithets against Muslims. But his killing has now polarized the country, giving the rest of Europe a disturbing glimpse of what may be in store if relations with the continent's growing immigrant communities are not managed more adeptly.

The anger is such that for the second time in two days an Islamic elementary school was attacked Tuesday, this time in Uden, part of what Dutch authorities fear are reprisals after van Gogh's killing, The Associated Press reported. The authorities said that Muslim sites had been the target of a half-dozen attacks in the past week, The AP reported.

In apparent retaliation, arsonists attempted to burn down Protestant churches in Rotterdam, Utrecht and Amersfoort, the news service quoted the police as saying.

The attacks have scratched the patina of tolerance on which the Dutch have long prided themselves, particularly here in their principal city, where the scent of hashish trails in the air, prostitutes beckon from storefront brothels and Hell's Angels live side by side with Hare Krishnas. But many Dutch now say that for years that tradition of tolerance suppressed an open debate about the challenges of integrating conservative Muslims.

Jan Colijn, 46, a bookkeeper from the central Dutch town of Gorinchem who was at the funeral Tuesday night, complained that the Netherlands' generous social welfare system had allowed Muslim immigrants to isolate themselves. Because of that, "there is a kind of Muslim fascism emerging here," he said. "The government must find a way to break these communities open."

For many years, such criticism of Islam and Islamic customs, even among Dutch extremists, was considered taboo, despite deep frustrations that had built up against conservative Islam in the country.

Many here say that began to change after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, when the Netherlands, like many countries, began to consider the dangers of political Islam seriously. The debate fueled an anti-immigration movement and helped propel the career of the populist politician Pim Fortuyn, who was murdered by an environmental activist shortly before national elections in 2002.

By all accounts here, Fortuyn's murder removed any remaining brakes on the debate surrounding immigrants.

"After Pim Fortuyn's murder, there were no limitations on what you could say," said Edwin Bakker, a terrorism expert at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations. "It has become a climate in which insulting people is the norm."

He and others said the public discourse, even among members of government, reached an unprecedented pitch and included language that went far beyond the limits set for public forums in the United States.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a member of Parliament and one of a handful of politicians threatened with death by Islamic extremists, publicly called the prophet Muhammad a "pervert" and a "tyrant." She made a film with van Gogh condemning sexual abuse among Muslim women, who were portrayed with Koranic verses written on their bare skin.

Van Gogh himself was one of the most outspoken critics of fundamentalist Muslims and favored an epithet for conservative Muslims that referred to bestiality with a goat. He used the term often in his public statements, including a column he wrote for a widely read free newspaper and during radio broadcasts and television appearances.

The cumulative effect made van Gogh, a distant relation of the painter Vincent van Gogh, a kind of cult clown on one side of the debate, and a reviled hatemonger on the other.

The debate became so caustic that the Dutch intelligence service, AIVD, issued a report in March warning that the unrestrained language could encourage radicalization of the country's Muslim youth and drive individuals into the arms of terrorist recruiters. The agency has warned repeatedly in recent years that such recruiters are active in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe.

While only about 20 percent of the Netherlands' estimated 900,000 Muslims practice their religion, according to one government study, officials say as many as 5 percent of Muslims in the country follow a conservative form of Islam. Most are from the Netherlands' Moroccan community, which has its roots in the Rif, an impoverished, mountainous Berber region in the north.

There are about 300,000 people of Moroccan descent in the Netherlands today, and the ratcheting up of the anti-immigration debate has alienated many of them from Dutch society and, many people argue, has also helped fragment the Muslim community.

Jean Tillie, a professor of political science at the University of Amsterdam, says that the debate has broken down a network that connected even the most extremist Muslim groups to the more moderate voices within the Muslim community. He cited an Amsterdam government advisory board that brought together all kinds of Moroccans and fostered communication and cohesion within the Muslim community.

"Those groups participating didn't agree with each other, but they met together with the collective mission of advising the city government," he said.

The board was abolished a year ago, he says, in the wake of the anti-immigration debate. He claims that funds for other ethnic organizations have shrunk and outreach policies have also been abandoned.

At El Tawheed mosque, considered by many people here to be the epicenter of extremism in Amsterdam, Farid Zaari, the mosque's spokesman, argues that pressure from the debate has hindered the Muslim community's ability to control its radical youth.

"If we bring these people into the mosque, it is possible to change their thoughts, but few mosques dare to because if you do, you're branded," he said.

Dutch media reports insist that van Gogh's killer attended the mosque, and though Zaari says the mosque has no record of his ever being there, he said that political leaders and the media should encourage the mosque to reach out to the community's radical youth, rather than stigmatizing it for doing so.

The mosque was previously associated with a Saudi-based charity, Al Haramain, which American and Saudi Arabian officials accused earlier this year of aiding Islamic terrorists. The mosque has since severed its ties with the charity, but more recently it has been criticized for selling books espousing extremist views, including female circumcision and the punishment of homosexuals by throwing them off tall buildings.

Several legislators have called for the mosque to be shut down, but under the Dutch constitution it is difficult to do.

Zaari admits that the Muslim community was slow to respond to the fears within Dutch society. "We didn't feel it was our responsibility to bridge the gap, but now, with the murder, the gap has gotten wider," he said. "All of us want to begin a dialogue now, but the language of the political right is too extreme, and that's preventing discussion," he said. "We all have to cool down and be careful what we say."

The problem is how to bridge a gap that has yawned dangerously since van Gogh's murder.

The Amsterdam Council of Churches published paid notices in some Dutch newspapers pledging solidarity with the Muslim community. But the government's response has been to promise more money for fighting terrorism and stronger immigration laws.

"Islam is the most hated word in the country at this point," said the terrorism expert, Bakker.

The explosion of a hand grenade during a terrorism-related raid on a house in The Hague on Wednesday wounded three police officers, The Associated Press reported from The Hague.

The Hague's chief prosecutor, Han Moraal, said the raid was part of a "continuing investigation into terrorism" but would not say whether it was related to the killing of van Gogh.

Several city blocks were cordoned off in a mostly immigrant neighborhood near the Holland Spoor train station.

Slate: International papers - coverage of 'Holland in flames'

Religious violence and terror arrests stun the Netherlands in the aftermath of filmmaker Theo van Gogh's murder.

European papers are expressing alarm at a spiral of religious violence in the Netherlands, a normally placid country at the heart of Europe's self-image of tolerance. The wave of attacks and counterattacks began with the gruesome slaying of filmmaker Theo van Gogh as he rode his bicycle through Amsterdam on Nov. 2. Van Gogh was shot several times, stabbed, and his throat slit. A note was pinned to his body with a knife, threatening other public figures with death in the name of Islam. The director---the great-grandnephew of Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh---had made a controversial 11-minute film (in English, viewable here) in which a veiled Muslim woman, her body inscribed with Quranic verses beneath a semitransparent full-body veil, addresses Allah with a mixture of anger, devotion, and defiance while telling painful stories of domestic abuse condoned within Muslim culture.

A wave of retributive attacks against mosques, schools, and churches swept the country following van Gogh's murder. A bomb exploded [[http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=580641]] at a Muslim school in Eindhoven in apparent retaliation; arsonists torched another Muslim school in Uden, an image that dominated the front page [[http://www.rnw.nl/cgi-bin/home/PressReviewArchive#4213235]] of Dutch daily Volkskrant [[http://www.volkskrant.nl/]]; and vandals tossed Molotov cocktails [[http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Guardian/0,4029,1347629,00.html]] at churches in Rotterdam, Utrecht, and Amersfoort. Volksrant listed 10 Muslim and five Christian sites that had been attacked since Friday.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, Dutch police conducted a 14-hour siege on a house in a residential neighborhood in The Hague where alleged terror suspects were holed up, part of a nationwide antiterror sweep that yielded seven arrests. [[http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3744047]]

For a day, it seemed, all eyes were focused on the standoff in The Hague: Police cleared five city streets and stopped air traffic over the area, home to several international judicial bodies, which some have taken to calling "the International City of Peace." [[http://www.thehague.nl/info/document.php?id=56&s=312]] Defiant militants tossed a grenade during the standoff, wounding several police officers, and neighbors reportedly heard [[http://www.turkishpress.com/turkishpress/news.asp?ID=33381]] at least one of them threatening to behead a police negotiator. The United Kingdom's Guardian [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/]] wrote [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,1348051,00.html]] that The Hague siege may well turn out to be "one more link in the ugly chain of events that began" with van Gogh's murder.

The prime suspect in van Gogh's murder is a 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan man named Mohammed Bouyeri, named by the local press only at Mohammed B., as is customary in criminal cases. Bouyeri is a second-generation Moroccan immigrant, born in Holland, who reportedly turned to radical Islam only two years ago, following the attacks of Sept. 11. Reuters cited Dutch authorities on Thursday saying Bouyeri was at the center of an Amsterdam-based terror gang [[http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6785106]] with links to the group that carried out the May 2003 suicide bombings in Casablanca in which 45 people were killed. Six other people are also being held [[http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=581586]] in connection with the murder.

"After the terrorist attacks of the 11th of September 2001, [Bouyeri] reportedly began his radical Islam life," wrote Algemeen Dagblad [[http://www.ad.nl/]]. The newspaper quotes a friend saying he was wrongfully detained after the attacks on New York and Washington at a time when his mother was dying of cancer. The daily Trouw [[http://www.trouw.nl/]] supports this timeline, saying Bouyeri was a prime target for recruitment by Islamic radicals: "People recruiting for Islamic Jihad know exactly who to be on the lookout for in the Netherlands: second-generation Moroccan youths suffering from an identity crisis with few prospects and plagued by the thought that the Islamic world is being suppressed. ... Mohammed B. was a dream candidate." (Dutch translations via Radio Netherlands. [[http://www.rnw.nl/cgi-bin/home/PressReviewArchive#4208422]])

Papers across Europe are keeping a close eye on the situation, with multiple references to Europe in the 1930s---wherein the Muslim side either represents the Nazis or the Jews, depending on whom you ask. A comment [[http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/11/10/do1001.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2004/11/10/ixopinion.html]] in the United Kingdom's Daily Telegraph likened the murder of van Gogh to the Nazi and Communist liquidation of intelligentsia, saying the unfolding events have laid waste to a Dutch tradition of liberal tolerance dating back to Spinoza: "If neo-conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, the Dutch are fast becoming a nation of neo-conservatives." Meanwhile, on the 66th anniversary of Kristallnacht, Denmark's Politiken [[http://politiken.dk/VisArtikel.iasp?PageID=1]] lamented an apparent hardening of mainstream Dutch attitudes toward Muslims, drawing a comparison with the 1938 anti-Jewish riots in Nazi Germany. (Dutch translation via Expatica. [[http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=19&story_id=13806&name=Foreign+press%3A+Risk+of+'Nazi+pogroms']])

In a land that has long prided itself on openness and tolerance, a newspaper poll taken Tuesday, the day of van Gogh's funeral, revealed that a staggering 40 percent of Dutch people say they hope Dutch Muslims "no longer feel at home" [[http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?ID=33466]] in Holland. Muslims make up 6 percent of the country's 10 million residents.

