More than 100,000 Muslims in the Netherlands are prepared to use violence for the sake of Islam, according to a study by the University of Amsterdam quoted this month by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders.
The figure, which represents 11 percent of the country’s one million Muslim population, is a sobering comment on the impact of jihadism in Europe. But worse, 73, percent of the Muslim population in the country views those who go to Syria to fight in the jihad (Islamic ‘holy war’) as being “heroes.”
Wilders cited the research in an address to the Gatestone Institute in New York.
“That is 100,000 people in a country of 17 million inhabitants,” he said. “The terrorists may be only a minority, but polls suggest that they have the support of the majority.”
Wilders went on to say that 80 percent of the Turkish youths in the Netherlands “do not think that the violence by groups such as ISIS against non-believers is wrong. Four out of five,” he said. The Dutch lawmaker pointed out that although there may be many Muslims who do not agree with the violence committed in the name of Islam and its prophet, neither are they stepping up to demonstrate against it.
“I have not seen any of them, have you? The majority may not commit violence, but they do not oppose it either,” he contended. Quoting the philosopher Edmund Burke, he added, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”