The Dutch Foreign Ministry Wants Jews Everywhere To Criticize Israel
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — An official Dutch foreign ministry document listed as an objective actions that “encourage diaspora Jewish communities to voice their opposition to the occupation.”
The statement, which is unusual for European governments offering funding for organizations they say are promoting peace of coexistence between Israel and Palestinians, appeared in a report published earlier this year on Dutch funding for the Breaking the Silence group.
Titled “Activity Appraisal Document ODA below €250.000,” the report on Breaking the Silence included the reference to Diaspora communities under the rubric: “Goal 3: To increase opposition in the international arena to Israel’s prolonged occupation of the OPT based on global shared values.” OPT stands for “occupied Palestinian Territories.”
NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based watchdog group that focuses on funding for Israeli and Palestinian groups, criticized the ministry’s “intruding on Israel-Diaspora relations, on one of the most sensitive issues,” as the group’s founder, Gerald Steinberg, termed it in a statement Tuesday.
The Dutch paper is the first time that NGO Monitor has seen an explicit reference to internal relations between Jewish communities on an official EU document, a spokesperson for the group said.
Chris Bakker, a spokesperson for Sigrid Kaag, the Netherlands’ minister for foreign trade and development cooperation, declined to answer JTA’s questions on the document, including on whether the objectives it specified belonged to his office, or to Breaking the Silence.
Kaag’s ministry pledged $218,000 for Breaking the Silence in its budget for 2018. A former worker for the UNRWA agency for aid to Palestinians, Kaag is also the wife of a former Palestinian Authority diplomat.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO