Today marks the tenth anniversary of the 11 September attacks in New York and Washington. And predictably, there has already been an excess of analysis in the mainstream media about the significance of the monstrous crimes committed a decade ago. Equally predictably, most of the analysis is repetitive and superficial.
Nonetheless, when I flicked through some newspapers, I came across a comment that came close to echoing my own thoughts. It was from a writer called Amy Waldman, whose debut novel The Submission was published recently. Waldman argues that the date of 11 September 2001 is now considered sacred in the United States. Indeed, it has been imbued with so much sacredness that there is “no limit to the profanity justified to preserve it.”
In an insult to the innocent people killed 10 years ago, the US establishment has used their deaths as an excuse to launch all-out-attacks against the defenceless populations of Afghanistan and Iraq and to bomb Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Israel, meanwhile, was quick to jump on George Bush’s bandwagon and to claim that its ceaseless oppression of the Palestinian people made it an indispensable ally in the so-called war on terror.
Israel has chalked up a long list of profanities over the past decade. I will now zoom in on one of them: a 2002 offensive named Operation Defensive Shield.
That operation began at the end of March 2002 with the bombing of the compound where Yasser Arafat was based in Ramallah. Altogether it lasted four months, involved the Israeli military reinvading parts of the West Bank they were supposed to have vacated under the Oslo accords and killing almost 500 Palestinians, over 70 of whom were children. Perhaps its most infamous episode was the sustained shelling of Jenin refugee camp, where more than 4,000 people were left homeless because of the systematic demolition of buildings. Medical relief teams were blocked from entering the camp for 10 days during a two-week period, when 54 Palestinians in the camp were killed. Amnesty International and other human rights groups who investigated the events stated plainly that Israel had perpetrated war crimes.
Shock doctrine in Palestine
At a time when people in the West Bank were still traumatized by Israel’s latest acts of brutality, Palestine fell victim to what the Naomi Klein has subsequently called the shock doctrine. In June 2002, Salam Fayyad took over as finance minister of the Palestinian Authority after Yasser Arafat was strongarmed into appointing him by the United States and the European Union.
According to the official narrative, Fayyad was appointed to root out corruption in the PA. Undoubtedly, such corruption was a major problem, yet I do not believe that tackling it was a high priority for the West. Instead, there is ample evidence to indicate that Fayyad was imposed on the PA because he was regarded as somebody that would do more or less exactly what the US and Europe told him to do.
As he has become the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister since then, it is important to ask the question: who exactly is Salam Fayyad?
For almost 15 years before he joined the PA, Fayyad worked for the International Monetary Fund, which is largely controlled by the US Treasury. He was clearly inculcated with the neoliberal dogma laid down by that institution, judging by the economic blueprints that he has signed. These have placed the interests of a corporate elite ahead of those of ordinary Palestinians. He has recommended, for example, that more than one-fifth of all public sector jobs should be cut by the PA.
Fayyad has had his ego inflated enormously over the past few years. He has received lavish praise from that vile war criminal Tony Blair and from Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief. And his old pals in the IMF and the World Bank have fed his delusions of grandeur by stating that the PA is sufficiently prepared to assume the responsibilities of statehood. According to Fayyad, these assurances amount to the “birth certificate” of a Palestinian state.
Neoliberal birth cert
What kind of a “birth certificate”, then, is being drawn up for the state which Fayyad wants to have recognised at the UN later this month? This certificate will say, implicitly if not explicitly, that Palestine must pursue economic policies that have been shown time and time again to widen the gap between the rich and the poor. Institutions like the IMF are determined to keep the Palestinian economy on a tight leash, just as they have with many other economies around the world.
The Netherlands is one of several EU governments that has signalled it will oppose the vote on Palestinian statehood at the UN. This proves once again that Uri Rosenthal and Mark Rutte, the Dutch foreign minister and premier, will do almost anything that Israel requests them to do. But that doesn’t mean the PA’s statehood initiative should be supported, simply because some of the most reactionary political leaders in Europe are against it.
