Due to the growing hostility ofa large part of Holland's Muslim population, Dutch Jews should emigrate to the United States or to Israel, said Frits Bolkestein, former European Commissioner and ex-leader of Holland's ruling right-wing VVD party.

The statement appeared in the book Het Verval (The Decline), written by Manfred Gerstenfeld, a Netherlands-born Holocaust survivor and senior researcher at the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs.

The book, published last week, examines the attitude of the Dutch Protestant Church towards Jews and argues that antisemitism is not restricted to people of Muslim background in the Netherlands.

Speaking from Jerusalem, Mr Gerstenfeld said he found it "amazing how seven lines out of a book of 280 pages started a media-rodeo around Frits Bolkestein".

According to Mr Gerstenfeld, Mr Bolkestein maintains that the future of Jews who retain a link with Judaism is grim in the Netherlands. "Any Jew who looks or acts Jewish will have
a hard time in Holland due to the growing part of Muslims who hate Jews,"
he said.

"Bolkestein never said that all Muslims are Jew-haters; he said that there is a large amount of Muslims in Holland who hate Jews. Bolkestein added that the Dutch government didn't act properly to protect its Jewish population from antisemitic attitudes or attacks from its growing number of Muslim inhabitants. Hence, according to Bolkestein, those Jews who wish to live a peaceful Jewish life should leave the Netherlands."

In 2007, Mr Gerstenfeld published Academics Against Israel and the Jews, a book discussing instances of academic bias against Israel and Jews.