It took a while, but Europeans have finally noticed that the price of oil has run completely out of hand. Honest to God, I didn’t realize that fuel had become as expensive as it has either, until I returned back in the Netherlands and had to buy fuel for in the car; slightly above 1.60 euro per liter for normal fuel (at the gas station I went to). That’s ridiculously high (say $2.50 per liter, that’s $6.25 per gallon if I am not mistaken). (more…)

This should serve as a reminder to the Dutch that our troops are fighting a battle against a ferocious enemy in Afghanistan, and it should also remind Americans that they most certainly have allies in the war against terrorism. And those allies suffer. Several Dutchmen have been killed by the Taliban already, of course, but now the Taliban seem to have purposefully taken the life of the son of Dutch Military chief. (more…)

Mike McNally summarizes what happened in the last couple of months after Wilders announced that he would make a movie, how it was received by quite some Muslims, and how the Dutch government (and other European governments) dealt with it. It’s a fairly good article, I encourage you to click on that link and read it. (more…)

Foreign readers will most likely not believe the following, but the Dutch Parliament debated about (link in Dutch) Geert Wilders movie “Fitna” yesterday. The debate was one happy affair: it was Wilders against the rest. Every single other party tried to put as much distance between itself and Wilders’ party the PVV, and the Dutch Cabinet and Wilders clashed over what had and had not happened. (more…)

The German newspaper the Spiegel published a fairly good article about the latest controversy surrounding Dutch MP Geert Wilders. As you all will know by now, Wilders has produced an anti-Islam movie called “Fitna.” Shortly after word came out that he would make such a movie, all hell broke loose. People - even governments and government officials - asked or demanded Wilders not to go ahead with the plan. Fundamentalist Muslims in foreign countries found out about the plan, and started threatening the Dutch government and people. But Wilders refused to bow to the pressure. (more…)

The Dutch government and Parliament have decided to stay in Afghanistan until 2010. A few months ago, the Dutch cabinet already said that it wanted to prolong our stay in the Afghan province of Oruzgan, but now most other MP’s have agreed to stay in the war-torn country for a couple of years more as well. (more…)

Via Jihad Watch comes the news that Dutch public broadcaster the KRO (Catholic) has given up on a project that intended to prove that one can very well commit violence based on the Bible. The reason? “After extensive research, linking Bible quotations with real political events and acts of violence however produced an insufficient basis for a thorough journalistic production.” (more…)

Frankly, right-wing politician Geert Wilders convicts himself by saying that he doesn’t “hate Muslims” but “Islam.” Whoever calls Wilders “excellent” shows that he or she, in this case, is a prejudiced, hateful human being who should never be in a position of power in any (Western) country. (more…)

Well, great. All this controversy for nothing: Geert Wilders’ movie will be finished two months later than he thought. It will now, most probably, be aired in March. This means that Wilders’ opponents have the time to sue him as to prevent him from airing it; either on television or on the Internet. (more…)

A recently conducted poll shows that 66% of Dutch want to see Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam movie. A solid majority also wants the film to be broadcasted. This even though 40% of Dutch people are afraid for the consequences of this already controversial movie. (more…)

Where would I be without Holly? No where. Today she sent me a link to the following article: Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen “has pledged to lobby the EU member states to admit Israel to its ranks.” (more…)

My article for Pajamas Media, about Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam movie, is up. Please take the time to read it. I think that this is a very serious issue and that, if we give in now, we’ll have to give in always. I’m no fan of Wilders, but he should have the right to publish his movie, and to criticize Islam. Those who threaten us, those who riot, have to be taught a lesson and that’s that we’re not willing to give up our freedoms, just so they don’t have to feel ‘insulted.’ (more…)

Admin: Due to the receipt of death threats against PoliGazette staff and their families, this post has been suspended and the comments thread closed. I am sorry to have to do this and I detest bullying, but this is just blogging and it is not worth risking innocent people’s lives. (more…)

Anti-Muslim groups in Europe, and especially in the Netherlands, are becoming increasingly extreme. They’re not conservative: they’re fascist. (more…)

Ed Morrissey reports, linking to this article at Yahoo news, that Britain ” has endorsed nuclear power as a solution to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. They will encourage new facility construction with an eye to having the next generation of stations on line by 2020.”

