Netherlands: Muslim adviser to ruling party spent time in prison as part of jihad group that wanted to kill Wilders

A remarkable news story out of the Netherlands vividly illustrates how much mass Muslim migration has already transformed Europe, and will continue to transform it in the near future. A Muslim woman named Soumaya Sahla has just resigned as an adviser to the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), the party of Prime Minister Mark Rutte. This is because it was recently revealed that in 2005, Sahla was arrested and charged with terrorist activities as a member of the Hofstad Network, an Islamic jihad group in the Netherlands that wanted to murder Geert Wilders for criticizing of Islam.

Sahla was not a keyboard jihadi. She had an automatic weapon when she was arrested, and spent three years in prison. Yet she was still able to become an influential member of the VVD. VVD officials apparently didn’t know or care about her past, until Wilders himself called attention to it. After all, they hate Wilders, too.

The Dutch columnist Frits Bosch has the background of this sorry affair in a Thursday column in De Dagelijske Standaard, helpfully translated by Gary Fouse. “Since 2011,” Bosch notes, “Soumaya Sahla has been the right hand of the VVD celebrity Frits Bolkestein, 88.” Bolkestein is a veteran Dutch politician who was the leader of the VVD from 1990 to 1998 and European Commissioner for Internal Market from 1999 until 2004.

Sahla, therefore, as his “right hand,” had a position of immense power and influence, and no one seemed to care about her past, if they had taken the trouble to find out about it at all: “She was never a problem for the party until Geert Wilders rang the bell, and her past was revealed during the Second Chamber (Parliament) talks over the coalition accord.”

Wilders’ revelation was not greeted with unalloyed gratitude for exposing this potentially dangerous individual. In fact, the media was enraged not at Soumaya Sahla, but at Geert Wilders himself: “The mainstream media and the (2nd) Chamber were furious that Wilders came forward, he was ‘racist’. Until big objections arose against her from the VVD itself, ‘How can this be, why didn’t we know?’. A spicy detail is that Geert Wilders himself enjoyed the mentorship of van Bolkestein as a faction member of the VVD. It is completely right that Wilders came forward. Fortunately, there is still someone awake in the 2nd Chamber.”

Bosch continues: “It would be appropriate if the mainstream media swiftly offered their apologies to Wilders. Naturally, they won’t do that. The moral level of the mainstream media and Chamber members is lousy, but that’s not news. Ignore the potential danger of a dangerous threat.” He points out that “Islam has the controversial practice of taqiyya. It would allow Muslims, ‘for the good cause’ to feign integration and moderation, to emerge like a devil out of a box as a true Muslim if that makes sense. So in England, in part of London, sharia law applies. Here no. Do (Kauthar) Bouchallikht and Sahla practice taqiyya? We’ll never know.”

Meanwhile, Soumaya Sahla herself has issued a statement: “There has been a lot of commotion in the past weeks about me and my past. I regret that deeply and feel the need to say a few things about it. I want to be held accountable for a period of 16 years ago which I am not proud of. It is a black page in my life. I deeply regret the choices that I made then, and everyone in my circle knows that about me. I turned those pages a long time ago. I now see that it is good that (I) also express this regret publicly. I gladly dedicate myself daily to the safety and freedom of our beautiful country. From this motivation, I am also actively involved in the VVD. The commotion that has arisen stands in the way of my positive contribution at this time. Thus, I am resigning my chairmanship in the J and V thematic network. I remain motivated to look where I can make a contribution in a free and safe society. I am also remaining in the VVD.”

Well, great. But imagine if an “Islamophobic” official had been part of a group that plotted to kill a Muslim politician (not that this ever happened, or would happen). Do you think he or she would be blandly forgiven today? Right.

Way back in 2007, by some astounding oversight I was invited to speak at a conference in Berlin sponsored by the U.S. State Department and German Foreign Ministry. The event turned out to be a plodding affair with just one memorable moment: one upstart attendee dared to note the high crime rate, strain on the welfare system, and other negative effects of mass Muslim migration, and asked the assembled American and German officials why it had all been done in the first place. One German answered that the benefits to Europe were so great that the enterprise was worth all the trouble. Soumaya Sahla has just given us a shining example of those benefits.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 23 books including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad and The History of Jihad. His latest book is The Critical Qur’an. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.

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