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Days of Palestine
4 days ago
- Politics
- Days of Palestine
Thousands rally in The Hague over Gaza war, demand tougher Dutch government action
DaysofPal – In one of the biggest pro-Palestine rallies the Netherlands has seen so far, tens of thousands of protesters poured into The Hague's streets on Sunday. Protesters called on the Dutch government to take a firmer stance against Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, where more than 55,300 Palestinians have now been killed throughout the 20-month-long conflict. The demonstration, the second in four weeks to march toward the International Court of Justice (ICJ), was organized by a coalition of rights groups including Amnesty International and Oxfam. Protesters traced a symbolic 'red line' through the city to represent what they say is a moral boundary the Dutch government has failed to enforce in confronting Israeli aggression. 'More than 150,000 people' participated in the march, said Michiel Servaes, director of Oxfam Novib. 'They are calling for concrete sanctions to stop the genocide in Gaza.' The protest culminated outside the ICJ, which is currently hearing South Africa's case accusing Israel of committing genocide in the besieged enclave. Demonstrators sang, chanted, and delivered impassioned speeches urging an immediate end to the war and a shift in Dutch foreign policy. The large turnout is proof that Dutch citizens' discontent is rising. Despite Israel's attempts to divert attention, protesters here say the focus should remain on the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and many of them denounced Israeli attacks on Iran. Despite this, there is a great deal of frustration over the lack of action. Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof acknowledged the protest in a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter), writing that the 'unprecedented' crowds had voiced their 'concerns, anger, and frustration.' 'The Netherlands remains committed to stopping the violence and ending the humanitarian blockade,' Schoof said. 'We are constantly looking at how we can be most effective with our efforts, both in front of and behind the scenes, to improve the situation on the ground.' 'To all those people in The Hague, I say: 'We see you and we hear you.' Our goal is ultimately the same: to end the suffering in Gaza as soon as possible,' he added. Among the protesters was Salih el Saddy, a medical doctor who said he finds the images coming out of Gaza deeply distressing. 'As a doctor, it's very painful to watch,' he said. The rally in The Hague was mirrored by similar protests across the globe. In Brussels, tens of thousands marched through the Belgian capital's main streets, many wearing red in solidarity with the international 'red line' campaign, a symbolic gesture aimed at demanding an end to Israel's assault on Gaza. Demonstrators in Brussels also expressed anger at the Belgian government for its inaction. 'They are not doing anything to stop the crimes in Gaza,' one protester said. Mass mobilizations were also reported in Türkiye, Brazil, and Greece, all demanding an immediate ceasefire and stronger international accountability for Israel. With the war now entering its 21st month, Israel's campaign in Gaza has left over 184,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, the vast majority of them women and children, and more than 11,000 missing. Hundreds of thousands more remain displaced, as the enclave endures a catastrophic humanitarian crisis under continued bombardment and blockade. But as global protests grow in size and intensity, public pressure on Western governments, including the Netherlands and Belgium, is mounting. Many are now demanding not only words of concern but concrete actions, including sanctions, arms embargoes, and legal accountability. 'We are beyond words,' said one Dutch protester. 'It's time our leaders took responsibility before it's too late.' Shortlink for this post:
Bloomberg
13-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Dutch Cabinet Approves NATO's 5% Defense Spending Target
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof's caretaker cabinet agreed to increase defense and security spending to 5% of gross domestic product by 2032 in line with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's proposed target. The government, which lost its parliamentary majority last week, is playing host to a NATO summit on June 24-25 in The Hague. President Donald Trump, who has demanded that allies spend 5% after threatening to pull out of the alliance, is expected to attend.
