The Netherlands, along with like-minded EU countries, wants to be able to impose sanctions on far-right extremist Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. This is what outgoing Prime Minister Dick Schoof and outgoing Minister Caspar Veldkamp (Foreign Affairs) wrote to the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway announced sanctions against the two ministers last week for their “repeated calls for violence against Palestinians in the West Bank”. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have, among other things, been issued a travel ban.
Sweden, an EU member state, is also pushing for similar sanctions and recently sent a letter to EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas about this. “The Netherlands will join such an initiative,” Schoof and Veldkamp report.
The outgoing cabinet is issuing strong criticism of the Israeli ministers. They have “repeatedly incited violence by settlers against the Palestinian population, they constantly advocate the expansion of illegal settlements and call for ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip.”
Also, Smotrich’s statement “about the complete destruction of the Gaza Strip” is “unacceptable” to the cabinet.
The outgoing cabinet has been increasingly critical of the Israeli government in recent months, because “the situation has deteriorated rapidly after the breaking of the ceasefire.”
For example, the European Commission is also investigating whether Israel is still complying with the terms of the Association Agreement. Veldkamp urged this last month, because in his view Israel is violating international humanitarian law with the blockade of food and aid.