[ April 18, 2024 ]
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Imagine the third presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Could you conceive of the Republican candidate wearing a bulletproof vest? It just happened in the Netherlands.
It was Prime Minister Mark Rutte against Geert Wilders. The Dutch daily Telegraaf revealed that during the last televised debate with Rutte, Wilders wore a black sweater under his jacket. It was used to camouflage his bulletproof vest, which the Dutch security service asked him to wear in the TV studio. He could not exclude the possibility of meeting the fate of the Russian ambassador in Turkey, who was murdered by one of his own security guards in front of the cameras.
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Wilders’ bulletproof vest is Europe’s symbol of fear. He committed what George Orwell called “thoughtcrime.” The worst thoughtcrime one can commit today in Europe is criticizing Islam. A few years ago, Wilders was the featured speaker at the Ronald Reagan Library. He said that Islam is an “ideology” and “a threat to the Europe of Bach and Michelangelo, Shakespeare and Socrates, Galileo and Voltaire,” and that Israel is a “oasis of enlightenment,” while all around it is obscurantism. No one dares to speak like him today in Europe. That is why terrorists and Islamic supremacists want him dead.
If you want to meet Wilders in the Dutch Parliament in The Hague, you have to pass one X-ray machine, two checkpoints, and guards in front of his office. The windows are bulletproof. The Dutch government had to build a special house for Wilders that looks like a prison, with bomb-proof walls, shatterproof windows and cameras everywhere. A dozen bodyguards follow him. Three-quarters of the threats that arrive each year to Dutch politicians are directed to him, Geert Wilders. Police had to open a special office to handle all the threats that come from all over the world against him, including from Iraq and Syria and Hebron.
It all began 13 years ago, when in the personal computer of the Muslim terrorist who slew filmmaker Theo van Gogh were found plans to strike Wilders. Mohammed Bouyeri had it all planned. That night, Dutch intelligence knocked at the door of Wilders’ home in Venlo to take him away. After changing a few cars, Wilders was taken to a barracks in Bergen op Zoom. In the years that followed, he and his wife have lived in different barracks, as well as in the Zeist prison.
Today, Wilders sees his wife two or three times a week. He had even to wear a disguise for a while, with wig, glasses and mustache, to avoid being recognized by his neighbors. At Pamela Geller’s Muhammad cartoon event in Texas, at which two terrorists opened fire, Wilders was protected by an armed SWAT team. He sleeps very badly. Even when he is in the Parliament, Wilders does not feel at ease.
When he goes to the European Parliament, the site suddenly becomes an area to be secured. His agents block access to elevators and corridors. His entourage is anonymous. When the warning level rises, Wilders does not know where he will spend the night. Even when Wilders is visiting his wife’s family in Budapest, “safe houses” are ready for him in case of emergency. When he goes to the theatre, the last seats are all booked for him and his guards.
Those who hope that these threats are a consequence of Wilders’ “Islamophobia” are dead wrong. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has fled to the US, and the Dutch state has refused to continue to pay for her safety. There are professors in Leiden, such as Afshin Ellian, who live under guard protection. And elsewhere in Europe there are critics of Islam who have to live as does Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan.
For the first time since the Second World War, today in Europe writers, journalists and intellectuals are hunted for their own ideas and writings. Many of them have to be protected like heads of state.
The most famous is Michel Houellebecq, author of Submission, who lives under the protection of the gendarmerie since he published his novel. There is haute protection (“high protection”) for Eric Zemmour, who wrote Le Suicide Français. Charlie Hebdo’s director, “Riss,” is also protected, as is my friend Robert Redeker, a professor of philosophy who was condemned to death in 2006 by Muslim supremacists for an article he wrote in Le Figaro. The Franco-Algerian journalist Zineb Rhazouui is surrounded by six policemen. In Denmark, the headquarters of the Jyllands Posten newspaper, which published the original Mohammed cartoons, has a barbed wire fence two meters high, like a U.S. embassy in Amman and Baghdad. There is also a door with double lock, while employees can only enter one at a time by typing a code (a measure that did not protect the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo). The Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, author of the caricature of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, lives in a house-fortress, with cameras and security windows and machine gun toting guards outside. Many Danish cartoonists and journalists disappeared to avoid this hard life.
Europe’s technocrats are hoping that “populism” is a temporary threat to them. But the threats to the life of Geert Wilders, and the pledge that his bulletproof vest represents in a Europe under Islamic siege, remain, and will only get more severe.
Giulio Meotti, cultural editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author. He is the author of three books: A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel’s Victims of Terrorism (Encounter Books); J’Accuse: the Vatican Against Israel (Mantua Books), and La fine dell’Europa, about the Christian and demographic decline in Europe. He is a columnist at Arutz Sheva and his writings have appeared in publications including the Wall Street Journal, FrontPage, Commentary, and The Geller Report.
