He Who Pays the Piper

"There was applause when [Wilders] explained his platform. 'No sharia... No more mosques. No more immigration from Islamic countries.' But he received his loudest applause when he slammed as 'most dangerous of all are the attempts of governments all over our Western societies to draft bills that restrict our freedom of speech under the pretext of discrimination or hate speech... The second loudest applause came when he praised Israel." (Free speech stoned to death, Miranda Devine, Sunday Telegraph, 24/2/13)

And why might Wilders be praising Israel? Read on:

"As I've written before, Geert Wilders is one of the scarier politicians out there. And yet a number of Australian politicians have flirted with supporting him, or causes similar to his own. They've got nothing, however, on prominent Jewish thinkers David Horowitz and Daniel Pipes, the latter of which is a regular guest to Australia, and their funding of his legal defence - and who knows what else. Reuters has this exclusive:

'Anti-Islam groups in America have provided financial support to Dutch politician Geert Wilders, an anti-immigration campaigner who is seeking re-election to the Dutch parliament this week... The Middle East Forum, a pro-Israeli think tank based in Philadelphia, funded Wilders' legal defence in 2010 and 2011 against Dutch charges of inciting racial hatred, its director Daniel Pipes said. The MEF has a stated goal, according to its website, of protecting the 'freedom of public speech of anti-Islamist authors, promoting American interests in the Middle East and protecting the constitutional order from Middle Eastern threats'. It sent money directly to Wilders' lawyer via its Legal Project, Pipes said... David Horowitz, who runs a network of Los Angeles-based conservative groups and a website called FrontPage Magazine, said he paid Wilders' fees for making two speeches, security costs during student protests and overnight accommodation for his Dutch bodyguards during a 2009 US trip.'

"It baffles me that Jews - as people who have been subjected to horrible instances of oppression and antisemitism over the years - feel that it's OK to align themselves with such virulently racist and unapologetically anti-Islam politicians like Wilders. By extension is the support, very clear in Australia, for groups like the Q Society, which espouse almost verbatim Wilders' views, which is equally repugnant..." (How prominent Jews are funding and supporting anti-Muslim MP Geert Wilders, Liam Getreu, liamgetreu.com, 12/9/12)