Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA)

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Confronting Israeli Realities with Dutch Ones

September 26, 2006 | Ayaan Hirsi Ali

In the past few years Ayaan Hirsi Ali has become known worldwide. In 2006, Reader’s Digest gave her the European of the Year award and said she best embodied Europe’s contemporary values. Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia in 1969 and granted asylum in the Netherlands in 1992. She left for the United States in spring 2006 after she had to resign from the Dutch parliament because of a minister’s ruling that she had never obtained the Dutch nationality. Under parliamentary pressure, the minister’s deci