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22 Comments
7 years ago
What a great and informative article with hot topic references. Thank you.
7 years ago
Honestly I just took it for granted that he did, considering the hostile social climate. Nothing makes America better than exercising your second amendment while sporting your MAGA gear. Wilders, on the other hand, is in a tough spot, stuck in between savages and socialist globalists. I do admire his tenacity.
7 years ago
Reply to
Collin R. Hinrichs
My bet is that he has something on all the time. They make ballistic clothing now too. There are ballistic blankets also. Ballistic blankets would be perfect for vehicle carry.
Wilders is one of the bravest people on the planet.
7 years ago
Reply to
Pray Hard
The more protection, the better. Ballistic blankets, that sounds pretty cool. With all the snakes in DC, President Trump needs everything at his disposal.
I agree 100% on Wilders, it’s absolutely insane the dangers he faces in his own country in his native Europe.
7 years ago
Being Geert’s or Pamela’s yojimbo would be an honor.
7 years ago
Trump nearly ALWAYS wears a bullet proof vest.
Rallies and any PUBLIC appearances this is required.
I am sorry to learn that Wilders has such a high cost to pay for being honest. I hope he doesn’t let it wear him down. He is PATRIOT and speaks the truth.
7 years ago
It would be a lot less trouble to get rid of muslims, as if they did assassinate their target, they would not stop, they would go on to the next one. islam is a death cult, one human sacrifice is not enough, neither is 6,000,000.
D
7 years ago
Excellent article.
The first step is for each nation that wants to survive to secure its own borders. Don’t expect the EU to do it for you.
7 years ago
Wilders is my hero. Brave man.
7 years ago
Frankly, I’m surprised the government protects him at all. I would expect those leftist creeps to give him the same treatment they give Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The man is a true hero.
7 years ago
Reply to
VLParker
If anything happened to Geert it could very well trigger a civil war in the Netherlands — and if the collaborating scum in the Dutch parliament lose that civil war it would be their a$$.
7 years ago
Reply to
IzlamIsTyranny
It could very well happen, don’t forget that earlier this year they had to remove several members of Gert’s security team and or controllers due to their Islamic terror connections.
7 years ago
Anyone remember Molly Norris in the USA? The f’ing enemedia certainly don’t. Considering how obviously corrupt the F-I-B is these days I wonder if some enterprising muslum F-I-B employee hasn’t already dropped the dime on her.
D
7 years ago
Unfortunately, Wilders lost to the centrist the other day, I don’t remember more details. I hope I’m incorrect.
7 years ago
We saw what happened to the russian ambassador to turkey awhile back and we’ve seen the thugs in chicago and berkeley and many other places. http://www.voanews.com/a/russian-ambassador-to-turkey-wounded-in-shooting/3642086.html I wouldn’t put it past some of those homeless to take a payoff and go to jail to kick back a few years to try something against our President.
7 years ago
I cannot imagine what Geert goes thru living in the Netherlands. I just hope he doesn’t have any f’ing muslums in his security detail.
7 years ago
Shameful that freedom loving people of any nation must live in constant terror because of a scourge called islam. Shameful that governments are appeasing this filth called islam instead of protecting their own citizens.
7 years ago
Geert Wilders: Most Threatened Politician in the Netherlands
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=q4edskmpXE8
Obama: ‘The Future Must Not Belong To Those Who Slander the Prophet of Islam’
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/328483/obama-future-must-not-belong-those-who-slander-prophet-islam-katrina-trinko
7 years ago
Don’t forget that during the primary campaign there were several security scares at Trump events where there were actual arrests made. And he hasn’t been President barely 60 days and there have already been a handful of whack jobs leaping the WH fence, the most recent spending nearly a half hour on the grounds before being arrested.
7 years ago
There were days when people smiled. We looked to the hillsides and the green pleased us. We looked to the sky and the blue and the sun gave us hope. We were naive and comfortable with the only the small conflicts of the day to worry us. We did not consider safety. We planned our visits to foreign lands, we longed to meet others, and life was good.
I blame the left, the Libs, the progressives. I shall never forget how they brought us to this place of darkness and impending doom. All this that we read about here and everywhere…..that is on them. They own it. Any good that could ever come out of their court, means nothing. Nothing they do can rectify what they have done.
All those dead, all those abused, all those terrified, and the nations of people who looked to our leaders to do right by us, they have pierced our hearts. If there is justice let it come. If God hears us, let Him act.
This man Wilders, he stands as a condemnation to the Netherlands. The fools will embrace their fate.
7 years ago
We conservative, patriotic, AMERICA loving men and women are losing our country. I thought Trump could slow it down, but now I see that he won’t be allowed to. The judges will undermine him every time.
7 years ago
Soo Sad, that Wildeders has to endure this horrible lifestyle. Seen him speak, with pam, at the ground zero mosque peotests years ago. Excellent speaker. God speed, Mr Wilders… you should have won