The Guardian
12-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Geert Wilders collapsed the Dutch government. He wanted power, but had no idea how to govern
Earlier this month, Geert Wilders decided he had had enough. 'No signature for our asylum plans. No changes to the coalition agreement. The PVV is leaving the coalition,' he posted on X. After 11 months, he was withdrawing support for the Dutch prime minister Dick Schoof's rightwing cabinet, forcing the Netherlands back to the polls. The decision put an end to Wilders' far-right Freedom party's (PVV) first spell in power. Following an unexpected victory in the 2023 elections, the PVV joined a government for the first time in its 18-year history – alongside the conservative-liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), the centrist New Social Contract (NSC), and the agrarian-populist Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB) – although Wilders's coalition partners did not let him become prime minister. But the promise to drastically reduce immigration and implement a strict asylum policy proved difficult to deliver due to numerous constitutional and legal restrictions. The Netherlands now faces a familiar question: What is the 61-year-old politician trying to achieve – and how? Looking solely at his political platform, the answer seems relatively clear. With its emphasis on immigration, national identity, sovereignty, more direct democracy and stricter law enforcement, the PVV is a fairly typical radical rightwing populist party. In the European parliament, the PVV belongs to the Patriots for Europe group, alongside Marine Le Pen's National Rally, Viktor Orbán's Fidesz and Matteo Salvini's League. Within that circle, Wilders is one of the most prominent and pioneering ideologues, introducing a highly alarmist caricature of Islam as a totalitarian ideology of conquest. 'Walk the streets of western Europe today … and you will often see something resembling a medieval Arab city, full of headscarves and burqas … Mass immigration is rapidly changing our culture and identity. Islam is rising, and I do not want Islam to rise! Islam and freedom are incompatible,' he proclaimed in his keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest in May. In Wilders' worldview, Israel is the primary defender of western freedom against Islam and therefore deserves unconditional support. 'If Jerusalem falls, Athens, Paris, or Amsterdam are next,' he said in the Dutch parliament last week. 'Western mothers can sleep peacefully because the mothers of Israeli soldiers lie awake.' Wilders' anti-Islam crusade soon clashed with the Dutch constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion. To join the coalition, he put his most extreme positions 'in the freezer', as he described it – including a ban on the Qur'an and the closure of all mosques. Instead, he focused on curbing asylum migration from Muslim countries, repatriating Syrians and supporting Israeli military actions in Gaza and the West Bank (he consistently refers to the latter as Judea and Samaria). Yet, even in these areas, he faced setbacks. Under pressure from parliament and public opinion, the Dutch foreign minister, Caspar Veldkamp, has recently adopted a slightly more critical stance toward the Israeli government – much to Wilders' displeasure. In justifying the fall of his cabinet, Wilders mainly blamed resistance from his coalition partners, the bureaucracy, the courts and the media. But the truth is, he also has himself to blame. Nearly 20 years after its launch in February 2006, the PVV is still hardly a political party in the conventional sense. Exploiting a loophole in Dutch electoral law, Wilders chose not to allow any formal members into his party. As a result, neither PVV ministers nor parliamentarians are actual members of the party. Ultimately, he has failed to build and lead a professional political organisation that is capable of governing. Wilders adopted his party's unusual structure partly out of fear of attracting opportunists and troublemakers. But according to many observers, he is also a deeply suspicious and solitary figure by nature, someone who prefers total control and avoids consultation. His permanent security detail, a result of a fatwa, has likely reinforced these traits and made it even harder to establish a party structure. 'If I wanted to speak to a candidate, it had to happen in a hidden hotel, on the sixth floor, with six policemen in front of my bedroom door,' he once claimed in an interview. As a result, the PVV remains entirely dependent on Wilders' personal political instincts. While parties such as National Rally, League and Fidesz have large organisations with tens of thousands of members, local chapters, professional offices and well-funded campaign machines, the PVV is little more than Wilders' small, tightly controlled entourage. When he wants to change direction, there is no party congress or critical internal faction he has to convince. This is an undeniable advantage in today's volatile political landscape, but its cost is high. First, the PVV remains poor. In the Netherlands, only parties with more than 1,000 members qualify for state subsidies. The impact of this underfunding is evident in its amateurish election campaigns, low-quality videos, clumsy communication and a lack of skilled personnel. Second, the party operates in near total opacity. Its hierarchy, finances and candidate selection process are a mystery not only to outsiders – politicians, journalists, lobbyists – but even to its own supporters. As a result, many potential candidates and volunteers shy away. Who is willing to risk their reputation for a career in such a controversial and opaque organisation? Who dares to become a minister or junior minister for a party that revolves entirely around the unpredictable whims of one man? When Wilders was required to nominate ministers, he discovered he had no capable candidates with administrative experience, an understanding of the Dutch political system or knowledge of the constitution. He had never invested in training his own people or building a network of future administrators. In desperation, he appointed a few loyal early followers such as Marjolein Faber as minister for asylum and immigration; she subsequently got herself embroiled in a scandal for refusing to sign off on royal honours for individuals who volunteered to help asylum seekers and falsely stating that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was