Geert Wilders, leader of the largest political party in the Netherlands, has doubled down on his controversial statement that Amsterdam’s left-leaning mayor “can leave the country” along with anti-Israel protesters he called “antisemitic rabble.”
Wilders tweeted about Femke Halsema on Oct. 7, commenting on X about a picture of anti-Israel protesters with a Middle Eastern appearance waving Palestinian flags near Dam Square in Amsterdam. Several journalists documented harassment there that day of participants in a first-year commemoration for victims of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks and atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“This rabble needs to leave this country. And Halsema can go with them,” wrote Wilders, whose Party for Freedom is the largest coalition member following last year’s general elections.
Mainstream media and multiple mayors condemned Wilders, a right-wing firebrand who is critical of Muslim immigration and a passionate advocate of Israel, for what they called incitement. One journalist, Pim Sedee, confronted Wilders, asking whether he thinks that “such tweets should not be sent.”
Wilders dryly replied: “I tweeted it,” leading to follow-up questions by other journalists.
“You have a mayor who has allowed this two times, this antisemitic rabble, and if the mayor wants to join, then she can, at least as far as I’m concerned—I said she can, not that she must—and I won’t shed a tear,” Wilders added on Tuesday in the Dutch parliament, prompting a fresh wave of critical questions by reporters.
He continued: “We’re too soft to the antisemites in this country. The Jew-hate. This mayor allowed this twice now. Once during the opening of the Holocaust museum, when children and their parents were cursed at as they walked by. As mayor you don’t allow counterprotests in situations like this,” he said.
