Meanwhile, back in the Netherlands...
nltimes.nl reports on poison on the political Left, which continues its demonization of Geert Wilders, recklessly echoing the drumbeat that preceded the assassination of Pim Fortuyn in 2002.
Wilders' PVV party is currently leading in Dutch political opinion polls.
Local Labour leader wishes for Wilders death in Tweet
PvdA leader in Katwijk Willem den Hertog wished that PVV leader Geert Wilders will die of a heart attack in a post he distributed through his Twitter account late Thursday morning. Following the commotion [the death-wish-tweets] caused, [den Hartog] said the messages should not have been published, and he [deleted them].
Den Hertog’s tweets were in response to Wilders’ statement that if he [Wilders] is assassinated, the PvdA will have his blood on their hands: “I hope that the bullet does not come, but if that bullet comes from the left, then the Netherlands will know that the PvdA letters [Labor] are written on its side.”
Wilders made this statement in response to PvdA chairman Hans Spekman calling him a danger to democracy.
Den Hertog tweeted, “We all hope that Wilders dies of a heart attack in bed (if not between the legs of a left-wing parliamentarian)”, followed by. “But if there is a bullet on the way, then it is big enough to engrave ‘From the grateful Dutch people’ on it”. He concluded: “How many PVV’ers are now carving ‘PvdA’ on their bullets?”
As can be expected, the tweets resulted in a storm of angry reactions and retweets. According to Omroep West Den Hartog ... even received a number of threats. So he decided to withdraw his statements. “There is commotion about the tweets I sent about Wilders. Given the reactions, I see that I should not have sent those tweets.”
Geert Wilders did not reply to the remarks until just after 2:30 p.m. In a tweet from his official account, he wrote, “Shocking message. Maybe now Labour chairman Spekman understands what I meant.” He ended the message with a hashtag that translates to, “bullet from the left,” referring to the Labour party’s leftist political stance.