Dutch investigative reporter Vermaat’s new book is meant to warn those in the West who, while appalled by the barbaric excesses of ISIS and like-minded groups, have yet to take the Islamist threat seriously. In Hatred Must Not Spill over into Our Streets, he meticulously details the genesis of ISIS, the psychology of its members, and the sociopolitical impact of their actions worldwide.
Vermaat is not shy about stating the root of the problem as he perceives it. He recounts the history of violence within Islam from the time of Muhammad until today and characterizes its “glorification of death as a religious and Satanic ritual.” The author of several volumes on Nazism and the Holocaust, Vermaat draws parallels between ISIS and the Nazi SS, both of whose members believed that the “enemy was life itself.”
Much of the book is devoted to stories of Western-based Muslims, male and female, who took part in jihad in Syria. Vermaat chronicles their backgrounds, experiences, and in some cases, their legal circumstances upon their return to their Western countries of origin.
Witnessing the massive influx of Middle Eastern refugees to Western shores, Vermaat warns of the dangers of mass immigration from Muslim countries and how this refugee conduit is being exploited by ISIS to bring jihadists into Europe. “ISIS and Hamas are preparing for a new Holocaust,” he warns, citing the self-proclaimed caliph of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has announced that “the Jews are enemies of Islam ... who must be destroyed.” He also criticizes the European elites’ embrace of Turkey, arguing that it must never become a member of the EU: “Turkey is on the way to becoming a totalitarian state ruled by radical Muslims.”
Vermaat’s book, written before the current Muslim flood into Europe, is an invaluable guide to the dangers posed by radical Islam in the West and is a wake-up call to the Dutch-speaking public. The problems he highlights describe a reality that threatens the future of Western civilization.