The Netherlands: US ambassador to Netherlands describes own words as 'fake news - Martin Belam'

The US ambassador to the Netherlands faced an excruciating moment on television when he denied ever saying that there were no-go zones in the Netherlands, calling the suggestion “fake news”.

Trump’s new choice for ambassador, Pete Hoekstra, who was only sworn in by the vice president, Mike Pence, on 11 December, was being interviewed for current affairs programme Nieuwsuur by reporter Wouter Zwart.

Zwart says: “You mentioned in a debate that there are no-go zones in the Netherlands, and that cars and politicians are being set on fire in the Netherlands.”

Hoekstra replies: “I didn’t say that. This is actually an incorrect statement. We would call it fake news.”

Hoekstra is then shown clips of him saying: “The Islamic movement has now gotten to a point where they have put Europe into chaos. Chaos in the Netherlands, there are cars being burnt, there are politicians that are being burnt ... and yes there are no-go zones in the Netherlands.”

Challenged about having called this “fake news”, Hoekstra then went on to deny to Zwart that he had in fact used the phrase “fake news”.

“I didn’t call that fake news. I didn’t use the words today. I don’t think I did.”

Hoekstra, who was born in Groningen in the Netherlands, was a Republican Congressman for Michigan between 1993 and 2011, and served as chair of the House intelligence committee for two years during that time.

Note EU-Digest: "No Mr. Hoekstra, we also don't believe that story of the Dutch boy putting his finger in the dike" 

Read more: US ambassador to Netherlands describes own words as 'fake news' | World news | The Guardian

US-Dutch Relations: Dutch Wary of Trump’s Ambassador to Holland, Who Imagines “No-Go Zones” in Netherlands

Pete Hoekstra US Ambassador to the Netherlands and Donald Trump

Donald Trump's choice of Pete Hoekstra to represent the United States as ambassador to the Netherlands has alarmed Dutch observers familiar with the former congressman’s bizarre and entirely false claim that parts of their country have been surrendered to Islamist radicals, creating “no-go zones” for non-Muslims.

Hoekstra, who was born in the Netherlands but raised in Michigan as a staunch social conservative, might find himself largely unwelcome in his parents’ homeland, where even opponents of Muslim immigration, like the opposition leader Geert Wilders, typically cast themselves as defenders of liberal social values, like support for gay rights and abortion.

News of Hoekstra’s nomination prompted stunned reports in Dutch publications about the shockingly racist, anti-Chinese campaign ad he ran in 2012, his repeated efforts, during an 18-year career in Congress, to deny gay couples the right to marry or adopt children, and his leading role in the fight against government-funded health insurance.

Most baffling of all, though, was Hoekstra’s absurd claim, just two years ago, that the Dutch government had ceded control of sections of their country to Islamist radicals.

Martijn de Koning, an anthropologist at the University of Amsterdam whose research focuses on the Dutch debate over Islam, drew attention to video of comments Hoekstra made in 2015 at a conference sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Hoekstra’s contribution to a panel discussion of Muslim migration to Europe was to claim that a “stealth jihad” was underway which had plunged the Netherlands into such “chaos” that “there are cars being burned, there are politicians that are being burned, … and yes, there are no-go zones in the Netherlands.”

The former member of Congress went on to tell the conference that he and his wife had narrowly escaped from Budapest that summer, one day before thousands of Muslims seeking refuge from the war in Syria arrived in the Hungarian capital. “The little railroad station that we went through in Budapest,”

Hoekstra recalled, “the next day it was surrounded by 10,000 invaders, or refugees.”

What should make Hoekstra’s nomination to represent the United States in Europe alarming to Americans is that he is part of a far-right movement against the imaginary threat of Islamic Shariah law that uses the fear of terrorism to stoke hatred of Muslims.

Read complete report and watch video : Dutch Wary of Trump’s Ambassador, Who Imagines “No-Go Zones” in Netherlands