Amsterdam Scraps Twin City Plan With Tel Aviv
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Amsterdam’s mayor scrapped a vote to twin his municipality with Tel Aviv and Ramallah following opposition by left-wing parties on the city council.
Mayor Eberhard van der Laan on Thursday scrapped the vote, which had been scheduled for July 1, according to TV5, because of opposition to the gesture by his own Labor Party, the Socialist Party, GreenLeft and the Party for the Animals.
Ramallah was added to the proposal to twin Amsterdam and Tel Aviv following objections by the Socialist Party to twinning only with the Israeli city, saying it “might be perceived as an unbalanced approach” to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
After Ramallah was added, the Socialist Party did not drop its objections, saying “ongoing conflict” between Israel and the Palestinian Authority was also an argument against twinning.
“In the short term, there is no view to viable peace,” Daniel Peters, the chairman of the Socialist Party faction within Amsterdam’s city council wrote last week.
“What are we going to do if rockets start flying back and forth?” he wrote. “If Ramallah has a Hamas mayor? If Israel continues the occupation? We fear this association agreement will cause more problems than it can solve.”
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