Scott MacMillan is a freelance journalist based in Prague. He is a contributor to the group blog Fistful of Euros. [[http://www.fistfulofeuros.net/]]

Netherlands - press review

The latest edition of the NRC HANDESLBLAD takes a close look at the current siege of the Iraqi city of Falluja and says it is just "more of the same". The NRC says the American and Iraqi forces are trying to put out a brush fire that keeps flaring up all over the place but is not under control: "Once the troops leave, everything will start all over again."

The NRC goes on to say that "Just because Bush has a mandate from the voters does not mean his strategy in Iraq is right", and the paper wonders whether America's allies can be expected to commit themselves to this course of action. As for whether the Dutch peacekeeping forces should be withdrawn in March as planned, the NRC concludes, "No ally has to commit themselves to a hopeless anti-guerilla war."

All the papers report on yesterday's funeral of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh and the aftermath of his murder by a Moslem extremist. The front-page photograph in the VOLKSKRANT shows a Moslem elementary school in the southern Dutch town of Uden in flames, after arsonists set fire to it last night. The paper's front-page also lists 10 Moslem and 5 Christian locations that have been attacked or vandalized since Friday. Several papers report how some schools and mosques are being protected by local volunteers. On a similar subject, TROUW warns against closing the controversial El Tawheed mosque in Amsterdam, simply because it is suspected of being a so-called "hotbed of terrorism". "There is no doubt that Moslem extremism is out to destroy our system of democratic rule of law", says TROUW, but it adds that that means we have to play by the rules. The paper is opposed to closing the mosque unless the proper legal procedures have been carefully followed first.

Meanwhile, tensions are clearly building on the domestic political scene, as parliament prepares for Thursday's debate on Van Gogh's murder. Both the ALGEMEEN DAGBLAD and the TELEGRAAF open with headlines predicting serious trouble for Johan Remkes, the minister of home affairs: "Remkes' position shaky", says the AD, while the TELEGRAAF writes: "Remkes under heavy fire". His ministry is directly responsible for the intelligence and security service, the AIVD, which, according to the ALGEMEEN DAGBLAD, "may have underestimated the threat to Van Gogh". The TELEGRAAF regrets all the dissent but it dismisses those who criticized deputy prime minister Gerrit Zalm for speaking of a "war" against Moslem extremism: "That was a harsh word, but it aptly applies to the battle that has to be fought in order to keep this country safe."

The Protestant daily TROUW reports that the opposition Labor party leader Wouter Bos "is accusing the prime minister of being hardly visible and concerning himself too little with the necessary dialogue between the native and immigrant populations in the Netherlands." That criticism is echoed in several commentaries today. The ALGEMEEN DAGBLAD writes, "Prime minister Balkenende and his ministers are not visible enough in this time of confusion..The Netherlands is in a deep crisis...A couple of television appearances are not enough to remove feelings of unrest and fear among the citizens. ...Why, for example, didn't he and Rita Verdonk (the minister of integration) go to the Islamic school in Eindhoven that was set on fire?"

As one editorial contributed to the VOLKSKRANT indicates, some people are getting very tired of the whole debate. The editorial, by the author of a book on integration, states that too much debate, like quarrelling, can do more damage than good. "Here in the Netherlands we have a sacred belief in public debate", but telling each other the unadulterated truth is not always the best way, he says, and he warns that all this debate can easily degenerate into forcing people to take a strong stand too early.

We read a similar lament in today's TROUW. One of the paper's regular columnists says, "I don't know right now what to think.. Expressing doubt is viewed with disdain. We are always supposed to have an opinion. For or against. Things are a bit bewildering in this country right now". The columnist says he is not going to say anything for a while, until his head has cleared. "Then you'll hear from me again."

According to the NRC HANDELSBLAD, the Romans are glad the tourist season is over again, because they are tired of all the dumb questions they get from tourists who "do" Rome in one day. Questions like, "Where is Jesus buried?" and "Why did the Romans build the Coliseum in such a state of ruin?" As for the famous Sistine Chapel, one tourist was rather disappointed in Michelangelo's masterpiece but was overheard to say, "Well the other 15 chapels are supposed to be nice. This was only the 16th."

The VOLKSKRANT opens today with the news that the Dutch authorities are searching for a Syrian who is said to be "at the very center of a web of presumed terrorist cells". The paper adds that "the hunt for the Syrian is an indication that the various terrorist cells believed to exist are interlinked with each other".

At the same time the VOLKSKRANT says that the Dutch intelligence and security service, the AIVD, is up against "an almost impossible task", because the core of 150 extremists currently under constant observation form a fluid group who travel back and forth, and it is highly difficult to infiltrate into a cell.

As TROUW points out on its front-page today, "There is serious disagreement within the cabinet about how to deal with Islamic inspired terrorism." The minister of home affairs, Johan Remkes of the right-of-center liberal VVD party, has openly criticized the minister of justice, the Christian Democrat Piet-Hein Donner, for not going far enough in taking action against terrorism. TROUW is highly critical of home affairs minister Remkes for making these statements. "Instead of showing confidence-building leadership, the cabinet seems to have lost its senses." and TROUW says that Remkes should either keep his mouth shut or leave. "Especially in these tense times, it is not fitting for a minister to complain in public about a colleague....The sooner he leaves, the better."

The NRC HANDELSBLAD reminds us that there is more going on than meets the eye. The paper points out that in the present cabinet, home affairs minister Remkes has to play second fiddle to justice minister Donner when it comes to dealing with terrorism. The TELEGRAAF believes both men will have a tough time on Thursday when agreement has to be reached on new measures. "They must demonstrate that their ministries did not make too many blunders."

The TELEGRAAF also reports that since the murder of Theo van Gogh, there has been an increase in the number of Dutch people considering emigration. The number of hits registered at an emigration website reached a peak during the weekend. According to the administrator of the site quoted in the TELEGRAAF, people say they feel increasingly "uneasy about the tolerance in our society". "In the past economic factors played a role, now it is chiefly the mood in the country." At the same time, we read in the NRC HANDELSBLAD that there is considerable interest abroad in Theo Van Gogh's film "Submission". The provocative eleven-minute film about Koran texts that are seen as sanctioning the abuse of women was aired on Dutch television last summer and is seen as one of the factors that led to his murder. Because of the controversy surrounding the film, a Dutch television broadcaster and a museum have both refrained from showing the film, but the NRC HANDELSBLAD reports there is more interest than ever in the film from around the world and the film has been sold as far away as North America, Australia and Japan.

The murder of Theo van Gogh appears to be part of a broader conflict, and that conflict is never far away anywhere in the world. The Rome correspondent of the ALGEMEEN DAGBLAD, for example, recently attended the annual "Cous Cous Fest" in San Vito Lo Capo in Sicily, a cooking competition for chefs from the entire Mediterranean region and Central Africa. This year's winner was a cook from Tunesia. However, the Palestinian team expressed displeasure at the honorable mention it felt was wrongfully awarded to Israel and threatened never again to take part. "They changed their minds when the mayor promised that an entire Palestinian's women's collective can take part in the competition next year."

With all the attention being paid today to the funeral of Theo van Gogh, it is easy to forget that we have also just buried one of our greatest cycling legends. He is Gerrie Knetemann, "the Kneet", who died of a heart attack at the age of 56 a few days ago. Thousands of people attended his funeral at the Alkmaar cycling stadium and next to his white coffin we see in some of the photographs in the papers today his last bicycle. On the coffin itself lies the rainbow jersey he wore when he won the world title at the Nuremberg Ring in 1978.

The ALGEMEEN DAGBLAD and TROUW open with the same Associated Press photo of American soldiers standing ready to pray at their base outside the Iraqi city of Falluja. in a commentary today the ALGEMEEN DAGBLAD writes that the Iraqi resistance in Falluja has to be broken in order to insure that national elections can be held in Iraq in January.

The AD warns that the price of besieging Falluja will be high. "Many American soldiers will die and, as cynical as this may sound, it is better that this is happening after, and not before, the elections...In addition to the many American soldiers, numerous innocent civilians will die, adding more fuel to the fire of Moslem extremism. The nightmare of a second Vietnam looms larger and larger."

The news that under "normal" circumstances would certainly have been the top story is the sudden end of six months of labor unrest here in the Netherlands. During the weekend the government, trade unions and employers unexpectedly reached agreement on a number of thorny issues like disability compensation and early retirement. TROUW says, "The government came to its senses" and realized that "a comprehensive program of reform cannot be carried out without the support of employers and workers." The VOLKSKRANT writes that with this latest agreement, the new program has a broader basis of support, but it wonders whether the bill to be paid by the younger generations will not be too high. "Are we really going to retire later? Will Dutch competitiveness truly improve?", the VOLKSKRANT asks.

TROUW suggests that one reason for the speedy resolution of labor tensions is the urgency of dealing with the problem of terrorism. The paper writes, "It is essential to achieve unity among all ranks of society in order to meet this threat". We read in the ALGEMEEN DAGBLAD that "A number of mosques in the Netherlands have been the target of vandalism and arson attacks". We also read in that paper that the letter pinned with a knife to Theo van Gogh's body by his killer "was written by someone who wanted to make it clear that Holy War had reached the Netherlands", according to Islamic experts here. The AD reports on its front-page that the police are investigating death threats addressed to a member of parliament, Geert Wilders, who has just set up a new "anti-Islam party". Wilders "wants to deprive Moslems of certain constitutional rights, such as the freedom to set up their own schools and associations." TROUW reports in an in-depth article that the party's ideologue, Bart Jan Spruyt, advocates a liberal conservative movement inspired by the ideas of the French 19th century philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville.