The truth is that even those European governments, like that of Spain, who have indicated they will back the statehood initiative cannot be considered real friends of the Palestinian people. And I emphasize that I mean the Palestinian people as a whole, not the quislings in the Palestinian Authority. For all 27 states in the EU and all of the major EU institutions have increased their cooperation with Israel so considerably in recent years that all of them must be considered complicit in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.
Europe sides with the aggressor
I will cite one example of EU-Israel cooperation, with which I have become slightly obsessed. This cooperation is in the field of scientific research. Israel is the most active non-European participant in the EU’s multi-annual research programme. That programme has been allocated €53 billion between 2007 and 2013, with Israel taking part in some 800 coordinated activities under it.
A few days ago, I checked Cordis, the EU’s online information service on scientific research, to see if there are many cases where Dutch universities or private firms are linked up with Israel in projects funded by the European taxpayer. The result of my search indicated that the number of such projects involving both the Netherlands and Israel could be as high as 200.
To give you a flavour of these projects, there is one called Maaximus, which is designed to make aeroplanes that are lighter and can be more quickly assembled than the ones you will find landing today at Schiphol. This 70 million euro project brings together several Dutch partners, including the University of Eindhoven and the National Aerospace Laboratory here in Amsterdam, with Israel Aerospace Industries. Israel Aerospace Industries is one of the main suppliers of the pilotless drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that were used to bomb civilians during Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2008 and 2009.
Towards the end of this year, the European Commission is scheduled to publish a formal blueprint for the future of EU scientific research policy. From all of the discussions I and others have had with EU officials about the surrounding themes, it appears that the Commission is determined to keep on subsidising Israeli weapons manufacturers and by extension providing support to Israeli war crimes.
The EU’s decision to embrace the Israeli arms industry more tightly than before is partly a result of lobbying by international weapons manufacturers. They have convinced policy-makers that it is necessary to allocate them more resources to ensure that Europe doesn’t have to deal with its own 11 September.
Well, I remain unconvinced that subsidising an industry that relies on war to generate profits makes us or future generations safer. And even if it did, I do not want even one cent of my tax euros to be given to Israeli arms companies. This support for companies who profit from oppressing Palestinians is the most grotesque aspect of the EU’s relationship with Israel. And that is why it must be stopped.
·This talk was delivered at an event hosted by the Netherlands Palestine Committee in Amsterdam this weekend. First published by The Electronic Intifada (www.electronicintifada), 11 September 2011.
Showing posts with label Uri Rosenthal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Uri Rosenthal. Show all posts
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Dutch firm shirks responsibility for apartheid wall
On a recent visit to Ramallah, I heard a fascinating tale about two entrepreneurial brothers and how they are trying to evade prosecution for aiding Israeli apartheid.
Doron Livnat is the director of Riwal, a Dutch company that supplied cranes used in building the 650-kilometre wall that snakes through the West Bank. In October last year, Riwal’s headquarters in Dordrect, The Netherlands, were raided by the country’s national crime squad, investigating a complaint into the firm’s activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The probe has led to a hasty corporate makeover, with Riwal changing the name of its Israeli subsidiary to Rom. Rik Maaskant, a spokesman for Riwal, told me there is “no relationship whatsoever” between the two firms now. Yet there are several coincidences indicating that his assurance should be treated skeptically.
1. Under a 2003 international crimes law, any Dutch citizen can be prosecuted for violating human rights anywhere in the world. Doron Livnat has dual Dutch and Israeli nationality. Should we be surprise, then, that his brother Adi, who does not have Dutch citizenship, has been placed in charge of Rom?
2. Both firms continue to have an almost identical logo: it is oval-shaped with the name of the firm marked in yellow against a dark blue background. The only discernible difference between the logos of each firm is that the name Riwal is featured in one and Rom in the other.
3. Riwal has a reputation for being economical with the truth. It even supplied false information to a government minister in the past.
