<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Occupied Palestine | فلسطين]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[occupiedpalestine]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/author/hajarhajar/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[David Cronin: Dutch democracy under threat from Israel&nbsp;lobby]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<table class="gsc-branding" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
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<h2 class="date-header"><span>Sunday, January 16, 2011</span></h2>
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<p>Since I first came here to Amsterdam in 1998, I have been in the  Netherlands on many occasions and have always enjoyed myself. While I  intend to continue visiting this country, I have realised that I need to  reassess some of my assumptions about it.</p>
<p>Until recently, I was  under the impression that the Netherlands was a democracy, in which  freedom of expression was regarded as sacrosanct. Then I read some  comments attributed to your foreign minister Uri Rosenthal.</p>
<p>The  minister is putting pressure on the Dutch anti-poverty organisation ICCO  to cease funding The Electronic Intifada, an excellent website that  consistently defends the rights of the Palestinian people. Rosenthal has  indicated that he cannot tolerate how ICCO supports this website, given  that the Dutch government is a strong supporter of Israel. He has  threatened to withdraw Dutch state grants to ICCO, telling the  organisation: “It is alright to be critical but not to directly oppose  the government”.</p>
<p>Rosenthal’s comments about The Electronic  Intifada follow a report by a Zionist lobby group called NGO Monitor.  This group accused The Electronic Intifada of being anti-Semitic without  providing any evidence to back up its claims. Sadly, this is a typical  tactic of the pro-Israel lobby. As soon as somebody tells the truth  about Israel being an apartheid state and a vicious colonial project, it  is only a matter of time before the lobby will label him or her an  anti-Semite. This is a deliberate move designed to muzzle debate.</p>
<p>When  Rosenthal says “it is alright to be critical but not to directly oppose  the government”, we need to ask exactly what he means.</p>
<p>I am  proud to be a contributor to The Electronic Intifada because I know that  it defends the core human values enshrined in international law.  It  fearlessly exposes how international law is violated by such activities  as the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the  merciless blockade of Gaza.</p>
<p>Is it no longer acceptable in the Netherlands to defend international law?</p>
<p>Rather  than becoming so exercised about The Electronic Intifada, I would urge  Rosenthal and his government colleagues to investigate those Dutch  organisations that facilitate abuses of international law.<br />
Perhaps,  for example, they could take a trip to the Israel Centre in Nijkerk,  which is run by Christians for Israel. I visited this centre myself last  summer and discovered how its shop sells many products manufactured by  companies who are active in illegal Israeli settlements. These included  cosmetics from Ahava, a firm based in the West Bank settlement of Mitzpe  Shalem.</p>
<p>Perhaps, too, the Dutch government could examine the  activities of the Sar-El Foundation, one of several organisations here  in the Netherlands dedicated to supporting the Israeli army. Max Arpels  Lezer, the chairman of this foundation, has boasted of how Dutch  volunteers who take part in training exercises with the Israeli army  “help the battle against the Palestinians” as if helping the oppression  of an entire people is something admirable.</p>
<p>For some bizarre  reason, the Sar-El Foundation is considered to be a charity.  Donations  to the foundation are, therefore, tax deductible. This is despite how  the Israeli army that it supports has committed crimes against humanity,  according to the United Nations investigation led by the retired South  African judge Richard Goldstone into Israel’s attacks on Gaza in late  2008 and early 2009.</p>
<p>Can somebody please explain to me how one  Dutch organisation can be treated as a charity, when it supports  violations of international law? But when another Dutch organisation –  such as ICCO – defends international law, the government threatens to  punish it. Where is the justice here?</p>
<p>Late last year a very  interesting diplomatic cable from the American embassy in The Hague was  released by the website WikiLeaks. Drafted by Clifford Sobel, as he was  preparing to step down as ambassador to the Netherlands in 2005, the  cable states that Britain and the Netherlands are America’s most trusted  allies in western Europe. The cable commends Dutch diplomats for being  willing to act as America’s “eyes and ears” in the countries where they  are posted and describes the Dutch as “go-to-guys” when the US is  seeking a mediator to resolve internal disputes in NATO.</p>
<p>Among  the similarities between The Netherlands and the US are that both  governments consistently accommodate Israel’s crimes against the  Palestinian people.  Some veteran observers of the Israel-Palestine  conflict to whom I have spoken have gone so far as to name The  Netherlands as Israel’s most steadfast supporter in Western Europe.</p>
<p>Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch foreign minister until last year, proved especially amenable to Israeli propaganda.</p>
<p>During  2008 and 2009, Verhagen blamed the violence in Gaza entirely on Hamas.  In doing so, he ignored how Hamas observed an Egyptian-brokered truce  with Israel between June and November 2008. It was Israel which resumed  the cycle of violence by attacking Gaza on 4 November that year, a day  when the world was preoccupied with the election of a new American  president.</p>
<p>Almost all of the victims of Operation Cast Lead, the  three-week bombardment of Gaza that Israel launched in late December  2008, were Palestinians. In total, 1,387 Palestinians were killed.  Almost 800 of these took no part in the hostilities, according to  investigations by human rights monitors. These included 320 children.</p>
<p>By contrast, nine Israelis were killed during the violence. Six of them were Israeli soldiers, three were non-combatants.</p>
<p>If  gestures of solidarity were required in early 2009, then surely it was  the people of Gaza who required them most. Verhagen decided instead to  express his solidarity with Israel. In January 2009, he travelled to  Sderot in southern Israel, where he voiced concern about the rockets  being fired by Hamas. If he had extended his trip by a few kilometres  and ventured into Gaza, Verhagen would have witnessed far worse  suffering caused by far more lethal weapons. But he refused to visit  Gaza, showing no interest in seeing first-hand what was happening.</p>
<p>Could  this be the same Maxime Verhagen who had previously presented a  strategy paper to the Dutch parliament officially aimed at giving human  rights a central role in his country’s foreign policy? Could it be the  same Maxime Verhagen who stated in 2008 that “human rights apply to all  people, in all places and at all times”?</p>
<p>I have a question for  Verhagen and for other Dutch politicians today. Why do the human rights  you claim to champion not apply to the Palestinian people?</p>
<p>·Excerpt  from a presentation given in the ABC Treehouse, Amsterdam, 15 January  2011. Thanks to the Netherlands Palestine Committee for organising the  event.</p>
<p><a href="http://dvcronin.blogspot.com/2011/01/dutch-democracy-under-threat-from.html">David Cronin: Dutch democracy under threat from Israel lobby</a>.</p>
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