mosque threat letter
© YouTube/SalahedinneImam Azzedine Karrat from the Essalaam mosque in Rotterdam shows the threatening letter they received on Thursday February 25th.
Dozens of mosques in the Netherlands received an anonymous threatening letter on Thursday February 25th, the day the Netherlands commemorated 75 years since the World War II "February Strike" against the deportation of Jews and other anti-Jewish measures in Amsterdam.

The letter features a swastika and the eagle emblem of Nazi Germany. The grammatically poor text, reads:
To all Islamic places of worship. Soon there will be important visitors!! Pigs. Islam is false and devil's religion.
Imam Azzadine Karrat, asked whether this reminds him of the WWII persecution of Jews in the Netherlands, said:
"Yes, this certainly is a letter with hatred as its main content, which worries me. It's not so much about the letter itself, it's about the situation in this country, it says something about the tensions that exist here and the disruption that is apparent in society. I personally think that this is one of the fruits of far-right politics and the hatred that it propagates. It encourages people who spread these kinds of ideas. I think that as a society we have to unify in order to combat these kinds of extremist acts."
So much for Muslims' alleged unwillingness to integrate.

trumpgeert
Donald Trump and Geert Wilders
One of these far-right Dutch political parties is the American-sounding 'Party for Freedom' (PVV), led by its anti-Islamic cleric, Geert Wilders, who is the country's equivalent of Donald Trump. In a previous article, we showed parallels between Islamophobia today and the fear and hatred towards Jews around WWII. We illustrated how the PVV plays an active role in the anti-Muslim propaganda that continues to this day.

The PVV has spent over a decade manipulating people's minds by propagating the belief that refugees and Muslims constitute a threat to the country's security, which has undoubtedly contributed to their supporters' zeal in attacking or threatening Muslims and their places of worship. The PVV would be very much in agreement with this anonymous letter; that Islam is 'false' and 'the religion of the devil'.

A month ago, Wilders tweeted a picture of the planet with the text: "I'm a firm believer in the separation of Islam and planet - share if you agree," suggesting that the planet would be better off without Muslims on it. News site Dutch Turks accurately compared Wilders' sentiment to an article that was published in Dutch newspaper Provinciale Overijsselsche en Zwolsche courant on January 15th, 1942, which stated:
Behind the warmongers in England and America is the grinning Jew. Once the power of Judaism in the world is destroyed, then there will be peace.
You'd think that such a political party, one that would discriminate against a minority group and vouch for its removal in one way or another, would attract very little popularity. Alas, since the refugee crisis, PVV has gained more votes. And while a recent report entitled 'Social Status of the Netherlands' claimed that Dutch people's perceptions of Muslims has improved in the last 10 years (with approximately half of Dutch citizens now of the opinion that most Muslims have respect for others), Muslims regularly experience discrimination, and their places of worship are regularly attacked.

A recent example is an attack that took place on February 27th: a man threw a Molotov cocktail at a mosque in Enschede. Luckily, the fire was quickly put out. Dozens of people, including children, were inside the mosque at the time. This attack came just two days after the threatening letter was sent to mosques across the country. PVV supporters had the following to say about this particular attack:
"An excellent man, it is odd that the little fire didn't develop into a big one as sh*t primarily consists of methane? Too bad, a missed opportunity."

"Not burnt??? They should burn all mosques and churches, who believes in those stupid fairy tales these days. THAT's when you're really stupid!!"

"That man deserves a ribbon!"

"Much respect for this man."

"Strange that they arrest you for that."

"Too bad they arrested that guy, he was doing something right."
It's important to remember that during the Nazification of Germany and Europe, synagogues were destroyed. On Kristallnacht, 9 - 10 November 1938, synagogue windows were smashed and over 1,000 were burned to the ground. Whether it's attempts to torch mosques, or drawing swastikas on mosque entrances, or threatening mosques and its visitors; the trend should not go unnoticed, and it should be condemned. If we allow these things to continue, we may very well experience a repeat of the Jewish pogroms of the 1930s.

Meanwhile in the US, presidential candidate (!) Donald Trump is "strongly considering" closing American mosques, says Muslims should be forced to wear special ID cards and has called for a "total and complete shutdown" of Muslims entering the country. As this article from Counter Current says:
"We're going to have to do things that we never did before," Trump said in an interview with Yahoo News. "Some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule."

Historians of the Third Reich and Nazi Holocaust say that these methods of government control paved the way for the acceptance of the Nazi Holocaust by German citizens.
"Dangerous animals" is how Israeli PM Netanyahu described Muslims, but they are no more "dangerous" than anyone else. The following bears repeating: even if we believe everything the authorities have said about Muslims being responsible for all terrorist atrocities in the last 15 years, you're still more likely to die from brain-eating parasites, alcoholism, obesity, medical errors, risky sexual behavior, or just about anything other than terrorism.

Sociologist Charles Kurzman crunched the numbers and found that Islamic terrorism accounted for less than 1 percent of the 180,000 murders in the US between 9/11 and 2012. Instead of allowing theatre puppets like Wilders and Trump to manipulate us into believing that a threat exists where in fact there is none, perhaps we ought to follow the advice of Imam Karrat and unify in order to combat these kinds of extremist acts against innocent Muslims everywhere.