The involvement of Riwal in the wall’s construction first came to light in 2006 when a Dutch TV documentary was broadcast, showing that its cranes were being used in Hizma, a village on the wall’s route. After Bert Koenders, a member of parliament with the Dutch Labor party, protested at Riwal’s activities, the then foreign minister Ben Bot said he did not have “any indication” that the Dordrecht-based company was assisting the project. Bot stated that the cranes in question were owned by a firm called Lima. It soon transpired, however, that Bot had been misled by Riwal’s management. Although he described Lima as Israeli, it was in fact Dutch-owned and had been authorised to use the brand name Riwal.
By all accounts, Bot was furious at being deceived. Despite making his displeasure known in Dordrecht, Riwal cranes remained a visible fixture at various spots along the wall. In the summer of 2007, for example, Riwal-branded machinery was found next to the village of Al-Khader, near Bethlehem.
The case against Riwal was brought by Al Haq, a Palestinian human rights group, which had gathered photographic evidence of how cranes and other equipment supplied by the company were used in the construction of the wall. According to Al Haq, the building of the wall may have involved the crimes of apartheid and persecution. Both offenses are covered by the Dutch international crimes act.
“The building of the wall potentially entails committing the crime of apartheid,” said Salma Karmy, a representative of Al Haq. “It results in the commission of inhuman acts in the context of a regime aimed at the domination of one racial group over another. We’re saying that the Dutch company Riwal was an accessory to this and other crimes. The crimes were primarily committed by the Israeli government but Riwal helped knowingly.”
It will be interesting to see how the case progresses, not least because there could be repercussions for the overall Dutch relationship with Israel. While the judicial system in the Netherlands is nominally impervious to political meddling, the relatively new Dutch government would doubtlessly prefer that the investigation is dropped. Uri Rosenthal, the foreign minister, is regarded by Israel as one of its most reliable supporters in Europe. At the beginning of March, he upbraided the United Nations Human Rights Council for approving too many resolutions critical of Israel.
Doron Livnat, meanwhile, is a prominent figure in two of the key groups belonging to the pro-Israel lobby in the Netherlands. He is a board member for the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI) and president of a team advising Collective Action Israel (known by its Dutch acronym CIA).
Based in The Hague, CIDI has consistently campaigned in favour of the apartheid wall, ignoring how it was declared illegal by the International Criminal Court in 2004. An article on the CIDI website claims that the wall has “saved countless lives from terrorist attacks”. Amsterdam-based CIA collects funds for the training of Israeli soldiers, particularly on the use of advanced technology. In February, it hosted a tour of the Netherlands for Tsahal, a band of musicians serving in the Israeli army.
Riwal, as it happens, enjoys name recognition well beyond the construction industry. Thanks to a sponsorship deal, its logo is emblazoned on jerseys worn by FC Dordrecht, a soccer team playing in the Dutch First Division. Time will tell if the Livnats’ support for Israeli apartheid proves to be an own-goal.
·First published by Mondoweiss (www.mondoweiss.net)
Doron Livnat is the director of Riwal, a Dutch company that supplied cranes used in building the 650-kilometre wall that snakes through the West Bank. In October last year, Riwal’s headquarters in Dordrect, The Netherlands, were raided by the country’s national crime squad, investigating a complaint into the firm’s activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The probe has led to a hasty corporate makeover, with Riwal changing the name of its Israeli subsidiary to Rom. Rik Maaskant, a spokesman for Riwal, told me there is “no relationship whatsoever” between the two firms now. Yet there are several coincidences indicating that his assurance should be treated skeptically.
1. Under a 2003 international crimes law, any Dutch citizen can be prosecuted for violating human rights anywhere in the world. Doron Livnat has dual Dutch and Israeli nationality. Should we be surprise, then, that his brother Adi, who does not have Dutch citizenship, has been placed in charge of Rom?
2. Both firms continue to have an almost identical logo: it is oval-shaped with the name of the firm marked in yellow against a dark blue background. The only discernible difference between the logos of each firm is that the name Riwal is featured in one and Rom in the other.
3. Riwal has a reputation for being economical with the truth. It even supplied false information to a government minister in the past.
