I found the content of this article from forward.com, Sukkah Sparks Controversy in Mostly Muslim Dutch Neighborhood – Forward.com not unexpected, which makes it more depressing.
The Jew involved was told
...he could build his sukkah only on condition that he dismantle it by 9 o’clock each night. According to Schomberg [the builder of the Sukkah] , the police had advised the city against allowing a sukkah at all, since it might invite Muslim vandalism*. (Emphasis added.)I am old enough to recall that during the civil right movement, the excuse of potential violence was used to try and deny pro-civil right protesters parade permits.*
However it was decided, by courts in this country, that the civil authority had a positive responsibility to protect legitimate public displays of opinion, which would include religion.
That does not appear to be the opinion of the Dutch state. One wonders, if this issue were to come before the European Court of Human Rights, whether it would rule that state's have a positive responsibility to protect such rights, like Google's positive responsibility to allow the past to be forgotten.
It does appear to be an attitude that divides the Muslim population from the rest of society and infantilizes it -- that you aren't really fully human, so we can't require you behave in a civil way.
The behavior of the local Jewish leadership is not uplifting: "his [the Sukkah builder's] behavior puts the entire Jewish community in the Hague (and the Netherlands) at risk." -- 'Who will be for me', indeed (, Pirke Avot I.15).
As a Jew, this tends to reinforce the view that Europe can never be a home for us.
As a member of 'western civilization' ("It would be a good idea" -- Ghandi), if this is as typical of Europe as it sometimes appears, I despair.
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*For the record, I supported the right of Nazis to march in Skokie, so I suppose I am a fundamentalist on this issue.
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