dutch liberalism stares into troubled future, page-22

jojo,
I'm an optimist, too but I know that my optimism alone is not going to correct anything. One needs to be aloof and vociferous. What will make the extremists of both sides shut up is a ever forceful pressure on their governments to be transparent and faithful to democratic principles; not dictatorship of the Bush/Howard/Blair kind but real, upfront, totally truthful government, with a real understanding of the doctrine of "the separation of powers" so that their judicial systems are not corrupted by narrow minded, profiteers or religious dogmatic doctrinaires.

It is also important to accept the fact that once these institutions are corrupted by one side or the other, the cancer begins to inflame passions, at which point, we see an erruption of these passions into acts of violence. No matter how pacific the society, its people need to recognise that even they are likely to commit the same acts of violence.
What the dutch had was not "innocence" but, I'm afraid to say, appeasement (a word which you used and with which I agree); and appeasement is no answer to a wrong. Strong education and strong intervention by a just govn't and judiciary is.

This particularly important when the two major components of a society are the jews and the muslims! It has the potential of a Palestinian/Israeli separation- and that will certainly bring the whole of Europe into conflict.

And why all this? Who started it and why? Whom do we need to blame?