In 2014, two Turkish-born Dutch politicians were expelled from the Dutch Labor party over their opposition to its new policies regarding the integration of immigrants. The pair went on to found an independent Muslim party, which now holds three seats (out of 150) in the nation’s parliament and has had successes in recent municipal elections—as have two or three other Muslim parties. Manfred Gerstenfeld notes some troubling aspects of the new parties’ rhetoric and even more troubling attitude toward Jews:

In Rotterdam before the 2018 municipal elections, three left-wing parties—Labor, Green Left, and the Socialist party (SP)—intended to cooperate with the Muslim party Nida. It then became known that Nida had called Israel a terror state in 2014 and would not refute this. Labor and Green Left backed out of the agreement, but the socialists remained. . . .

Earlier this year, almost all parties in the Amsterdam municipal council signed, at the request of the Jewish community, a document entitled the “Amsterdam Jewish Accord.” It states that Jews have a right to security paid for by the city government, that anti-Semitism needs to be fought, and that the Jewish elements of Amsterdam’s history should be taught to the general population. Two parties refused to sign the agreement: Denk and BIJ1, a party comprising mainly immigrants of African ancestry. A candidate in the Amsterdam elections claimed on behalf of Denk that Israel and the West had played a role in establishing Islamic State.

The pro-Israel organization CIDI has stated that Denk’s parliamentary questions and promotion on Facebook are riddled with anti-Semitic symbols, suggestions, and insinuations, hidden as criticism of Israel. . . .

Last year Israeli schoolchildren visited the Dutch parliament. [A] Muslim council member in The Hague, Abdoe Khoulani, called the students “Zionist terrorists in training” and “future child-murderers and occupiers.” A Dutch judge dismissed a court case against Khoulani, saying his remarks did not constitute incitement to hate.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.