As Ed points out, this isn’t exactly the solution the environmental lobby was looking for, but the fact of the matter is that nuclear energy is quite safe and that we don’t have to worry too much about the effect it will have on the environment: in fact, it will probably be good for the environment. (more…)

I haven’t been able to blog for a long time due to my travels, first to Los Angeles, then Turkey, followed by the Netherlands. I must have been away so long that on my return I discovered our property was taken over by an iguana colony, with their leader happily tanning on our patio, and all my flowers eaten by these creatures!

(more…)

In Holland, a group of brave young former Muslims has taken a stand - dare I say declared a jihad? - against the de rigueur of Islamic intolerance.

The Committee for Ex-Muslims promises to campaign for freedom of religion but has already upset the Islamic and political Establishments for stirring tensions among the million-strong Muslim community in the Netherlands.

Ehsan Jami, the committee’s founder, who rejected Islam after the attack on the twin towers in 2001, has become the most talked-about public figure in the Netherlands. He has been forced into hiding after a series of death threats and a recent attack.

The Netherlands, in addition to being home base for this site, has also been home to some high-profile slayings related to criticism of the Islamic religion, notably Theo Van Gogh, a film maker whose films were unflattering to Muslims. Clearly Jami would be right to take the threats seriously.

Mr. Jami, a 22-year-old local councilor and member of the socialist Labor Party (PvdA) in the Dutch town of Leidschendam, says:

“Sharia schools say that they will kill the ones who leave Islam. In the West people get threatened, thrown out of their family, beaten up,” Mr Jami said. “In Islam you are born Muslim. You do not even choose to be Muslim. We want that to change, so that people are free to choose who they want to be and what they want to believe in.”

Mr Jami, 22, who has abandoned his studies as his political career has taken off, denied that the choice of September 11 was deliberately provocative towards the Islamic Establishment. “We chose the date because we want to make a clear statement that we no longer tolerate the intolerence of Islam, the terrorist attacks,” he said.

“In 1965 the Church in Holland made a declaration that freedom of conscience is above hanging on to religion, so you can choose whether you are going to be a Christian or not. What we are seeking is the same thing for Islam.”

And rightly so. No religion, no cabal of any kind, can be allowed to demand life-long obedience to its creeds as a condition of retaining one’s life.

In this the question of the religion’s value is irrelevant: individuals determine the course of their lives at their own discretion, for good or ill, and no other has a legitimate right to interfere using force as a weapon.

Even those tolerance atheists and agnostics who wish to accommodate Islam’s harsher dictates cannot deny the fundamental problem that Jami, at great personal risk, is attempting to address.

So far Jami seems to be having a bit of a problem gaining widespread support.

His outspoken attack on radical Islam has led to a prelaunch walk-out from fellow committee founder Loubna Berrada, who herself rejected Islam.

She said: “I don’t wish to confront Islam itself. I only want to spread the message that Muslims should be allowed to leave Islam behind without being threatened.”

…

Jannie Groen, a writer for De Volksrant newspaper, said: “[Among Muslims] he is getting the same reaction as Ayaan Hirsi Ali that he is too confrontational but you are seeing other former Muslims now coming forward. So he has been able to put this issue of apostasy on the agenda, even though they do not want to be in the same room as him and he has had to pay a price.”

I know little about Mr. Jami and his reputation in his home country. That said, it does seem like he is pursuing a noble goal, that of giving options to a generation of people, some of whom have had no option but to remain active practitioners of a religion they have come to despise.

Cross-posted at Black Shards.

h/t memeorandum

The AP reports that The Big Donor Show, which was broadcasted yesterday evening, was a hoax. It seems that the producers believe that, because it was a hoax, anger and disgust were not justified.

Well, sorry, but I disagree. As Ed Morrissey explains:

I’m not sure which scenario was worse, but both are pretty repulsive and exploitative. The producers claim that they wanted to make a statement about the lack of organs for transplant patients, and at least the topic got some attention. However, they used real ESRD patients for the roles of the contestants, which seems rather cruel, considering that they had to pretend to abase themselves to seem the most pathetic — and the most worthy — of the transplant.

Gaius adds

This is a particularly cruel manipulation of people. Even though the participants were in on the hoax, the public was not. They were manipulated by ethically challenged con-artists with a particularly foul “end justifies the means” outlook.

