Seven of the Dutch Party for Freedom’s (PVV) 26 lawmakers have left the party, citing perceived failures on the part of party leader Geert Wilders.
Wilders, one of Europe’s leading right-wing politicians and a passionate supporter of Israel, called it a “black day.”
The Netherlands is in the midst of a political crisis triggered by Prime Minister Dick Schoof’s resignation after PVV withdrew from the majority coalition.
On Friday, JNS interviewed the leader of the splinter group, the Tel Aviv-born lawmaker Gidi Markuszower. He said that Wilders had squandered votes due to ideological rigidity, and that the party may cease to exist soon because of the same inflexible attitude.
“We did not deliver on all our main pledges, including on Israel,” Markuszower told JNS in his first interview with an international publication following the split.
The splintering, which may reshape the balance of power in the Netherlands and within Europe’s conservative movement, underlines the challenges facing Europe’s ascendant rightist bloc. As their influence grows, rightist leaders are often torn between their commitment to change and the need to negotiate entrenched political realities.
Wilders’s alleged failure to deliver on Israel refers to the Dutch government’s unprecedented sanctions on the Jewish state, imposed just months after the PVV entered the ruling coalition for the first time in the party’s 22-year history.
Under Schoof, Holland imposed a partial arms embargo on Israel over its war against Hamas in Gaza, and has taken a leading role in trying to suspend E.U.-Israel trade agreements.
Schoof’s foreign minister, Caspar Veldkamp, accused Israel of war crimes and said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be arrested if he landed in the Netherlands as per an International Criminal Court warrant. Meanwhile, Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever was among the European officials who vowed to ignore the disputed warrant.
PVV toppled the coalition in June amid disputes with more left-leaning coalition partners over immigration. PVV had been the coalition’s largest partner thanks to a record 37 seats in parliament’s lower house following the 2023 elections. But PVV lost 11 seats in last year’s election, making it, even before the splintering, an unlikely partner in ongoing coalition talks.
Internal rift
After Oct. 7, 2023, the Dutch government’s hostile attitude toward Israel clashed profoundly and visibly with the stridently pro-Israel attitude of the PVV and Wilders.
In May, while PVV was in government, Wilders took to X to air the dirty linen.
“Were those ridiculous anti-Israel measures by Minister Veldkamp actually taken by the entire cabinet?” Wilders asked Schoof in a tweet. “Were all ministers from all parties informed about this in advance and did they agree to it? Is this based on any actual decision by the Council of Ministers?”
Wilders, who lived in Israel for two years as a volunteer in his youth and whose wife is said to be Jewish, also defended Israel from the podium of the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament.
“Do we support the Jewish People, fighting for their existence, or do we support the extremist, Islamist rabble trying to annihilate them?” He demanded in a speech in May 2024. “I tell you, to my final breath: I support the State of Israel.”
Despite leading the de facto ruling party, Wilders had no executive role in the Cabinet as per the conditions set by the other partners. They cited his polarizing persona (Wilders had threatened to burn a Koran and was convicted of inciting hatred for saying in 2014 that he wanted “fewer Moroccans” in his country).
Last year, Wilders met with U.S. President Donald Trump, whom he has vocally supported in the media, on the margins of the NATO summit in the Hague. Trump called Wilders a “very nice guy” after the audience.
To Markuszower, whom Wilders last week described as “a friend as well as a colleague,” the clash on Israel was symptomatic of a broader issue that ultimately led him to mutiny after many years in the loyal service of the PVV.
Seeing the Dutch government turn against Israel on the PVV’s watch was “painful for Geert, I think,” said Markuszower. “But it was only one symptom of our situation, which was being in government but actually not in power.” During its 11 months in government, the PVV “didn’t deliver not only on Israel, but on everything we’d campaigned on,” he said.
Pragmatism and ideology
His new faction intends to court voters both on the right and the left to tackle core issues “that affect Dutch voters directly, in the supermarket, at the workplace, on their tax form,” said Markuszower. It will work “pragmatically” to reduce immigration.
The Netherlands has several centrist and center-right parties, including the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), from which Wilders splintered off in 2004 while he represented it in parliament. He established the PVV that year, marrying a hawkish stance on immigration and foreign relations with a relatively liberal one domestically.
The VVD also has a stated anti-immigration stance, but immigration has skyrocketed under the four cabinets that former prime minister Mark Rutte of VVD led from 2010 to 2023.
Markuszower said the VVD did “not really want to reduce immigration,” and that his faction, which does not yet have an official name but has requested to be registered as the Dutch Freedom Alliance (NVA), would “insist on delivering.”
“He didn’t want to win”
Wilders’ decision to topple the coalition “was the right move, though it could’ve come sooner,” said Markuszower, 48, who was born in Israel and raised with his two brothers in the Netherlands by Modern Orthodox parents. But in the 2025 elections, Wilders pursued a “very poor campaigning strategy,” he added.
“He didn’t want to win, which was a real disappointment,” Markuszower told JNS of his longtime friend and former boss. Instead of explaining to voters that PVV was blocked by its partners and asking for a renewed, greater mandate, Wilders campaigned lethargically and tried to present nonexistent successes, he added.
He had not left the PVV over Israel or Jewish-related matters, Markuszower explained. Instead, the Israel issue underlined the systemic problems that ultimately made him leave, he said.
“I think the friendship Geert Wilders shows for Israel and the Jewish people is genuine, great and sustained. I actually appreciate Geert Wilders for that standpoint, born out of real conviction. He showed that he stands on the right side of history and he deserves the Jewish People’s eternal gratitude,” he added.
Wilders is often called a populist, but his support for Israel belies that claim, Markuszower argued. Even on the right, “being pro-Israel isn’t the most popular thing in Holland right now,” he added.
Wilders and Markuszower have refrained from public mudslinging, though Wilders has been strongly critical of the mutiny.
In addition to calling it “a dark day for the PVV,” he said “it was unnecessary, it shouldn’t have happened, but that’s politics.” He also said it was “an emotional” moment and that Markuszower had been “a friend as well as a colleague.”
The PVV had not replied to a request for comment at time of publication.
Markuszower told JNS that he had ignored his own emotions when he decided to leave the PVV “because my duty is to the voter, not my sentiments.” A central issue that led to the split was legislation being promoted by rival parties to force Wilders to restructure and democratize the party. Wilders has run it centrally and exclusively as its only registered member.
Wilders said he would not comply, calling the proposed legislation “something out of North Korea, that doesn’t belong in the Netherlands.”
Based on his long friendship with Wilders, Markuszower took his former boss at his word about this.
“I believe that Geert Wilders would sooner have the party banned, or rather, ban his own party out of existence, than yield on this issue,” he said.
