The Blogs: Nothing Is Spared: How the Netherlands Turned Against Israel and Its Allies

“May those who love you be secure.”

— Psalm 122:6

On the day after Jerusalem Day, in the Dutch town of Barneveld, a peaceful religious gathering organized by Christians for Israel was violently disrupted — before it even began. The event was meant to be an evening of prayer and spiritual solidarity. Christians and Jews had come together to celebrate their connection to Israel and to Jerusalem. They were to begin with the singing of Psalm 122 — “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May those who love you be secure.” But many never made it inside without first being confronted by organized intimidation.

As they arrived, worshippers were met by masked demonstrators affiliated with a group calling itself Ummah voor Gaza (Ummah for Gaza). The activists blocked the entrance, laid down a blood-smeared Israeli flag, and placed fake-bloodied baby dolls along the walkway. They shouted “child murderer” and “Christians for genocide” at the arriving guests. Visitors — including visibly Jewish participants — were forced to pass through this gauntlet of hate, some being spat on, others cursed and filmed. Several Jewish participants later described the experience as a grotesque echo of historical humiliation — this time sanctioned by the Dutch state’s refusal to intervene. Uniformed police officers stood by, and at one point were seen eating baklava with members of the protest group.

What happened in Barneveld was not just a protest against a state. It was a public spectacle of humiliation directed at anyone — Jewish or Christian — who dares to feel connected to Israel, spiritually, historically, or morally. This was made explicit by Ummah voor Gaza’s public post after the event: “If you support the genocide in Gaza, you must undergo the walk of shame imposed by Ummah voor Gaza.” Support for Israel, even through prayer, is now treated as moral criminality.

This logic is not limited to fringe groups. It now echoes in the actions of institutions. Because increasingly, it is not only Israel that is being demonized — it is the people who stand with Israel, who sing for it, who pray for it, who mourn with it. That is what makes this moment so dangerous. When identity becomes guilt, and connection becomes complicity, there are no innocent bystanders left.

In the Netherlands, it began at the universities. That is where anti-Israel rhetoric was first intellectualized, abstracted, and legitimized. What followed was not merely public discourse — it was the slow transfer of that hostility from the lecture hall to the public square. In July 2024, during a quintessentially Dutch civic tradition known as the Vierdaagse — a four-day walking event involving tens of thousands — a small group began monitoring the crowd for “Zionist symbols or markers.” According to multiple witnesses, anyone visibly connected to Zionism would be asked to leave the city.

This culture of inversion is not anecdotal. It is institutionalized. Universities accuse their Israeli academic partners of human rights violations while doing nothing to address open hate on their own campuses. Worse, those who document such hate, who name it, are punished. At Dutch universities, those who report antisemitism and anti-zionism are labeled as disruptive, dangerous, or disloyal. Not the aggressors — but the whistleblowers. Hatred is tolerated. Silence is rewarded. Naming it becomes treason.

I have personally been told that I should be gassed, exterminated, and that I am a legitimate target. Because I am of Dutch East Indies descent, I have been called a monkey, a slave. At Radboud University in Nijmegen, an assistant professor has called both Jewish and non-Jewish students “genocide promoters.” At Maastricht University, where I work and witnessed this personally, Israel was explicitly labeled a Nazi state. Zionists are equated with Nazis. Israel is labeled a Nazi state. On campuses, students call for Zionist-free zones. They chant that Zionists must be expelled, shamed, and eradicated. In Maastricht, student organisation Free Palestine Maastricht posted on Instagram: “Kill all Zionists”. And when this is challenged, it is the critics of hate — not its promoters — who are sanctioned under “social safety policies.”

This comes very close to what we might simply call evil. The process is familiar — we have seen it before, in other periods of history. One of those I have studied closely. And now, even scholars who have dedicated their lives to studying genocide, persecution, and memory — people whose entire intellectual identity rests on truth-telling — are being repackaged as enablers of that very evil, simply because they will not call Israel what the mob demands they call it.

This is not the taking of a political position. It is the inversion of the world. And in the Netherlands, it happens almost without resistance — aided, let it be said, by like-minded voices within Israel itself: progressive academics, whose hostility toward Prime Minister Netanyahu outweighs their commitment to truth. And so they give their blessing to terms like “genocide,” “war crimes,” “apartheid.” They redefine the words as needed. Because when you are fighting what you believe to be the ultimate evil, anything is permitted.

Even Israel’s popular legitimacy is treated as suspicious. In May 2025, Israeli singer Yuval Raphael received overwhelming support from the European public in the Eurovision Song Contest. The Dutch public broadcaster responded not with congratulations, but with suspicion. They called for an investigation into whether the Israeli government had improperly influenced the vote — a strong echo of a darker trope: the idea that Jews must always be manipulating things behind the scenes. Nothing, it seems, is spared.

We must be the chroniqueurs of this moment. Because the very same people who speak in solemn tones at Holocaust memorials now stand by as hatred is normalized — and even facilitated — in the streets, on campuses, and in the public square. They know what this is. They just refuse to name it.

And that is why Israel might consider summoning the Dutch ambassador.