MH17: Compare Dutch dignity with Cameron's bombast

The PM might have given Nick Clegg some space – after all, he is half-Dutch and a Dutch speaker

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte
(Image credit: JOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images)

“This terrible disaster has left a deep wound in our society,” King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands said in a short television address yesterday, after a private meeting with relatives of victims of the Flight MH17 disaster. “The scar will be visible and tangible for years to come.”The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, who also attended the meeting of families in Utrecht, spoke of the nation’s growing outrage. “All of the Netherlands feels the anger. All of the Netherlands feels their deep grief. All of the Netherlands is standing with the next of kin.”

Some in the Netherlands don’t think their government is doing enough: they accuse it of being “too soft.” Some have demanded Nato troops are sent to secure the crash area. Some commentators have referred back to the massacres of Bosnian Muslim men at Srebrenica 19 years ago, when the Serb forces overran the UN camp then under Dutch control.

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is a writer on Western defence issues and Italian current affairs. He has worked for the Corriere della Sera in Milan, covered the Falklands invasion for BBC Radio, and worked as defence correspondent for The Daily Telegraph. His books include The Inner Sea: the Mediterranean and its People.