From Expatica, with thanks to Anthony:
AMSTERDAM “” MPs have strongly criticised Deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm for his declaration of war against Islamic extremism last week.
Green-left GroenLinks leader Femke Halsema said she was “extremely unhappy” about the statement, claiming that Zalm had suggested “everything was possible”, newspaper De Telegraaf reported.
Admitting that the Cabinet needed to do everything what it could to combat Muslim extremism, she also said it needed to show self-restraint. “We fall too easy into an ‘us and them’ antithesis with the word war,” she said.
Heavens to betsy, that would be horrid. After all, our jihadist sisters and brothers certainly didn’t manifest any “us-and-them” thinking when van Gogh was murdered, now did they?
In declaring war on Islamic extremism last Friday and the subsequent steps it entailed, Zalm said the cabinet would expand the Dutch intelligence service AIVD, requiring an increase in funding.
It will also investigate the possibility of revoking the Dutch passports of violent offenders who hold dual nationality status. The government will also remain in contact with Muslim organisations in a joint bid to crackdown on extremists.
Cabinet ministers also discussed last week the controversial El Tawheed mosque in Amsterdam, where the suspected killer of Theo van Gogh, 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan Mohammed B., regularly attended.
But the announced measures “” taken in response to the brutal murder of Van Gogh in Amsterdam on 2 November “” were largely ignored as MPs raced each other to condemn the cabinet’s war talk.