“If Jerusalem falls, Athens, Paris or Amsterdam are next,” Dutch right-wing leader Geert Wilders declared on Wednesday, speaking during a parliament session following the fall of his coalition government.
The Israel Defense Forces is “fighting our battle,” Wilders snapped at opposition leader Frans Timmermans (Labor Party/GreenLeft), who had accused him of cozying up to the “far right” Israeli government.
“The fact that our mothers in the West can sleep peacefully is because the mothers of Israeli soldiers lie awake, wondering whether their child will come home alive from a battle fought in the name of freedom,” said the politician. “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and it has to fight the terror of Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.”
Wilders slammed the left-wing opposition leader as a “stain” on the House of Representatives of the Netherlands for what he said were “statements that are almost antisemitic, about a country that is fighting for its existence.”
“Right now, there are terrorists in Gaza who hold power there—whether they were elected or took control—who have one goal: to destroy Israel and the Jewish people, to wipe them off the map. Of course you have to defend yourself in that case,” explained the senior Dutch lawmaker.
“Naturally, in war, there are casualties. I regret every death, I regret every child, every mother, every innocent civilian who dies in conflict. But I still believe—and I am proud of this—that Israel must fight,” he said.
Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister for diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, thanked Wilders for his support of the Jewish state, sharing translated footage of his remarks on X on Thursday.
The government of the Netherlands collapsed, likely ushering in a snap election, after Wilders quit the coalition on Tuesday, accusing other parties of failing to back his plans to toughen immigration policies.
“No signature for our asylum plans. No adjustment of the coalition agreement. The PVV is leaving the coalition,” Wilders tweeted on Tuesday, using the Dutch acronym for his Party for Freedom.
Wilders entered the coalition government six months after his surprise victory in the Netherlands’ November 2023 general election, striking a deal with the centrist People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy and New Social Contract parties, as well as the Farmer-Citizen Movement.
Initially described as the most pro-Israeli government in the history of the Netherlands due to its promise to move the country’s embassy to Jerusalem, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp (New Social Contract) became one of Europe’s most vocal critics of the Jewish state.
Wilders—a staunch supporter of Israel’s right to the entire Land of Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea—has said he visited the country more than 40 times. After graduating from high school, he spent a year volunteering at Moshav Tomer in the Jordan Valley.
In 2018, Wilders declared, “The more Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria, the better, for that land is Jewish—and Jordan is Palestine!”
Following Wilders’ win in the 2023 election, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority condemned him for saying Palestinians should be offered the right to settle in the Hashemite Kingdom and elect their government.
