The Dutch parliament adopts by a wafer-thin majority a motion that says that chanting “From the River to the Sea Palestine will be Free” is a criminal act of incitement to violence.
The motion, which is not binding, passes thanks to a single vote in a 74-73 split in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch Parliament, which has 150 seats. The motion’s author is Maikel Boon, a lawmaker for the Party for Freedom of Geert Wilders, which was the largest in the 2023 elections and recently announced that it has put together a ruling coalition under its leadership.
Wilders, an anti-Islam, far-right politician, in a vocal supporter of Israel and a self-described promoter of what he calls Judeo-Christian values. The slogan “comes right off the Hamas charter and is therefore a call for violence against all Jews worldwide,” the motion states. The slogan, which references the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, has emerged in recent months a common feature of anti-Israel protests.
I sure as hell didn’t vote for him, but unfortunately a lot of the people in this country have become victims of his populism. Now while at first I was hoping his coalition would fall ASAP, polls have indicated that he’s only gathered more support during the time it took him to form it. That means there’s a non-zero chance that if we have re-elections sooner rather than later, he could get enough votes to rule without other parties. We just have to endure it for a bit until he inevitably fails and loses the voters’ trust like Rutte before him.