Many of the latest developments we read about today are linked to the issue of freedom of speech. The VOLKSKRANT opens with the news that a number of politicians in The Hague, including cabinet ministers, are concerned about deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm's talk of "declaring war on Moslem extremism". One minister is quoted in the VOLKSKRANT as saying, "The government must be careful in its choice of words. Otherwise the climate between Moslems and non-Moslems will only get worse." Meanwhile, however, the war of words continues. Van Gogh's friends have written an open sarcastic letter to the murderer, which is printed in several papers. At the same time, the VOLKSKRANT reports, young Moroccan Moslems are using the same stylistic device of gross and provocative exaggeration typical of Theo van Gogh. On one site, for example, young Moroccans criticize the generation of their parents for "spreading their legs for government subsidies". The same site plans to publish a "manifesto against homosexuality", but the site has temporarily been silenced by hackers. The writers of the Moroccan site told the VOLKSKRANT they pride themselves in their use of modern communication technology. In fact, TROUW reports today that Islamic websites are becoming more radical in tone. "There used to be a website or two that called on young people to volunteer for Jihad. But you had to go and fight in Chechnya or Kashmir. Now the slogan on radical sites is: fight where you can, also in the Netherlands." and TROUW says some Internet sites now include "instructions in beheading".

TROUW also reports the arrest of two men who are behind a call on Internet to assassinate parliamentarian Geert Jan Wilders. The TELEGRAAF reports that the two men were traced with the help of the FBI. The paper says the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation "provided crucial date that the Netherlands had requested from Microsoft". We also read in the TELEGRAAF that, according to the American daily "Wall Street Journal", the order to murder Theo van Gogh "was possibly given by a terrorist in Spain" and the TELEGRAAF says the Spanish legal authorities will assist the Netherlands in investigating the contacts between the terrorist cell around Van Gogh's murderer and Moslem extremists in Spain."

As one story in the TELEGRAAF indicates, the Dutch police will need all the help they can get. Next to a photograph of 24-year-old Ibrahim Ben Salah, we read that this high-security baggage processor at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport was detained for three days last week after an army of policemen raided his apartment three times, and video footage of the apartment was broadcast around the world, by everyone from CNN to Al-Jazeerah, as the headquarters of Islamic Jihad in Amsterdam. It was discovered, however, that the police raided the wrong address, says the TELEGRAAF. The apartment they were looking for, that of the suspected murderer of Theo van Gogh, was next door.

The papers have conflicting views on the future of the Palestinians in a post-Arafat era. The TELEGRAAF says, "Every new Palestinian leader will have much more trouble than Arafat in dealing with radical movements like Hamas and Islamic Jihad", but the VOLKSKRANT does not agree.

The Jerusalem correspondent of the VOLKSKRANT says, "There are numerous reasons why Hamas, although it is a popular resistance movement, will not take over power itself. One reason is that almost all of their charismatic leaders have been murdered by Israel." The VOLKSKRANT's correspondent believes "it is significant that, in contrast to previous occasions Hamas is now prepared to take part in elections". The paper predicts that Arafat's successor will not be as powerful as he has been, pointing out that Palestinian institutions have been seriously weakened by four years of intifada.

Dutch press coverage is completely dominated today by the publication of two shocking letters written by the young Dutch Moroccan who murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam on Tuesday. The letters found on Van Gogh's body and on the killer when he was arrested are quoted extensively by all the papers, either on their pages or on their websites. The TELEGRAAF refers in its opening headline to a "Hit list" and it explains: "Prominent Dutch people feature on a list of people to be murdered by radical Moslems. They include members of parliament...and the mayor of Amsterdam."

The ALGEMEEN DAGBLAD prints on its front page some of the lines aimed at one parliamentarian noted for her criticism of Islam: "Allah willing, this letter is an attempt to silence your evil for all times. You will be crushed by Islam." and further on we read: "I am certain that you, the Netherlands, will go to ruin."

Equally disturbing are the descriptions we now read of the murderer. He is a 26-year-old Dutch-born Moroccan with dual citizenship who seemed to be leading a normal life until things started going seriously wrong about two years ago. The ALGEMEEN DAGBLAD writes that, according to a friend, he was wrongfully detained by the police while his mother was dying of cancer. "After the terrorist attacks of the 11th of September 2001 he reportedly began his radical Islam life." TROUW writes that around this time Mohammed played a pioneering role in a neighborhood protest, where the design of newly renovated public housing "did not include a space to which women could withdraw when men paid a visit." TROUW writes: "People recruiting for Islamic Jihad know exactly who to be on the lookout for in the Netherlands: second-generation Moroccan youths suffering from an identity crisis with few prospects and plagued by the thought that the Islamic world is being suppressed....Mohammed B. was a dream candidate."

The TELEGRAAF announces in one article that Van Gogh was murdered after the proclamation of a fatwa. "There is increasing evidence that a high-ranking mullah gave his blessing to Van Gogh's murder. The deeply religious killer needed such a blessing, because the murder was committed during Ramadan." However, TROUW quotes a leading French expert on Islam, Gilles Kepel, who says, "A fatwa is not necessary. The assailant acts on his own initiative in the expectation that the community will consider him a saint." Keppel expresses concern about the situation in the Netherlands and says, "The future of Islam will be fought out in Europe."

As we read in the papers, quite a few politicians are now calling for drastic action. The TELEGRAAF has joined the chorus and says, "The cabinet must adopt a range of measures quickly", and the paper recommends: stricter control of the flow of cash, the closing of radical mosques, action against radical imams who call for unlawful action, and the extradition of extremists with dual citizenship.

The NRC HANDELSBLAD, meanwhile, sounds a rare note of optimism and quotes Moroccan sociologist Fatima Mernissi, who has just been awarded the Dutch Erasmus prize for her contribution to a better understanding of religion and modernization. Mernissi says that the dialogue that once made Islam great in the 9th century is returning in the form of satellite television and Internet, and she says "The satellite revolution has robbed the despots of their monopoly on propaganda and has given citizens a say again."

The VOLKSKRANT reports that a Dutch artist in Rotterdam decided to express his emotions about Van Gogh's murder by painting an ascending angel on a wall in his neighborhood, to which he added the date and what he believed to be a thoroughly harmless text: "Thou shalt not kill." The VOLKSKRANT writes: "In the year 2004, this commandment is considered too sensitive in our multicultural society" and the authorities ordered its immediate removal from the public space. The paper reports that when a local television team showed up, the police ordered them to stop filming the painting and hand over the film. A reporter who tried to stop the destruction of the painting was jailed for three hours. One city alderman quoted in the paper describes the incident as "a fantastic example of the madness in which we live."

The same two stories dominate in the Dutch press once again today: the U.S. elections, and the murder on Tuesday of film-maker Theo van Gogh. The TELEGRAAF opens today with a grainy black-and-white photograph of the Dutch Moroccan gunman apprehended by the police just after he shot and stabbed the artist, a prominent and controversial critic of Islamic fundamentalism. The paper claims in a big headline this morning that his killer was "the spearhead of a terrorist cell".

All the papers report that eight of the suspect's North African acquaintances have now also been arrested in Amsterdam, but it is not clear whether they were in any way involved in Van Gogh's murder. The VOLKSKRANT reports that the authorities in The Hague knew for some time that the murder suspect lived in a group of Amsterdam apartments used as transit points for radical Moslems, but that the Amsterdam authorities were not informed about this until now. "In combating terrorism", says the VOLKSKRANT, "we evidently lack the required efficiency, both on a national and a local level."

According to the Protestant daily TROUW, experts believe the murder of Van Gogh fits into "a new trend" in terrorism that targets prominent individuals instead of large groups. TROUW quotes experts who draw a parallel with the well-publicized beheadings in Iraq.

Several papers publish a statement by Somali-born Ayan Hirsi Ali, a liberal-party member of the Dutch parliament. Hirsi Ali is noted for her outspoken criticism of Islam's treatment of women and recently made a film on this subject with Van Gogh. She has frequently been threatened and has been under around-the-clock police protection for quite some time. Today Hirsi Ali writes that she is saddened and angry about the fact that Van Gogh did not have police protection and says, "I suspect that there is a stupid artificial distinction between politicians and opinion makers. She adds," Islamic terrorism can thrive both in the Netherlands and abroad, because it is embedded in a large circle of like-minded fellow Moslems."

In analyzing the outcome of the American elections, nearly all the papers cite the importance of the moral theme of the Republican campaign. The headline in the VOLKSKRANT reads, "Conservative Christians defeat Democratic youth". The Protestant daily TROUW points out that two-thirds of the American voters who go to church every Sunday voted for George W. Bush and the paper writes in a headline, "Homosexual marriage dominated over Iraq". The NRC HANDELSBLAD likewise stresses that "objections to the war in Iraq were less important to voters in the end that moral values" and the TELEGRAAF says, "Opinion polls underestimated the importance of conservative religious views among the crucial midwestern electorate." The ALGEMEEN DAGBLAD is worried by this and warns, "Hopefully Bush will not become a fulltime moralist who imposes a Christian fundamentalist agenda on everyone. After all, not even half of the American electorate voted for him."

The VOLKSKRANT comments, "The narrow margin by which Kerry was defeated cannot disguise the fact that this is a substantial defeat for the Democrats. The Democrats have lost the confidence of important groups of voters: white men, Catholics, southerners. As a result the Republicans can win even with a mediocre candidate, like George Bush. America is in a conservative mood."

The ALGEMEEN DAGBLAD warns that, "If Bush wants to finish the job in Iraq, he will need Europe." The TELEGRAAF is more diplomatic and writes in an editorial, "It is to be hoped that US-European relations can get off to a new start. That requires more modesty from the Old World and the recognition that after Nine Eleven America has the right and the duty to protect its security against terrorism. At the same time, however, Bush will have to recognize he cannot make the world safe by himself." However, in a separate article on the same subject, the TELEGRAAF writes, "Potential new conflicts are looming on the horizon, like Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict....With cowboy Bush in the White House, the ball is in the court of European leaders.... Whether we like it or not, good trade relations with the United States is an absolute precondition."

TROUW also suggests that Europe will have to take more initiative now that Bush has been re-elected. "Although some are hoping for a 'softer' Bush in his second term, there is serious doubt this will happen. The rest of the world will have to accept this reality. Together with other countries in the world, European countries must seek their own, common vision. This is the only way to face Bush with credibility."

Opinion: How Dutch tolerance has boomeranged

According to eyewitnesses the murderer, Mohammed B., first shot his victim repeatedly, then stabbed him several times.

Later it became known that the 26-year-old murderer, who held both Dutch and Moroccan passports, had become a fanatic Muslim only in recent years.

The victim was a gadfly, a racist who had made many insulting remarks about Islam. But many Dutch Moroccan organizations and imams, afraid of retaliation, rapidly pointed out that this was no justification for the murder.

