1) Is it really true that (as Khaled Diab says) Germany is unwilling to grant the immigrant Turks German citizenship? The known figures do not bear this out. About 500,000 have received citizenship in recent years. On the other hand, between 25-35 percent of the rest (there are considerable variations between the various Laender) have declared that they do not wish to become citizens. And does naturalization make much difference as far as integration is concerned?

2) As for the archbishop of Canterbury and his widely criticized suggestions, a policy of appeasement vis-à-vis the Muslim minorities may be necessary to keep internal peace; this is the inevitable result of years of uncontrolled immigration—including not a few troublemakers who came under the guise of Islamist preachers. (I have dealt with this dilemma in some detail in my Last Days of Europe, 2007.) There is great resistance and the danger of a political backlash. But what is the alternative? The crucial question, of course, is how far these concessions should go.

3) As for Wilders and his hostility to Islam but not Muslims, this is a very marginal phenomenon. Europeans have shown no particular aversion towards Islam in recent centuries. In fact they have shown hardly any interest at all in the subject—hence the inherent fraudulence of the very term “Islamophobia.”

There is fear of violence and its perpetrators. Studies published last month by the German ministry of the interior show a considerable readiness among young Muslims in Germany to use violence (Gewaltbereitschaft) and opposition to democracy and its institutions. It could be argued that there is a trend towards violence and similar ideological views also between young people of the extreme right and left. But among these, this has expressed itself more often than not in verbal rather than physical aggression.

Walter Laqueur is a member of MESH.