One thing that has to be said, it has created an international firestorm and people are, suddenly, talking about this problem: not just in the Netherlands, but also in, say, America. As such, I guess that the show has achieved something positive. The downside: I do not think it will last (people will simply move on) and, well, I agree with what Ed wrote: joke or not, it is (still) pretty offensive.

An older post from Daniel Pipes:

Ouafaa Abrazi, a Muslim woman of Moroccan origins who teaches in the Muslim Yunus Emre primary school in The Hague, is running for public office. Specifically, she is on the Islam Democraten ticket in municipal elections in the Zuid-Holland region. Her particular focus is to prevent the government from banning the burqa in public. But what makes her campaign particularly notable is her seeking votes only in mosques. “She does not want to give interviews and we must also not give her phone number to anyone,” said Islam Democrat leader Hasan Kucuk. “She does not want to appear in public and certainly not have her photo in the paper.” She is under such deep cover, her name does not appear once on the Islam Democraten website.

A unique way to find out her thinking is to read her comment at the password-protected http://www.maroc.nl site, where she suggests that “We Muslims must know that it is our duty to take decisions which benefit the umma. Choosing Islam Democrats is one of them” (”Wij moslims moeten weten dat het onze plicht is om beslissingen te nemen die in het voordeel zijn voor de moslimse oemmah. het kiezen op islam democraten is één daarvan”).

Democrats gained a seat last year in a campaign which featured the issue of segregated swimming pools for men and women.

More:
- On this site they thank Ouafaa Abrazi. The website is called “My veil and me.”
- Nieuw Religieus Peil: Abrazi does not want to be filmed.
- If you google her name and add “het geheim achter onze beproevingen” you will get one hit. You can click on the HTML version of a book written by Harun Yahya, translated by Ouafaa Abrazi. I haven’t read the book yet, but couldn’t help but notice that one of the chapters is called “how infidels behave during times of tribulation,” and another one attacks evolution.
- She also participates on this forum: . In the post I link to she calls on Muslims to support her party and she writes that the party is trying to find female candidates. She writes that she is a teacher at “yunus emre,” a primary school. She also published her e-mail address there (ouafaa_abrazi@yahoo.com). Message to Ouafaa: take your burqa somewhere else. We are not looking forward to having fundamentalists in positions of power.
Luckily, some other commenters wrote that the party doesn’t have a lot of support in the Muslim community. “Gek he?!” (strange huh?) one of them writes.
Well, that is only strange if you think that many, many people want segregated swimming pools for men and women. Assuming that the far, far majority of citizens are not complete and utter idiots, however, leads one to believe that such a policy doesn’t stand a chance of gaining a lot of support.
I also wonder why these people live in the Netherlands. I am quite sure that they would feel much more at home in, say, Saudi Arabia.
And there we have it: definite proof that speaking the Dutch language doesn’t equal being integrated.

The Royal Dutch Soccer Association (KNVB) has decided that the national Dutch team will not play any matches against Morocco for the coming five years. The reason: yesterday, the Young Dutch team played against Young Morocco. After the match, which was won by Morocco, Moroccan-Dutchmen ran onto the field and destroyed everything (and everyone) they could (as shown on the image above).

All of this gave Dutch politician Geert Wilders a novel idea: young Moroccan-Dutchmen should, for a period of five years, not be allowed to attend matches in which one of the teams is Moroccan (not as fans that is). He also refers to them as “streetterrorists.”

H/t Holly

Reuters reports:

Dutch airline KLM will probably seek an independent investigation into whether it flew Nazi fugitives to Argentina after the Second World War, the national airline said on Tuesday.

Questions over KLM’s past surfaced last week after a Dutch television documentary claimed to have discovered archive documents showing the airline played an active role in helping suspected war criminals flee Germany.

A good decision by KLM. If the famous and big Dutch company helped Nazis to flee Europe after WW2, it has to be open about it, admit it, take responsibility, apologize, and compensate when / if possible.

If the documentary makers are proven to be right, it will hurt KLM’s image (rightfully) quite severely. KLM is one of those view big companies the Dutch are very proud of. If true, that attitude towards KLM might change (a bit). Of course, it would also hurt KLM’s image abroad.

It is quite amazing that there is still so much unknown about World War II: there are - I am sure - companies that worked with the Nazis but who have never been held responsible for doing so. There are still many dirty secrets out there regarding this period in Europe’s history.