Van Gogh had made anti-Semitic remarks too. One of his quotes was "It smells like caramel here. They must be burning diabetic Jews."

Until two years ago the Netherlands could claim that their most recent political murder occurred in the 17th century. In 2002, however, an extreme animal rights activist killed Pim Fortuyn, a populist political leader. Thereafter the authorities came out with many statements on how security would be improved.

After the van Gogh murder, the daily Algemeen Dagblad conducted a poll among its readers about their expectations of what would be done. Two-thirds responded that, "as typical for the Netherlands, nothing will happen." Van Gogh's murder demonstrates once again much of what is wrong with today's Dutch society.

One of its structural flaws is that, over recent decades, the country has become extremely tolerant of crime, and of intolerance. For instance, only a small percentage of complaints to the police are ever investigated and reach the courts.

The Netherlands, though a democracy, thus cannot be considered a country where justice reigns. Little action is taken against hate speech, despite its prohibition under Dutch law.

The main demonstration after the van Gogh murder was of a somewhat dubious nature.

Following the death of a man who had so often expressed his hatred for others, thousands assembled in Amsterdam's main square, the Dam, to support free speech. They included right-wing extremists, who would like to speak even more freely than they already can.

The Dutch authorities knew that extremist Islamic ideas had attracted a significant number of adherents among Dutchmen of the Muslim faith.

Jews have been their first targets. Physical attacks, insults, and anti-Semitic hate speech have been reported for several years in the media.

In January 2004, a weekly quoted a Jewish youngster convinced that, sooner or later, a Jew would be killed in light of the frequent intimidation by Muslims. He was wrong as far as the first Dutch victim of jihad in the Netherlands is concerned.

Trouble for the Jews in any country is usually an indicator of problems that will befall the wider community later. The authorities didn't trouble themselves too much about physical violence, threats, and hate speech against the Jews, and so it spread.

A few weeks ago a Dutch non-Jewish couple abandoned their Amsterdam home under police protection after being targeted frequently by Dutch hooligans of Moroccan origin.

Parliamentarian Geert Wilders, who split from the Liberal Party some months ago, recently moved from his home in The Hague, located in a quarter where many Muslim and other immigrants live, because he didn't feel safe there. After van Gogh's murder, it turned out that the murderer had sent Wilders a threatening note.

The phenomenon of exaggerated, irresponsible Dutch tolerance has manifested itself most clearly on the soccer field. "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas" is probably the only new Dutch expression to become internationally known in the last decade.

Over the years hundreds of thousands of Dutchmen have heard this standard anti-Semitic slogan sung or shouted. It was already being chanted in football stadiums in the mid-Nineties.

The Dutch authorities failed to act, and so this and other anti-Semitic hate songs spread to society at large, and even across the border to Arabs in Flanders.

After years of Dutch inaction non-Jews are now also being targeted by these hate slogans.

Following 9/11, Fortuyn's murder, the Madrid terrorist attacks, and now the killing of Theo van Gogh, Dutch politicians made vehement declarations, including a call from liberal parliamentary leader Jozias van Aartsen for the closure of extremist mosques.

When he was Dutch foreign minister, however, van Aartsen came to the Middle East to attack Ariel Sharon, the leader of a democratic country, and praised Yasser Arafat, financier of the murder of Israeli civilians.

It has emerged that the Dutch secret services knew Mohammed B. was dangerous but had decided not to warn the Amsterdam police -- further proof of the incompetence of Dutch authorities in dealing with known threats.

However, none of this prevents the Dutch government from frequently pontificating about how other countries, Israel in particular, should behave.

The writer is chairman of the Board of Fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Two of his recent books analyze European anti-Semitism.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1099887819217&p=1006953079865

Guardian: Netherlands - bombs and mosques being bombed / molotov cocktails

Dutch Muslims and Christians called for an end to a cycle of retaliatory vandalism of mosques and churches yesterday as slain film-maker Theo van Gogh was cremated, a week after his killing by a suspected Islamist radical.

In a ceremony aired live on national television, friends and family told stories about Van Gogh's love of provoking discussion and debate.

About 150 people gathered at the De Nieuwe Ooster Crematorium, while hundreds more watched on a screen outside and mourners left flowers, cigarettes and beer at a makeshift monument where the film-maker was killed.

"Our country is confused and grieving," said former Rotterdam mayor Bram Peper, calling Van Gogh's murder an attempt to silence "the power of the word."

He is survived by his parents, former wife and 12-year-old son. "He had a big mouth but everybody liked it because he was one of a few people who said what he thought," said Hans Debrichy, a mourner.

The Netherlands has been tense in the aftermath of his death, with attacks on both mosques and churches.

"This is a negative spiral that's threatening to turn into attack and counter attack," said Mohammed Sini, the head of a national Muslim organisation, Citizens and Islam.

"There's a risk that we'll have an unbridgeable 'us and them' opposition between parts of the population and that's something that can't happen," he told a Dutch radio station.

But hours after Van Gogh's funeral, suspected arsonists burned down a Muslim school in the southern town of Uden where someone had scrawled "Theo rest in peace" on the building.

Molotov cocktails caused minor damage at churches in Rotterdam, Utrecht and Amersfoort on Monday night, after a half-dozen similar incidents at Muslim buildings, including a bomb explosion at an Islamic school early on Monday. No injuries were reported.

Van Gogh, 47, who received death threats for a movie criticising the treatment of women under Islam, was shot and stabbed while cycling on a busy Amsterdam street.

The killer cut his throat and left a note threatening further attacks in the name of radical Islam impaled on Van Gogh's chest.

The murder prompted an outpouring of rage aimed mostly at the Muslim minority, which makes up about 6% of the Dutch population.

Six men are in custody on suspicion of forming a terrorist conspiracy to kill Van Gogh, including the 26-year-old alleged killer Mohammed Bouyeri, a dual Dutch-Moroccan citizen who was arrested in a shootout with police.

Jan-Gerd Heetderks, dean of the Netherlands' Protestant Churches, said "the violence, the aggression must stop. And that goes for people who get the idea that they should damage Muslim mosques or schools, too."

Mainstream Muslim groups condemned the killing and asked the government to protect mosques after the explosion at the school in Eindhoven on Monday.

Scotsman: Netherlands - Policemen arrest 7 Muslim terrorists- booby trapped

Dutch police arrested seven suspected Islamic militants in raids across the country yesterday, heightening concerns that global terrorism is spreading to this normally peaceful corner of Europe.

Three policemen were injured by an explosive booby trap and a hand grenade as special forces raided a house in a working-class district of The Hague. Police used tear gas to flush out two armed terror suspects, ending a 15-hour standoff.

Police later arrested a third suspect in the central city of Amersfoort and another four in Amsterdam in what they called an ongoing terrorism investigation.

National police spokesman Marc van Erven said the suspects belonged to "a network of radical Muslims," but did not give any details.

The drama in The Hague, known as the City of Peace for the international peace institutions based here, came a week after the slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had criticised Islam in a controversial film.

The siege ended when police escorted a bare-chested man from the scene in handcuffs and a blindfold, and placed him on a stretcher in an ambulance.

The operation began at 2:45 a.m. (0145GMT) when a booby trap surprised forces as they forced open the door of the house. Shooting then erupted, and a suspect threw a grenade out the front door, witnesses said.

Hundreds of police and soldiers converged on the scene in the Laak neighbourhood behind the Hollands Spoor railway station in The Hague.

Police helicopters hovered overhead and at least a dozen SWAT teams stood ready as police evacuated the neighbourhood and snipers took up position.

Eight to 10 gunshots rang out shortly after 4 p.m. (1500GMT), reports said, and black-masked special forces stormed the house just before nightfall to end the standoff.

The area remained closed off last night as police searched the house for explosives.

Sylvia Cordia, 42, who lives across the street from the house, said she saw several explosions in the raid. "I saw one policeman crumble to the ground and another was dragged away to safety."

"There were several people in the house, and I heard a man yelling, 'I'll chop your head off' and yelling profanities," she said.

Hague - International city of peace

* For over a century the city has been deeply involved in the evolution of a peaceful and prosperous world.

* The first world peace conferences ever were hosted by the Queen of the Netherlands in this city, in 1899 and 1907.

* The concept of the League of Nations and the United Nations in essence stems from the conviction, formalised in The Hague, that disputes between states should not be solved with guns but with reasoning.

* The world's first permanent war crimes tribunal - the International Criminal Court - is established in The Hague.

* The Hague is also home to the OPCW, Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons; a branch of the United Nations Environment Programme, the headquarters of the European Union police force Europol and many (non-)governmental organizations of international standing.

The International Court of Justice is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. Only states may apply to and appear before the Court. The Court is composed of 15 judges elected for nine-year terms of office by the UN General Assembly and Security Council.

Established by treaty at the First Hague Peace Conference in 1899, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) is the oldest global institution for the settlement of international disputes.

In 1998, under the Statute of Rome, the United Nations established an International Criminal Court (ICC).The seat of the Court is established in The Hague.

Built between 1907 and 1913, to house the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Established as a result of the First Hague Peace Conference (1899).

The Palace is presently the seat of the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague Academy of International Law and the Peace Palace library.

Owner of the Peace Palace and its unique international law library. Bears the name of the main sponsor of the building, American steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919).

The OPCW is an international organisation established in The Hague upon entry into force of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) on 29 April 1997.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established by the UN Security Council in 1993. The ICTY is mandated to prosecute and try persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991.

The Tribunal was established in 1981 to deal with the settlement of thousands of legal and financial claims submitted by Iran, the United States of America and nationals of the two countries.

Europol is the European Law Enforcement Organisation that handles criminal intelligence. It supports European law enforcement action against terrorism, unlawful drug trafficking and other forms of serious international organised crime.

Eurojust is a new European Union body established in 2002 to enhance the effectiveness of the competent authorities within Member States when they are dealing with the investigation and prosecution of serious cross-border and organised crime.

The Office of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities was established in 1992 to identify and seek early resolution of ethnic tensions that might endanger peace, stability or friendly relations between OSCE participating states. Netherlands Minister of State Max van der Stoel was appointed as the first High Commissioner in December 1992 and served until July 2001.

The Hague Conference on Private International Law is the world's leading Intergovernmental Organisation in the field of private international law.

Established in 1923 with the support of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Since 1957 a Centre for Studies and Research in international law and international relations has been attached to the Academy.

Institute for International Private and Public Law, International Commercial Arbitration and European Law. Academic centre for fundamental and applied research in the field of international and European Law.

