Dutch MP Wilders to Haaretz: There is a witch hunt against my party

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Controversial anti-Islam Dutch politician Gert Wilders to visit Israel on Sunday; demonstration expected at site of his planned speech in Tel Aviv.

THE HAGUE - Geert Wilders’ umpteenth visit to Israel on Sunday will offer him refuge not only from the cold gripping Holland, but also from the worst political storm to hit this famous and controversial Dutch politician so far.

For Wilders, this will be the first visit to Israel since reaching real power for the first time. And it will also be the first time he is greeted in Israel with protests by people who oppose his views.

Over the past month, reports about the questionable practices of some of the members of his Party for Freedom have dominated Dutch media, which seemed to relish breaking one scandal after another about the rightist, anti-Islam, anti-crime PVV party.

The latest scandal concerned Marcial Hernandez, who settled last week out of court for assault. Earlier, Eric Lucassen was found to have been convicted of sexual abuse in the army and to have reportedly threatened his neighbors. Yet another allegedly head-butted a waiter in a bar, and another was caught lying on his CV.

“We made mistakes, I made mistakes,” said an apologetic Wilders, who joined the coalition for the first time as a shadow partner in October after his party came out third largest in the June elections. His party received nine seats out of 150 in 2006.

He did not deny that a party with a law-and-order agenda such as his own is more exposed to attacks on this issue. Wilders said he “doesn’t blame the media” for his mistakes, but nonetheless said they mounted a “witch-hunt focused on the PVV.“

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/dutch-mp-wilders-to-haaretz-there-is-a-witch-hunt-against-my-party-1.328892

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1. Contentious Dutch politician calls on Israel to annex West Bank, send Palestinians to Jordan

TEL AVIV, Israel - A contentious Dutch politician on Sunday called on Israel to build more settlements in the West Bank in defiance of international demands for a construction freeze.

Geert Wilders, who has made a name as a staunch critic of Islam, said building must continue so Israel can create defensible borders — by annexing the West Bank.

"A country that is only 15 kilometres wide is impossible to defend," Wilders said, referring the country's narrowest corridor — 9 miles from the West Bank to the Israeli Mediterranean city of Netanya.

While Wilders doesn't represent the Dutch government, he leads the Netherlands third most popular party, which supports the ruling coalition.

The international community is demanding that Israel halt settlement building in the West Bank, which Palestinians seek as part of their future state, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem.

Israeli-Palestinian peace talks stalled shortly after they resumed in September over a Palestinian demand that Israel renew a 10-month slowdown in West Bank construction. Israel has refused, asking for written political and military assurances from the U.S. in return for a three-month extension.

Wilders declared that Israel's Jews had a right to live in the West Bank, captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/contentious-dutch-politician-calls-on-israel-to-annex-west-bank-send-palestinians-to-jordan-111348574.html

[Turbineguy]

2. Who needs to hunt?

they are pretty obvious.

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3. As with all hatemongers, he thinks he's being persecuted for his views...

What I think is a real shame is that he's allowed to enter Israel on what seems to be a semi-regular basis. Israel will deny entry to left-wing opponents of the occupation like Noam Chomsky, but allows the likes of Wilders. There's something really not right there...

[Donald Ian Rankin]

4. The shame is that they're not letting Chomsky in, not that they are letting Wilders in.

Nothing short of active incitement to crime (specifically *not* just "speech likely to result in crime but not intended to do so") justifies restricting freedom of movement, and so far as I know Wilders stops short of that.

[oberliner]

5. That was a one-time clerical error - Chomsky is allowed into the country

The Israeli government has said it made a "big mistake'' by barring Noam Chomsky, an American academic and political activist, from entering the occupied West Bank earlier this week.

The interior ministry said on Tuesday that a low-level border clerk had wrongfully denied him entry, and that he was now free to enter.

"He should have been allowed in, it was a big mistake," Sabine Haddad, a spokeswoman for the ministry, told the Associated Press news agency.

"The clerk for some reason thought there was an issue of letting him in so denied him access. If he wants to come to the border he will be allowed in."

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/05/201051904343834346.html

[azurnoir]

6. As distastful to put it mildly as I find Wilders in general his whining

about a witch hunt focused on his party is almost comical, from an American point of view where our politicians live in the public eye. From what I am reading of the charges against his party members they would be 'front page' news in almost any Western country and likely more than a few others