not democratically elected (she retracted her words). Other PVV ministers also stood out mainly because of their blunders and incompetence. After the cabinet's collapse, his party's ministers seemed almost relieved when speaking to the press. They had been cast in roles they couldn't fulfil and never truly wanted. Wilders claims he wants to become prime minister after the next elections. But does he truly mean it? There is little evidence that he is taking the country's governance more seriously. After the failed experiment of the past months, future coalition partners will also take this aspect into account – this week the VVD ruled out entering another coalition this with this 'unbelievably untrustworthy partner'. It seems that Wilders, the solitary ideologue, is really more interested in opposition, where the burdens of responsibility are far lighter. Koen Vossen is a political historian and the author of The Power of Populism: Geert Wilders and the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands
Local Germany
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Local Germany
Germany's Merz condemns Russian 'terror against civilians' in Ukraine
Speaking at a press conference with his Dutch counterpart Dick Schoof, Merz called the recent Russian attacks "the most serious war crimes" and said Russia had "attacked no military targets but the civilian population". Merz said that Russia's latest actions were "anything but a proportionate response to the very precise Ukrainian attacks on military airfields and infrastructure in the last week". "Russia wanted to create a bloodbath and the fact that this only happened in a limited way is thanks to effective Ukrainian defence," he said, adding: "Once again, Russia is escalating instead of negotiating". Merz's comments come ahead of a G7 summit in Canada on June 15-17 and a NATO meeting later in the month, where allies will push US President Donald Trump to be more aggressive in punishing the Kremlin. Schoof agreed on the importance of supporting Kyiv, saying that Ukraine was fighting not only for its own security "but also for the security of Europe... after a war of aggression that was started by Russia". On the question of new sanctions on Russia from the European Union, Merz said he had been in touch with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen in recent days "and I encourage her to introduce this new round quickly". "There will be further sanctions on the banking sector, in the energy sector," he said. Advertisement Merz said that while Kyiv's allies were "ready for negotiations at any time, if negotiations are refused -- and they are being refused on the Russian side", then the response must be "military strength and massive economic pressure". Ukraine's allies must send "a signal of strength and deterrence" to Russia, Merz said. "This is unfortunately the only language that Moscow understands in the current weeks and months."
Euronews
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Dutch citizens carry out own border checks to protest migration policy
Equipped with high-visibility vests and lamps, a group of Dutch citizens has been carrying out their own checks at the German border, prompted by dissatisfaction with the current migration policy. The participants, who number around a dozen according to local media reports, decided to take matters into their own hands and have been engaged in border checks, videos of which have been circulating on social media. They have been applauded by right-wing politician Geert Wilders, whose PVV party withdrew from the Dutch coalition government last week after it refused to adopt his migration proposals. The same day, Prime Minister Dick Schoof announced he was also stepping down, slamming Wilders' decision to leave the coalition as "irresponsible and unnecessary". "As far as I'm concerned, this shouldn't have happened," he said. A snap election will take place on 29 October following the collapse of the government. In contrast to Wilders, the Netherlands' Minister of Justice and Security, David van Weel, has been less enthusiastic about the citizens' action. "Frustration is understandable, but don't take the law into your own hands," he warned. He said the government is in favour of stricter immigration laws, he advised citizens to "Let the police and border police do their job." The police also advised the citizens to stop the border checks immediately. "Such actions create extremely dangerous situations on and along the road," the Dutch police said in a statement carried by the newspaper De Gelderlander, calling the border checks "really unacceptable." Around 30 people were evacuated from their homes in the upper Val de Bagnes in canton Valais in Switzerland after heavy rainfall unleashed a major mudslide. Residents of the village of Les Epenays will be "housed elsewhere for an indefinite period. It depends on nature, it makes the laws," Antoine Schaller, deputy secretary general of the municipality of Val de Bagnes, told local news. The area saw heavy storms last week, after which mud, wood and large stones tore away the temporary emergency bridge in the upper Val de Bagnes, but residents said buildings were spared. "The concern is the volumes coming down. And then there's the detachment zone in the mountain, where an entire section is moving at a rate of about two meters per day," said Pierre-Martin Moulin, General Secretary of Val de Bagnes. It comes just over a week after a landslide cause by a glacier collapse buried most of the Swiss village of Blatten, renewing attention on the increasing dangers of global warming. On 29 May, a large chunk of the Birch Glacier above the village had broken off, causing the landslide which also buried the nearby Lonza River bed, raising the possibility of dammed water flows. Swiss glaciologists have repeatedly expressed concerns about a thaw in recent years, attributed in large part to global warming, that has accelerated the retreat of glaciers in Switzerland. The landlocked Alpine country has the most glaciers of any country in Europe, and saw 4% of its total glacier volume disappear in 2023. That was the second-biggest decline in a single year after a 6% drop in 2022. In 2023, residents of the village of Brienz, in eastern Switzerland, were evacuated before a huge mass of rock slid down a mountainside, stopping just short of the community. Brienz was evacuated again last year because of the threat of a further rockslide.