Turkish: Netherlands: Dutch police wounded by bomb during terrorist raid

Dutch police arrest two as siege on terror suspects' apartment ends AFP: 11/10/2004

THE HAGUE (AFP) - Dutch police arrested two people here as they ended a 14-hour siege on an apartment where suspected extremists had been holed up.

Three police officers were wounded, two of them seriously, in a grenade explosion during the anti-terror operation in The Hague.

Police said the raid was not linked to an investigation into the murder last week of filmmaker Theo van Gogh allegedly by an Islamic extremist but that is was part of a separate investigation into suspected terrorists.

The authorities would not identify the suspected terrorists holed up in The Hague or reveal their nationality

"One suspect was hurt in the shoulder. The investigation is ongoing," Wim de Bruin, a spokesman for the state prosecutor`s office said as he confirmed the two arrests.

Police evacuated five city streets and banned air traffic over The Hague after the suspects hurled a grenade that injured the three officers in the pre-dawn raid.

ANP news agency reported that police in the central region of Utrecht also arrested a man on Wednesday in an arrest that was tied to the police raid in The Hague.

Police believed several terrorist suspects were holed up in the apartment in a working-class district near the The Hague`s central Holland Spoor railway station, which is close to the seat of government and many of the foreign embassies.

NOS public television news said police searched the apartment for explosives with the help of remote-controlled devices.

"I heard shots. There is shooting," Irma Heijmans, a local resident, told NOS TV. "I heard about eight shots and now it`s quiet again. The police are watching the building."

The Hague prosecutor Han Moraal told reporters that two of the injured police officers were seriously hurt, although their lives were not in danger. He said the suspects fired at the police without causing injuries.

When police sent in a negotiator, one suspect shouted, "I am going to behead you," a resident said.

Other witnesses told NOS radio that police sharpshooters had taken up positions on nearby rooftops.

Nearby residents told ANP news agency they were jolted awake by a huge blast. "It was like a war movie being played out in front of my house," said Sylvia Cordia, 42.

The 14-hour siege in The Hague ratcheted up tension in the Netherlands, which has been on high alert since the November 2 murder of Van Gogh who was shot and knifed to death by a suspected Islamic radical after making a movie critical of Islamic treatment of women.

The brutal murder shocked traditionally tolerant Dutch society, fuelling ethnic tensions and sparking a spate of violence against Muslim mosques and schools.

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende on Wednesday warned people "not to get caught up in the maelstrom of violence".

Six people, including the alleged killer, have been arrested in connection with Van Gogh`s murder and provisionally charged with belonging to a "terrorist conspiracy".

Van Gogh`s suspected killer, Mohammed Bouyeri, who has dual Moroccan and Dutch citizenship, left a letter on Van Gogh`s body threatening several Dutch politicians and quoting from the Koran, police said.

Copyright 2004 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.

Guardian: Netherlands: A land brought low by terrorists

Cold-blooded murder in broad daylight, exchanges of fire with terrorists, tit-for-tat attacks on mosques and churches - hardly the sort of news associated with the tolerant, civic-minded Dutch, happy people of a wealthy, stable country. Not any more. An incident in The Hague yesterday, involving hand grenades, police Swat teams and streets being cordoned off, happily ended without loss of life. But there are understandable concerns that it may turn out to be one more link in the ugly chain of events that began when the film-maker Theo Van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death last week as he cycled to work in Amsterdam. The talented but provocative Van Gogh was notorious for a film, Submission, that featured Qur'anic verses on the naked bodies of abused Muslim women - offensive certainly, but a real-enough issue, with echoes of the Salman Rushdie affair in the 1980s.

The suspected killer is a native-born Dutchman of Moroccan origin - one of the country's million-strong Muslim minority, now some 6% of the total population - and is reported to have links with a fundamentalist terrorist group being watched by the Dutch security service. This has cast the shadow of 9/11 over an already sensitive problem of multiculturalism and inter-communal relations in what was once an ultra-liberal country. Muslim community groups have condemned the killing, but this has not prevented incidents like the plastering of pictures of pigs on a Rotterdam mosque and an arson attack on an Islamic school.

Dutch society has been under painful scrutiny since the populist politician Pim Fortuyn was murdered on the eve of the 2002 elections. Fortuyn ignored political correctness to declare the Netherlands - Europe's most crowded country - "full". It is no coincidence that the new government adopted the harshest immigration policies in the EU, pledged to deport thousands of long-term illegal immigrants, and make Dutch language classes compulsory to improve poor cultural integration. The urgency of the matter is shown by polling evidence of mounting intolerance of Muslims.

Dutchmen of all backgrounds and faiths, as well as Britons and other Europeans trying to balance minority rights and security, should heed the words of the prime minister, Jan-Peter Balkenende, striking the right note at this troubling time. "We must not allow ourselves to be swept away in a maelstrom of violence," he warned. "Free expression of opinion, freedom of religion and other basic rights are the foundation stones of our state and our democracy. They are valid for everybody, always."

Reuters: Netherlands: Murder suspect linked to radical Muslims

Reuters Dutch Say Murder Suspect Linked to Radical Muslims Thu Nov 11, 2004 06:43 AM ET

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch authorities are investigating a radical Muslim group they suspect is linked to the man accused of killing a filmmaker critical of Islam and to last year's Casablanca bombings.

Interior Minister Johan Remkes and Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner told parliament in a 60-page letter on Thursday that the 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan charged with murdering Theo van Gogh helped a radical group under observation since summer 2002.

They said the group of young Muslims of North African origin centered on Amsterdam often met at the home of Mohammed B. He was charged last week with killing Van Gogh, conspiracy to murder a politician and membership of a group with "terrorist" plans.

The ministers said members of the group had visited Pakistan, possibly for training for "jihad" or holy war, and had contact with a man suspected by Morocco of involvement in last year's Casablanca bombings and arrested by Spain last October.

Some 45 people were killed in suicide bombings in the Moroccan city in May 2003.

On Wednesday, police arrested seven people suspected being part of a network of radical Muslims, but declined to say if they were linked with Van Gogh's death or the Mohammed B. group.

Four police officers were wounded when two of the suspects threw a grenade at them in a raid in The Hague, prompting a 14-hour standoff that saw the building cordoned off all day.

Wednesday's siege further ratcheted up tension in the Netherlands that has been spiraling out of control since Van Gogh was shot and stabbed as he cycled to work on Nov. 2.

The killing of Van Gogh, whose criticism of Islam outraged Muslims, has sparked a series of apparent tit-for-tat attacks on mosques, churches and schools, undermining the Dutch reputation for tolerance and raising fears among immigrant communities.

A classroom in a Catholic school in the southern town of Eindhoven was destroyed late on Wednesday in a suspected arson attack. A Moroccan was also shot dead in Breda but police said his death was unlikely to be connected to Van Gogh's murder.

The letter to parliament said the security services would be strengthened and laws tightened so people with dual nationality could be stripped of their Dutch citizenship if they commit crimes. New laws will also allow the closing of mosques if they engage in activities contrary to public order, it added.

The AIVD security service is monitoring up to 200 suspected Muslim militants, the letter said, adding that youths of foreign origin were often victims of discrimination in the Netherlands, which provided a breeding ground for radical ideologies.

In addition to Mohammed B., police have arrested nine people in the main Van Gogh investigation and are still holding five who are suspected of conspiracy to murder Van Gogh and others, and participation in a criminal group with terrorist intent.

The letter from the ministers said the Amsterdam home of Mohammed B. was also frequented by Samir Azzouz, a teenager who has been charged with planning attacks on a nuclear reactor, Schiphol airport and government buildings.

The ministers said it was not clear whether Mohammed B. had acted alone in planning Van Gogh's murder, noting that such an attack needed little logistical support. But they said it was conceivable the act had been given a religious stamp of approval, without saying who by.

They said that while Mohammed B. supported the radical group they dubbed the "Hofstadnetwerk" or "court town network" as he had a house and a car, he did not play a key role himself.

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Independent: Netherlands: Armed police end 14-hour siege

Elite Dutch anti-terror units stormed an inner-city flat in The Hague last night, ending a 14-hour siege which began when three officers were injured in a hand-grenade blast.

Shots rang out just after 5pm, signalling the end of a day of drama in which several streets of the capital were cordoned off, police snipers were deployed on roof tops and the city's airspace was closed.

Two suspects barricaded inside the flat were finally taken away, one of them wounded in the shoulder. Earlier, three police officers suffered injuries after the occupants of the flat threw a hand-grenade at them.

Yesterday's anti-terror swoop came amid heightened tensions in the Netherlands following the cremation of Theo van Gogh, the film-makermurdered on 2 November after he made a documentary critical of Islam.

Since Mr van Gogh's death the Netherlands, once renowned for its tolerance, has threatened to spiral into violence. More than 10 mosques and churches have been hit by arson attacks and on Tuesday there was a second attack in two days on a Muslim school. The Bedir Islamic school in Uden suffered extensive damage and the words "Theo RIP" were scrawled on the walls along with a "white power" sign.

Yesterday's crackdown on terror suspects began before dawn as police and special units moved into a working-class, racially mixed area of the city.

The three-storey building in Antheunisstraat was surrounded by police in riot gear, fire engines and ambulances while neighbours were evacuated.

The police chief, Gerard Bouwman, said: "At the moment of the assault, a hand-grenade was thrown at the arrest team. It exploded and several officers were hurt."

One witness, Syliva Cordia, said: "I saw one policeman crumble to the ground and another was dragged away to safety. There were several people in the house and I heard a man yelling 'I'll chop your head off' and yelling profanities." Dutch television showed video footage of an Asian man being led, handcuffed from the flat wearing only his underpants and socks.

Two of the police officers suffered serious injuries to their legs or stomach and some reports said they had opened a booby-trapped door.

As the day wore on crowds of spectators gathered and a brief scuffle took place between skinheads and local youths from the Moroccan community, but police quickly stamped out the violence. Locals insisted that the area normally enjoys good relations between the races.

Before the storming of the building, the security presence was increased, a helicopter hovered overhead and the country's elite BBE special forces unit, which specialises in counter-terror work, was drafted in.

It was reported that a consignment of weapons was found after police used a robot to search for explosives once the building was cleared.

Police have not officially linked yesterday's raid to the murder of Mr van Gogh, although the man of joint Dutch and Moroccan nationality who was apprehended after the killing is thought to have had links to radical Islamic groups. Ten people have been arrested in the investigation into that killing and police are still holding six, including their prime suspect who was arrested in a park after a shoot-out. Prosecutors have said they are looking for other militant cells and possible links with international Islamist groups.

