Largest Leftist Dutch Alliance Embraces Anti-Israel Motion (Worthy News In-Depth)
By Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief
NIEUWEGEIN, NETHERLANDS (Worthy News) – The Netherlands has plunged into more political turmoil after the nation’s main leftist alliance agreed to make it difficult for Israel to defend itself against missiles from Iran, Iraq, Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and others.
The GreenLeft-Labour alliance backed a motion to impose an arms embargo on Israel despite protests from prominent Jewish members of Labour (PvdA).
However, it includes banning the export of key Dutch components for Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system, which protects the Jewish nation against attacks.
Members voted overwhelmingly for the measures at a party congress in the Dutch town of Nieuwegein.
It came as a setback for former Labour legislator Rob Oudkerk, who made an emotional appeal not to adopt the motion, saying the Jewish nation would no longer be able to fend off missiles.
Kati Piri, who advocates for a complete arms embargo against Israel, accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of using the Iron Dome to attack Iran.
She argued the Iron Dome provided an excuse for Netanyahu to strike the Islamic Republic, as it was able to intercept most of Iran’s retaliatory missiles.
MILLIONS OF LIVES
However, with millions of lives at stake without such a system, Oudkerk urged the angry crowd unsuccessfully not to back Piri’s motions. “I think this was assisted euthanasia. The Labour party is dead,” he said. “It’s also not a party that wants to do anything good for the Netherlands. There were hours of debate, all about the Middle East. I would say: ‘Call the Knesset (Israeli parliament) and ask if you can join there.’ It was so immoral and shameful. Voters will see this and it will be a reason to collectively turn their backs on Labour in the upcoming elections on October 29.
He wasn’t the only Jewish party member being booed. “Sad. Dismayed. Full of disgust” is how 83-year-old Samuel de Leeuw, a Holocaust survivor, described the GreenLeft-Labour gathering.
De Leeuw is a former wreath-layer at the National Remembrance on Amsterdam’s Dam Square. In 2022, he laid a wreath on Dam Square on behalf of murdered Dutch Jews, together with King Willem-Alexander. His father, David de Leeuw, was arrested in 1942 during a raid at the Hollandia-Kattenburg textile factory in Amsterdam, the capital.
He was deported to Auschwitz and murdered at that Nazi death camp in Poland. Samuel survived as a baby thanks to a foster family in the Dutch province of Limburg, he recalled.
“My father was murdered, my family wiped out—more than a hundred relatives. I know what it’s like to be a Jew who is fair game. And now I see that my own party no longer seems to learn any lessons from that.”
After 65 years, he will end his Labour Party membership. “I’m done. I’ve tried for a long time to turn the tide, but this is the end. I will cancel my membership next week. This is no longer my party.”
He watched in horror as a motion tabled by him and other Jewish Labour members was rejected. It urged the party congress to distance itself from the alliance’s current parliamentary position that the Netherlands should stop supplying components for Iron Dome.
DEFENDING ISRAEL
“They want Israel to be unable to defend itself. While the country is under daily attack from Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, you name it,” De Leeuw said.
“This Iron Dome saves lives. Arab, Jewish, and Christian lives. And this party wants to take away that protection? That’s immoral. That was the moment I stood up and said: I’m out.”
His opinion is shared by Ronny Naftaniel, ex-chair of the Amstelveen chapter of Labou and, until his retirement, director of the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI).
“GreenLeft-Labour has become an extremist political party. An ally of the most radical forces in the Middle East,” he said.
This became clear at the party congress, he suggested, noting that 83.4% of members present demanded an “immediate and complete arms embargo against Israel.”
Additionally, some 93.6% rejected “the racist and exclusionary ideology that is dominant in Israel,” and 94.8% opposed “the genocide and apartheid being committed by Israel now and in the future.”
Critics said there was no word about October 7, 2023, when 1,200 Jews, including pregnant women and babies, were massacred by Hamas in Israel.
LEADERS CHALLENGED
He asked whether GreenLeft-Labour party leader Frans Timmermans and legislator Kati Peri will also back a motion this week for a “complete arms embargo against the U.S, now that the country has destroyed nuclear facilities in Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordo?”
Naftaniel and others fear the perceived selective anger will add to more pressure on the Netherlands’ estimated 65,000 people with a Jewish background.
Some 102,000 Dutch Jews were killed in the Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, according to official data.
While GreenLeft-Labour’s anti-Israel motion was voted down in parliament, critics suggest that “antisemitism” within its ranks could impact policies if the alliance joins the next government.
(With additional reporting by Worthy News’ Johan Th. Bos in Amstelveen, the Netherlands.)
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