The involvement of Riwal in the wall’s construction first came to light in 2006 when a Dutch TV documentary was broadcast, showing that its cranes were being used in Hizma, a village on the wall’s route. After Bert Koenders, a member of parliament with the Dutch Labor party, protested at Riwal’s activities, the then foreign minister Ben Bot said he did not have “any indication” that the Dordrecht-based company was assisting the project. Bot stated that the cranes in question were owned by a firm called Lima. It soon transpired, however, that Bot had been misled by Riwal’s management. Although he described Lima as Israeli, it was in fact Dutch-owned and had been authorised to use the brand name Riwal.
By all accounts, Bot was furious at being deceived. Despite making his displeasure known in Dordrecht, Riwal cranes remained a visible fixture at various spots along the wall. In the summer of 2007, for example, Riwal-branded machinery was found next to the village of Al-Khader, near Bethlehem.
The case against Riwal was brought by Al Haq, a Palestinian human rights group, which had gathered photographic evidence of how cranes and other equipment supplied by the company were used in the construction of the wall. According to Al Haq, the building of the wall may have involved the crimes of apartheid and persecution. Both offenses are covered by the Dutch international crimes act.
“The building of the wall potentially entails committing the crime of apartheid,” said Salma Karmy, a representative of Al Haq. “It results in the commission of inhuman acts in the context of a regime aimed at the domination of one racial group over another. We’re saying that the Dutch company Riwal was an accessory to this and other crimes. The crimes were primarily committed by the Israeli government but Riwal helped knowingly.”
It will be interesting to see how the case progresses, not least because there could be repercussions for the overall Dutch relationship with Israel. While the judicial system in the Netherlands is nominally impervious to political meddling, the relatively new Dutch government would doubtlessly prefer that the investigation is dropped. Uri Rosenthal, the foreign minister, is regarded by Israel as one of its most reliable supporters in Europe. At the beginning of March, he upbraided the United Nations Human Rights Council for approving too many resolutions critical of Israel.
Doron Livnat, meanwhile, is a prominent figure in two of the key groups belonging to the pro-Israel lobby in the Netherlands. He is a board member for the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI) and president of a team advising Collective Action Israel (known by its Dutch acronym CIA).
Based in The Hague, CIDI has consistently campaigned in favour of the apartheid wall, ignoring how it was declared illegal by the International Criminal Court in 2004. An article on the CIDI website claims that the wall has “saved countless lives from terrorist attacks”. Amsterdam-based CIA collects funds for the training of Israeli soldiers, particularly on the use of advanced technology. In February, it hosted a tour of the Netherlands for Tsahal, a band of musicians serving in the Israeli army.
Riwal, as it happens, enjoys name recognition well beyond the construction industry. Thanks to a sponsorship deal, its logo is emblazoned on jerseys worn by FC Dordrecht, a soccer team playing in the Dutch First Division. Time will tell if the Livnats’ support for Israeli apartheid proves to be an own-goal.
·First published by Mondoweiss (www.mondoweiss.net)
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Dutch democracy under threat from Israel lobby
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.
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.
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”.
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.
When Rosenthal says “it is alright to be critical but not to directly oppose the government”, we need to ask exactly what he means.
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.
Is it no longer acceptable in the Netherlands to defend international law?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch foreign minister until last year, proved especially amenable to Israeli propaganda.
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.
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.
By contrast, nine Israelis were killed during the violence. Six of them were Israeli soldiers, three were non-combatants.
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.
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”?
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?
·Excerpt from a presentation given in the ABC Treehouse, Amsterdam, 15 January 2011. Thanks to the Netherlands Palestine Committee for organising the event.
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.
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”.
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.
When Rosenthal says “it is alright to be critical but not to directly oppose the government”, we need to ask exactly what he means.
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.
Is it no longer acceptable in the Netherlands to defend international law?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch foreign minister until last year, proved especially amenable to Israeli propaganda.
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.
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.
By contrast, nine Israelis were killed during the violence. Six of them were Israeli soldiers, three were non-combatants.
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.
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”?
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?
·Excerpt from a presentation given in the ABC Treehouse, Amsterdam, 15 January 2011. Thanks to the Netherlands Palestine Committee for organising the event.
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