A little-known Islamist group threatened on Tuesday to hit the Netherlands if the attacks on Muslim buildings did not stop. The country has received several threats from Islamic militants over the presence of 1,300 Dutch troops in Iraq.

The Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, who visited the Muslim primary school gutted by fire, told parliament he would work with organisations representing the almost a million Muslims who make up 6 per cent of the population.

"We must not allow ourselves to be swept away in a maelstrom of violence," he said. "Free expression of opinion, freedom of religion and other basic rights are the foundation stones of our state and our democracy. They are valid for everybody, always." Visibly upset, he told Muslim families that it was up to all who believed in democracy to prevent "extremism and hate triumphing". Holland was a safe country and they and their children should feel that they belonged, he added.

The school head, Ismail Taspinar, said: "It is terrible that children should become victims in all of this; they have done nothing, yet they are made to feel the hate and the outrage; I am sure that Theo van Gogh would be on their side."

Telegraph: Netherlands: Opinion and historical analysis - the 'new Nazis'

Dutch find the strength to take on their 'new Nazis' By Daniel Johnson (Filed: 10/11/2004)

The assassination of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film-maker whose funeral took place yesterday, is something new in Europe. There are, of course, antecedents. Fifteen years have passed since Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa against Salman Rushdie: the first shot in the culture war between fundamentalist Islam and the West. But there is no precedent for the ritual slaughter of a prominent artist in broad daylight on the streets of Amsterdam. Lovefilm

For the Dutch, this murder is not only sinister: it is symbolic. Van Gogh - distantly related to Holland's most celebrated artist - was shot on his bicycle, another national emblem. As he writhed on the ground, the murderer cut his throat without mercy and left him with two knives protruding from his body: a method that is apparently common in North Africa, but unheard of here. Just in case there was any doubt about the symbolism of this butchery, a note was found pinned to his chest, containing death threats against three other public figures.

The resonance of this hideous crime, not only in the Netherlands, but across the whole of continental Europe, is difficult for the British to comprehend. We have no conception of the status accorded to the artist in countries that have known totalitarian dictatorship within living memory. The Nazis and the Communists liquidated or exiled the intelligentsia wherever they could. Persecution cast a shadow across the Continent from which it has still not wholly recovered.

Hence the reverence in which the artist is held. Hence the cult of dissent at any price, however absurd, pretentious or childish. Hence the aversion to censorship of any kind, including self-censorship. For a post-traumatic culture, the artist is a high priest. The murder of an artist for the sake of his art shocks secular Europe rather as martyrdom once shocked Christendom. Theo van Gogh is a secular martyr.

What had he done to deserve such a fate? Submission, the film that occasioned the attack, is by no means an attack on Islam as a religion. It does not, as Rushdie did, ridicule the Prophet Mohammed. What it does is to denounce the barbaric treatment of women in many Islamic societies, focusing attention on forced marriage and the penalisation of rape victims under the guise of adultery. The imagery is deliberately provocative: verses from the Koran are inscribed on a naked woman, to drive home the message that Muslim women are human, too, beneath the veil.

It does not require much imagination to see how this tableau would strike strict Muslims, who regard the Koran as the literal, uncreated word of God, and whose customs forbid the public display of the female face, let alone her body. To them, the broadcast of such an image on television is both blasphemy and sacrilege. In their eyes, it adds to the gravity of the case that the Somali woman who wrote the script of Submission, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is a former Muslim - in other words, an apostate. She has been condemned by fatwa and survives only under police protection.

Van Gogh, as a non-Muslim, was mistakenly assumed, both by the authorities and himself, to be less at risk. In his book Allah Knows Better, however, he added insult to injury by castigating the misogyny and puritanical attitudes of local imams. Defiant to the last, he refused to alter his bohemian lifestyle, as if the Netherlands were still the haven of toleration that it had been since the revolt against Spanish rule four centuries ago.

That habit of toleration is an integral part of Dutch identity. Van Gogh's death, like that of the politician Pim Fortuyn two years ago, echoed the assassination in 1584 of the Prince of Orange, William the Silent, who is still seen as a martyr not only to the Protestant cause, but also to that of freedom of conscience. The words of the historian Motley about William the Silent - "When he died, the little children cried in the streets" - could have been said yesterday of Theo van Gogh.

In the 17th century, Holland was the only country in Europe where a Jewish apostate, Spinoza, could publish philosophical works challenging the very basis of revealed religion. The Jewish community could expel and curse Spinoza, but neither Jew nor Christian dared to harm him.

Only under German occupation was this tradition of toleration interrupted and temporarily crushed. When the Dutch Catholic bishops made a protest, the Germans responded by deporting clergy of Jewish origin, including the nun, philosopher and saint Edith Stein to Auschwitz. Anne Frank and her family were protected for four years, only to be betrayed as liberation approached. The bitter experience of occupation and collaboration has made the Dutch hypersensitive to intolerance in any form.

Now, with the manifestation of a violent form of intolerance in their midst, the iron has entered their souls. After decades of welcoming immigration and preaching multiculturalism, they now propose to expel failed asylum-seekers and to assimilate those who settle, rather than permit de facto religious segregation. If neo-conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, the Dutch are fast becoming a nation of neo-conservatives.

While the Arab-European League accused the Dutch immigration minister of giving a "Hitler speech" at a rally in protest at van Gogh's murder, the Dutch know who the real Hitlers are. Even the most liberal society is illiberal when it is a question of survival. The Dutch see those who dream of Europe under a revived caliphate as a threat to their way of life. The prospect of Islamist imams imposing sharia law on Dutch cities amounts, they feel, to a new Nazi occupation.

Unlike his great, great, great uncle Vincent, Theo van Gogh was not a genius. Was he really an artist at all? But van Gogh's murder has proved him right about the hardline Islamists. Their ideology is inimical to all that the Dutch hold dear. Last night, as van Gogh's cremation was seen on television, the tension was palpable. Holland is now the crucible of Europe. Not even the most tolerant people on earth can tolerate the Islamists.

Expatica: Netherlands: Foreign press: Risk of 'Nazi pogroms'

AMSTERDAM --- Amid growing public tension in the aftermath of the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, the Netherlands risks falling into a situation similar to the one that led to the Crystal Night in 1938 and the hardening of Jewish persecution by the Nazis, a Danish newspaper has warned.

This was the first time that riots against German Jews had been organised on such an extensive scale, accompanied by mass detention.

"We Europeans should have learned from history so that we can rise up in resistance against such beliefs," the newspaper Politiken wrote in an editorial on Wednesday.

Spanish daily El Mundo also identified a spiralling of fanaticism in the Netherlands, referring to the murder of Van Gogh last week and attacks against mosques and Islamic schools,

The Spanish newspaper also said the situation was "very serious" because "the spiralling of action and reaction threatened to shift fanaticism in the middle of 'civilised' Europe to the heart of society".

Van Gogh was shot and stabbed in Amsterdam on 2 November and a suspected Islamic militant has been arrested for the murder. Since then a series of mosques have been vandalised or have been the target of arson attacks.

An Islamic school in Eindhoven was bombed on Monday morning and a school in Uden was the target of a suspected arson attack on Tuesday night. The crimes are alleged to be in direct retaliation to the killing of Van Gogh, who was highly critical of Islam.

Meanwhile, British newspaper The Independent said the distorted social relationships in the Netherlands promises little hope for the rest of the continent. It noted with regret that public opinion in the Netherlands had shifted to the right and feared that the Dutch government will make the wrong choices.

The Dutch Cabinet's "declaration of war" against Islamic extremism has already hit a sour note with opposition MPs. Furthermore, a survey by GPD regional newspapers indicates that 40 percent of Dutch people hope Muslims no longer feel welcome in the Netherlands.

The Independent said in the present crisis, Dutch people must do everything possible to defend the tradition of freedom of expression. But it warned that the public must not allow "institutionalised Islam hate".

The New York-based magazine Newsday said in an editorial on Wednesday that the murder of Van Gogh is an eye-opening alarm signal for Europeans who have always thought that the threat of terror was a danger primarily directed at the US and Israel.

AFP: 40% of Dutch people dislike Muslims

Traditional Dutch tolerance confronts harsh realities of integration AFP: 11/11/2004

THE HAGUE, Nov 11 (AFP) - This month's brutal murder of a filmmaker in the name of radical Islam and the violent reprisals against the Muslim community have exposed a painful rift in traditionally tolerant Dutch society, increasingly torn apart by ethnic tensions.

Only two years ago, public debate on the problems of integration was still taboo until the late right-wing populist Pim Fortuyn burst onto the political scene with his bold proclamation, "enough is enough".

"We have to continue to live together in the same country," cautioned this week the mayor of Eindhoven, where a bomb exploded Monday at an Islamic school. He appealed to all Dutch people including those of immigrant descent to close ranks against any more violence.

But a recent poll showed that a staggering 40 percent of Dutch people "hope" that the 900,000 Dutch Muslims in a total population of 16 million "no longer feel at home here" after the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a suspected Islamic radical.

Even though the Dutch Muslim community was quick to condemn the killing, blamed on dual Dutch-Moroccan national Mohammed Bouyeri who was arrested shortly after the brutal murder, Muslim places of worship and schools have been targetted by vandals and arsonists.

Eighty percent of respondents to the poll, aged between 15 and 80, called for harsher measures to force immigrants to integrate.

Many suggested that the murder of Van Gogh, a vocal critic of Islam, by a Muslim radical meant the gentle Dutch approach to promoting integration and a multicultural society had failed.

Despite their tolerant image, "the Dutch have more trouble than others with accepting people who are well integrated into society but have a different skin colour or a different religion," said professor Han Entzinger, immigration and integration expert at Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

The Netherlands has a tradition of "living side by side but not together". Already in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Dutch Catholic and Protestant communities did not mix.

But Entzinger said it would be "excessive" to take the recent incidents as evidence that integration of people of immigrant descent has failed.

"You cannot conclude from a very extreme act that multiculturalism and integration have failed, that does not correspond with the facts," he said.

According to a parliamentary report on immigration, issued earlier this year by a special commission that met with hundreds of people and studied the question for months, the integration of foreigners in the Netherlands has generally been a success.

Meindert Fennema, a political scientist at the University of Amsterdam, said the case of Van Gogh's suspected killer Bouyeri, who was born and raised in the Dutch capital Amsterdam, should not be seen in terms of the success or failure of policies but in terms of the harsh flip-flop the debate on integration has taken in the last few years.

