The prime minister of the Netherlands on Monday declared Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s cabinet ministers for national security and finance, respectively, as personae non gratae in the kingdom, citing “settler violence.”
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, whose cabinet has a caretaker status ahead of the country’s general elections in October, threatened further action against Israel, adding that “the people of Gaza must be given immediate, unfettered, safe access to humanitarian aid,” he wrote on X.
“If the EU decides tomorrow that Israel is not in compliance” with “relevant agreements,” Schoof added, “the Netherlands supports the plan to suspend Israeli participation in the EU research programme Horizon. If that proves to be the case, tomorrow in Brussels the Netherlands will also press for further European measures, for example in the realm of trade,” Schoof wrote.
Dutch Foreign Minister Kasper Veldkamp told the NOS broadcaster that the Netherlands had decided to register Ben-Gvir and Smotrich “as undesirable aliens in the Schengen registration system,” because “they have repeatedly incited violence by settlers against the Palestinian population, persistently advocated the expansion of illegal settlements, and called for ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip.”
The Dutch government also said it would summon the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands to express the Dutch cabinet’s displeasure with “the current situation,” which it called intolerable and indefensible. “Moreover, it has been agreed to continue to increase pressure on Hamas to achieve a ceasefire,” said Veldkamp.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced on Tuesday that he would be summoning Dutch Ambassador to Israel Marriet Schuurman for a reprimand over what he condemned as actions against the Jewish state’s “right to self-defense and against ministers in its government.”
Geert Wilders, the leader of the Freedom Party, the Netherlands’ largest political party, also condemned the Dutch sanctions.
“Never compromise with evil. Destroy Hamas completely and ignore the useful idiots of the EU,” Wilders wrote on X. “Hamas is responsible for the famine and hell in Gaza, and no one else. If they want peace, they should surrender and free the hostages.”
The partners of the outgoing coalition, he wrote in a separate post on X, “are spitting in the face of the Jewish victims of the October 7, 2023, massacre with this expression of support for the beasts of Hamas. Sanctions and hatred against Israel do not benefit the people in Gaza but are exactly what Hamas wants.”
Smotrich wrote on X that he prioritizes ensuring that his “children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and those of all the Jews in the world, can live in the State of Israel in security for decades and centuries to come,” over being able to enter the Netherlands.
He further referenced the Holocaust and present-day antisemitic persecution in the Netherlands and Europe.
“In the Netherlands and Europe in general, Jews did not live in security at the beginning of the last century, and, judging by the European hypocrisy, the surrender of its leaders to the lies of radical Islam that is taking over, and the rising antisemitism there, Jews will not be able to live there in security in the future either,” wrote Smotrich.
Ben-Gvir vowed to stay his course. “Even if they ban me from entering all of Europe, I will continue to act for the sake of our country and demand that we crush Hamas and support our fighters,” he wrote on X. “In Europe, as in Europe, the one who is attacked is guilty. Where terrorism is tolerated and terrorists are welcomed, a Jewish minister from Israel is unwanted. Terrorists are free, and Jews are boycotted,” he continued.
Last month, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom also declared Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, whose Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit parties are to the right of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, personae non gratae. Slovenia followed suit earlier this month.
