Dutch Leader: Homeland for Jews in Germany
A former Dutch prime minister reportedly said that the Jewish state should have been established in Germany.
“Jews need a safe place. Why couldn’t they get a safe place in Germany, at the time?” Dries Van Agt said on Nov. 8 during a seminar Nijmegen, according to the Dutch daily Telegraaf.
The paper described Van Agt, who is a harsh critic of Israel, as a “pro-Palestinian activist.”
Jack de Vries, a lawmaker for Van Agt’s party, the centrist Christian Democratic Appeal, is quoted as telling Elsevier, a weekly, that he “nearly fell from the chair” when he heard Van Agt’s words.
“This remark reflects very little respect for history, especially considering the timing, the 74th anniversary of Kristallnacht,” De Vries said.
Van Agt later told Elsevier that he “only said it would be more logical for Jews to have gotten a piece of land in Germany” as “the Middle East had nothing to do with World War II.”
Van Agt served as prime minister in the early 1980s. In 2008, he spoke at rally in Rotterdam, in which Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh delivered a speech on video via satellite.
Van Agt has said that he would accept the definition of Hamas as a terrorist organization only if the same definition applied to Israel.
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.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
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 the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