A report by Dutch security services on Muslim extremism showed there were dozens of young Dutch Muslims who felt unaccepted and alienated from Dutch society and were thus susceptible to recruitment for the jihad, or Islamic holy war.

"This phenomenon touches the Netherlands more because of the way the debate on integration has evolved rather that the actual process of integration," Fennema said.

The Dutch, he said, had had an obsession with being politically correct, making "it impossible to criticize the integration policies" without being branded a racist.

But this taboo was broken two years ago when Fortuyn's unrestrained complaints touched a public nerve. Suddenly, "everything was let loose without the least bit of restraint," Fennema said.

"Now we have the reverse where everybody starts using derogatory terms against Muslims and if you ask for some restraint you are dismissed and discredited as being old-fashioned politically correct," he said.

Both experts insisted the Netherlands must take a new -- and respectful -- approach to the immigration debate, also focussing on the place of Islam in the 21st century western world.

"Muslims should participate more actively in the political debate," Entzinger said.

IHT: The Dutch link plots to radical Muslims

The Dutch link plots to radical Muslims The Associated Press, Reuters Friday, November 12, 2004

AMSTERDAM Dutch authorities are investigating a radical Muslim group they suspect has links to the man accused of killing a filmmaker critical of Islam and to bombings in Casablanca last year.

Interior Minister Johan Remkes and Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner told Parliament in a letter on Thursday that the 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan charged with murdering Theo van Gogh had helped a radical group that has been under observation since the summer of 2002.

They said the group of young Muslims of North African origin centered on Amsterdam often met at the home of Mohammed B. He was charged last week with killing van Gogh, conspiracy to murder a politician and membership in a group with "terrorist" plans.

The ministers said members of the group had visited Pakistan, possibly for training for "jihad," or holy war, and had had contact with a man suspected by Morocco of involvement in last year's Casablanca bombings and arrested by Spain last October.

The attacks in the Moroccan city in May 2003 killed 45 people, including 12 suicide bombers.

On Wednesday, the police arrested seven people suspected of belonging to a radical Muslim network, two of them after storming an apartment in The Hague where they had taken refuge. But the police declined to say if they were linked with van Gogh's death or the Mohammed B. group.

The police said Thursday that the siege of the apartment had ended with the arrest of two Dutch nationals, aged 19 and 22. A search had uncovered three grenades, but no further explosives.

The siege on Wednesday, in which a grenade wounded four police officers, furthered tensions stirred by the death of van Gogh, who was shot and stabbed as he cycled to work on Nov. 2.

The letter to Parliament said security services would be strengthened and laws tightened so that people with dual nationality could be stripped of their Dutch citizenship if they committed crimes. New laws will also allow the closing of mosques if they engage in activities contrary to public order, it added.

The letter noted that youths of foreign origin were often victims of discrimination in the Netherlands when trying to get jobs. As a result, they "have difficulty seeing themselves as fellow citizens in a shared society. Radical ideologies use these forms of discrimination eagerly," the ministers said.

The killing of van Gogh, whose criticism of Islam outraged Muslims, has sparked a series of apparent tit-for-tat attacks on mosques, churches and schools, undermining the Dutch reputation for tolerance and raising fears among immigrant communities.

Arsonists set fire to a school and attempted to burn down two churches, the police said Thursday. There were no injuries.

A school classroom was seriously damaged in an overnight fire in the southern city of Eindhoven, the same city where a bomb exploded at a Muslim school on Monday, said a police spokesman, Pieter van Hoof. The fire was set at a predominantly Catholic school, which is attended by students of various religious backgrounds.

"We think this was done by young kids," van Hoof said. "We don't think it has to do with the current events."

In the port city of Rotterdam, two molotov cocktails were thrown at a Protestant church. One was apparently thrown through a smashed window and a second hit the sidewalk, the police said.

In the central city of Utrecht, the police were called after a fire broke out at a small church. A window had been smashed, a police statement said.

A mosque was defaced with white power symbols and Nazi swastikas in Veendam, in the northern province of Groningen, early Thursday, the Dutch media reported. The police also arrested two men, aged 20 and 23, reportedly on the verge of setting a mosque on fire in the southern town Venray.

Altogether, 20 religiously linked sites have been targeted for attacks since van Gogh was slain.

In addition to Mohammed B., the police are holding five people who are suspected of conspiracy to murder Van Gogh and others, and participation in a criminal group with terrorist intent.

The letter from the ministers said the Amsterdam home of Mohammed B. had also been frequented by Samir Azzouz, a teenager who has been charged with planning attacks on a nuclear reactor, Schiphol airport and government buildings.

Economist: After Van Gogh - Islamic terrorism in Europe

After Van Gogh Nov 11th 2004 | AMSTERDAM, BERLIN, BRUSSELS AND PARIS From The Economist print edition

"THE jihad has come to the Netherlands." That was the verdict of Jozias van Aartsen, a leading Dutch Christian Democrat, after the violence following last week's murder in Amsterdam of Theo van Gogh, a film-maker, by a Muslim radical. Attacks on mosques and Muslim schools were met by retaliatory attacks on churches. A raid on a terrorist cell in The Hague turned into a street battle featuring hand grenades and wounded policemen, before two suspects were arrested.

This sorry tale raises a big issue not just in the Netherlands, but across Europe: how far should liberal societies tolerate the intolerant? For 20 years the instinct of many has been to defend the rights and cultures of growing numbers of Muslim immigrants, even radicals. Any other approach, it was feared, would pander to racists. But both multiculturalism and tolerance are now under broad attack.

In the Netherlands, Pim Fortuyn, a gay maverick, popularised the argument that Muslim immigrants were promoting values inimical to Dutch traditions. When he was murdered in 2002, his political movement all but collapsed. But some of his arguments found a new advocate in Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a female Somali immigrant and former Muslim who is now a liberal member of parliament. She urges the Dutch to insist forcefully on the superiority of western liberal values. Ms Hirsi Ali was threatened, along with Mr Van Gogh, after they made a film together that attacked Islamic fundamentalists' treatment of women.

Voters are also turning to a new champion, Geert Wilders, a renegade member of parliament thrown out by the liberals. Polls show that his party-in-the-making might win 7-17 seats if an election were held now, largely thanks to his attacks on Islam. The government urges restraint; but it is tightening immigration controls and cracking down on Islamic extremists.

In France, Nicolas Sarkozy, now finance minister but once interior minister, commented recently that "whether I like it or not, Islam is the second biggest religion in France. So you've got to integrate it by making it more French." His government has a two-pronged approach to its 5m-strong Muslim population. It has tried to contain the radicalism of Islamists by co-opting them. And it has used a tough security regime to curb troublemakers.

To the first end, Mr Sarkozy last year set up the French Council of the Muslim Faith, an official voice for French Islam. When hardliners won elections to its regional branches and governing council, he said this was no disaster: it was best to bring such groups out of the shadows. Yet his strategy has had mixed results. A power-struggle rages in the council, threatening moderates. But one mark of the council's success was the reaction to the seizure in Iraq of two French journalists whose captors want the repeal of a ban on the headscarf in state schools. All shades of French Islam condemned the capture.

France has a strikingly harsh anti-terrorism policy. It has had no qualms in making the most of laws allowing the detention of terrorist suspects without trial for months on end. All four of its nationals repatriated from Guant�namo Bay were detained on a judge's instruction on their return to France. Dominique de Villepin, Mr Sarkozy's successor as interior minister, has been unyielding in his determination to expel imams guilty of hate crimes. When an expulsion order against Abdelkader Bouziane, an Algerian cleric based near Lyon, was overruled in the courts, Mr de Villepin changed the law---and Mr Bouziane was on the next plane out.

For Mr de Villepin, the trade-off between security and civil liberties is a fine one. But he insists "we must never find ourselves in a position of powerlessness." The French monitor activity at mosques across the country, reckoning that of 1,500 Muslim prayer places, some 50 preach a radical form of Islam. This need not mean violence, but Mr de Villepin urges vigilance: "radical Islam can be used as a breeding ground for terrorism." The French are also keen to co-operate with other European countries, fearful that their tough regime might otherwise move the problem to "softer" neighbours. With this in mind, Mr de Villepin has secured agreement with Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain to share intelligence on radical Islamists who attend training camps.

In Germany, home to 3.5m Muslims, over three times as many as the Netherlands, fears of violence and jihad are somewhat smaller. Admittedly, Islamic extremists could hit anywhere, but most Muslims in Germany are from Turkey (2.6m) or Bosnia (170,000), and espouse a more moderate form of Islam. Police have found few links between Islamic groups in Germany and the Netherlands. Yet Germany is not oblivious to the threat. As in France, the government is getting tougher on Islamic fundamentalists, even as it tries to foster integration. This double strategy underpins Germany's new immigration law: it facilitates the expulsion of Islamic radicals, but also makes language classes mandatory for immigrants.

In the same spirit, EU immigration ministers, meeting in the Netherlands, signed up on November 10th to common principles, both tender and tough, for integrating newcomers. They must be helped to take part in peaceful politics; faith must be respected, but not used to curb freedom.

In Germany, as elsewhere, there is now more emphasis on toughness. In October, after four years of legal manoeuvring, Germany ejected Metin Kaplan, the Turkish founder of an illegal Islamic group. There is less tolerance for radical Islamists using legal tricks to stay in Germany. The rule of law must "show its edge", says Otto Schily, the interior minister.

After the Van Gogh murder, calls for Europe's open societies to be more aggressive towards Islamic radicals can only get louder. "Militant Islamism is only a tiny force in Europe", wrote the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, "yet it is dangerous, because many societies on this continent have elevated their defencelessness into a virtue." Yet the risk is that, rather than the intolerant learning tolerance, the tolerant become intolerant too.

RNW: A climate of fear and revenge

The bomb explosion at the Islamic school in Eindhoven spread fear among the Muslim community which has been targeted by a wave of hate attacks in recent days.

A radical group has threatened to make the Netherlands "pay dearly" for reprisals against Muslims following last week's murder by a suspected Islamist of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. The warning by the little known group, calling itself al-Tawhid al-Islami, came in the wake of an explosion at an Islamic school in the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven.

Monday's blast, which damaged the school entrance doors but caused no injuries, was the latest in a series of attacks on Muslim targets after the murder of Van Gogh, a vocal critic of Islam. Three mosques were targeted by arsonists and two by vandals at the weekend, one of them daubed with offensive slogans and pig heads.

Some say the government's response has done little to calm the mood. Last week, for instance, Deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm declared war on Islamic fundamentalism. Not a wise move, thinks freelance journalist Imad al-Qaqa:

"I think it's a bad move, because if you say that there is a war going on, you give carte blanche to people ready to resort to violence, in this case against Muslims. It's very dangerous to say that we are now at war against radical Islam. For the average Dutchman it's not at all clear what radical Islam is. They might see a mosque and think `this is a hideout for radicals, so let's burn it or plant a bomb inside.'"

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"The message of the government should be that it is alert and that it's doing all it can to stop radicals," al-Qaqa adds. "Of course, that's a frightening thing to say, too, but it'll be far more positive than just declaring war on Muslims."

Some commentators believe Justice Minister Jan Piet Hein Donner should not have made public the letter that was pinned to the body of Theo van Gogh by the murderer, an Amsterdammer of Moroccan descent. They say the message, which declared a jihad and contained death threats against Dutch politicians, only served to add oil to the fire. But Imad al-Qaqa does not agree:

"I think it's always good to know what is going on in this society, so that people know what they and the government are up against."

The mayors of several major Dutch cities, including Eindhoven and the capital Amsterdam, have warned of further escalation. They announced on Monday that police patrols would be stepped up around Muslim houses of worship and Islamic schools, which had already been under surveillance since Van Gogh's murder.

In a televised interview, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende condemned the latest attacks and appealed for an end to the spiral of violence. "We must avoid a climate of radicalisation. An attitude of 'us against them' will not get us far," he said.

A communiqu� issued not much later by a shady Islamist group seemed to prove the prime minister's point. "We will not just stand by in the face of what is happening at our schools and mosques in Holland," a radical group has warned on an Islamic website. It asks the Dutch government to "stop Dutch television programmes which are hostile to Muslims, hurt their reputation and present them as terrorists".

Some 300,000 Dutch Muslims are of Moroccan descent. The authorities estimate that between three and five percent of all Dutch Muslims support radical ideas.

Imad al-Qaqa stresses that the Dutch people (population 16m) quickly need to come to terms with the 900,000 Muslims within their midst, and overcome existing prejudice.

"There's a Dutch expression saying `fear is a bad counsellor', and at present the Dutch appear to be afraid of what's going on, afraid of Islam and the growing presence of Muslims in the Netherlands. Islam is currently the second religion in this country and it is fastest growing of all faiths. Each year, 2000 Dutch nationals convert to Islam, and this frightens people. They feel there is now an open door which we can enter and which allows us to say we are against Muslims. No longer do they fear punishment for speaking their minds, even when they are discriminating."

Expatica: Dutch religious violence alarms Germany

BERLIN - There is growing alarm in Germany over the torching of mosques, churches and schools in the Netherlands following the brutal killing of Islam-critical film director Theo van Gogh.

With 3.4 million Muslims comprising 4 percent of Germany's population, the question was put this way by a banner headline in the conservative Bild newspaper: "Is the hate going to come here?" asked the biggest selling tabloid.

The Berliner Zeitung, a left-leaning paper in the German capital where about 200,000 mainly Turkish Muslims live, claims to know the answer: "The feelings of hated against the majority Christian society are growing."

So far there has not been a high profile killing in Germany to match the stabbing and shooting of van Gogh. But a series of attacks on Jews in Berlin by Arab youths have sharply raised concerns.

Germany's tough-minded interior minister, Otto Schily, spoke at the weekend of "a danger" to the country despite successes in integrating the majority of immigrants.

Schily drew headlines earlier this year with a harsh warning to Islamic fundamentalists: "If you love death so much, then it can be yours."

German opposition conservatives are demanding a ban on preaching in mosques in any language other than German.

Calls for such a move were fuelled by a dramatic TV film secretly made last week in a Berlin mosque.

"These Germans, these atheists, these Europeans don't shave under their arms and their sweat collects under their hair with a revolting smell and they stink," said the preacher at the Mevlana Mosque in Berlin's Kreuzberg district, in the film made by Germany's ZDF public TV, adding: "Hell lives for the infidels! Down with all democracies and all democrats!"

There are also demands for loosening German laws to make it easier to expel foreign extremists after years of wrangles to win approval for deportation of radical Turkish Islamist, Metin Kaplan, the self- styled "Caliph of Cologne".

Udo Ulfkotte, a German journalist who has received death threats since writing a critical book on Islam titled "The War in our Cities," underlines that many of the group responsible for the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US had lived in Germany.

Asked about van Gogh's killing, Ulfkotte said: "The spark could jump over here at any time. We just need a provocation like in Holland. Islamists in Germany approved of (van Gogh's) murder and many of them actually cheered it."

But other experts - while not downplaying threats - warn against being alarmist.

Steffen Angenendt, a migration expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations and member of the German government's "Council of Experts on Immigration and Integration," argues Germany is far better off than the Netherlands.

Holland, says Angenendt, now faces "the rubble" of its failed policy of tolerant multi-culturalism for which it was the European flagship during the past decades.

Only limited efforts were made at integration in the Netherlands after which the foreign communities were largely ignored, says Angenendt.

First is geography: Germany is not nearly as densely settled as the Netherlands and people have more room. "The Dutch feel as if they have no space," said Angenendt.

A second plus for Germany is that unlike Holland the cities with big foreign populations, such as Berlin and Frankfurt, mostly do not have districts totally dominated by one group. Even Berlin-Kreuzberg with its big Turkish community is still a multi-ethnic society, he says.

Thirdly, integration has generally worked better in Germany than in countries like the Netherlands, Angenendt says. This will improve further from January 1 when Germany's new immigration law comes into force.

Under this legislation all new immigrants will have to take 600 hours German language instruction plus a 30 hour course on German society. In addition, 50,000 immigrants already here will be eligible to take the courses each year.

A further point, not directly mentioned by Angenendt, is the fact that 75 percent of Germany's Muslims are from Turkey.

A survey by the Islam Archive in Soest - which houses a major collection of Islamic books and documents - found that the majority of Turks in Germany do not even practice their religion.

Says Buelent Arslan, head of the German-Turkish Forum: "We have an Islam which is very influenced by Turkey and this is the most enlightened and secular."

Germany's "Verfassungschutz" - the domestic intelligence service - estimates there are 31,000 radical Islamists living in Germany of whom several thousands are prepared to use violence.

The biggest group is a Turkish movement named "Milli Goerues" with 26,500 members, which fights against integration of Turks into German society.

In a court case which set security establishment alarm bells ringing, a judge ruled last week week that Milli Goerues membership did not justify a German airport's bid to ban an employee from working within its security zone.

The number of reported crimes carried out by foreign extremists in Germany almost tripled last year compared with 2002, warns the Verfassungsschutz.

WaTimes: Editorial: Netherlands pushed to extreme reaction

In the wake of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh's murder by an Islamist extremist, the famously tolerant Netherlands exploded in violence last week with a rash of attacks on mosques and the firebombing of a Muslim school. In all, the Dutch sustained just one victim of Islamist terrorism --- not the nearly 3,000 murders Americans sustained on September 11 --- but that one death pushed the country from an extreme of nonchalance to a reaction unknown in the United States.

The good news is that the experience seems to be forcing some clear-headed thinking among Dutch elites. Over the weekend, dozens of suspected militants were arrested in a sign the government is finally taking the threat of Islamist terrorism seriously. We hope the rest of Europe is watching.

Dutch politicians previously known for their dovishness as well as the liberal media are calling for a tightening of the country's laws on security and immigration. The cabinet is considering stripping dual citizens of their Dutch citizenship if they have criminal records. There is talk of bolstering budgets for the security services, too. But most telling is the about-face the murder caused in the country's newspapers and overwhelmingly liberal commentariat. The country's leading newspaper, the Telegraaf, last week made a call for action inconceivable in a pre-van Gogh Netherlands.

The Telegraaf argued for "a very public crackdown on extremist Muslim fanatics in order to assuage the fear of citizens and to warn the fanatics that they must not cross over the boundaries." The editorial continued: "International cash transfers must be more tightly controlled; magazines and papers which include incitement should be suppressed; unsuitable mosques should be shut down and imams who encourage illegal acts should be thrown out of the country." Extremists with dual nationality "have no business here," the paper argued. "The range of extremists to be kept under surveillance needs to be expanded. If more money is required for all this, then that money must be made available. It is more than worth it for the sake of the citizens' safety."

The irony of all this is that the United States has been urging the Europeans to take many of those steps for years. For one, the Treasury Department and the CIA have long been urging movement on the international cash transfers question. As terror-financing expert Lee Wolosky told the September 11 commission last year, although cooperation had been improving, "America's closest allies in Europe ... [were] refusing to block bank accounts in some cases." As an example of the prevailing attitude, he pointed to the EU's policy of allowing fund-raising for Hamas' "humanitarian" branches despite common knowledge that such funds were being used to support terrorist activities. That has to stop.

The attitude of blithe disregard for common sense should change. The Dutch government appears to be moving in the right direction in dealing with this problem. While it does so, it will also need to be be prepared to act forcefully against thugs and vigilantes who target innocent Muslims. Let's hope the rest of Europe is watching, because the Dutch case shows that Islamist terrorism spares not even the most tolerant of countries.

IHT: Dutch leader urges dialog with Muslims

Dutch leader urges dialogue with Muslims The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse Monday, November 15, 2004

THE HAGUE: Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende visited a mosque at Eindhoven on Sunday for the feast marking the end of Ramadan after the attempted firebombing of an Islamic school during the night.

The attack on the school in Helden, which caused no injuries or major damage, was one of more than a dozen such actions since the slaying of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh on Nov. 2 by a suspected Islamic radical. Police said the fire was probably criminal.

Balkendende stressed the importance of dialogue between the various communities in the Netherlands, and the rector of the mosque presented him with a bunch of tulips - "a flower of Turkish origin that has become a symbol of the Netherlands," the rector said - as a symbol that "we feel at home here."

In another development, the Dutch authorities said 13 young Muslims arrested on terrorism charges in the van Gogh murder were members of a radical Islamic group with international links and a Syrian-born spiritual leader.

The Dutch intelligence officials said the group was called the Hofstad Network. A Justice Ministry official said a 43-year-old Syrian, Redouan al-Issar, whom he called the group's spiritual leader, had disappeared.

Van Gogh was killed on an Amsterdam street, apparently for criticizing Islam. Mohammed Bouyeri, 26, of Amsterdam, was arrested in a shootout with the police minutes after the filmmaker died of gunshot wounds and a slit throat. Bouyeri carried a will saying he was prepared to die for Islam.

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21 news stories after the murder of Theo van Gogh