The Netherlands to Block Extension of EU-Israel Action Plan

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The Netherlands, of course, is the occupied country that during World War II sent the highest proportion of its Jewish population to their deaths.

Now, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp intends to join the campaign to turn Israel as an international pariah. More on his malignant efforts can be found here: “The Netherlands moves to veto extension of Israel-EU cooperation agreement,” JNS, May 7, 2025:

Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said on Wednesday that The Hague would veto any extension of the E.U.-Israel Action Plan, which implements the association deal between Brussels and Jerusalem.

The situation in the Gaza Strip is rapidly deteriorating—it is dramatic, catastrophic. Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid is in violation of the laws of war,” Veldkamp told the Dutch Algemeen Dagblad newspaper.

Veldkamp is apparently unaware that Israel has presented a detailed and comprehensive plan to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza directly to the people, and bypassing Hamas so that it cannot, as it has been doing all along, diverting much of that aid to its own members and their extended families, and seizing another large amount to sell, at exorbitant prices, to the Gazans for whom it was intended by donors to be delivered for free. As for Veldkamp’s claim that a blockade of humanitarian aid is in “violation of the laws of war,” the Foreign Minister seems not to know that Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention specifically allows the withholding of aid if it is likely to be diverted by the enemy for its own use. Here is the relevant section:

The obligation of a High Contracting Party to allow the free passage of the consignments indicated in the preceding paragraph is subject to the condition that this Party is satisfied that there are no serious reasons for fearing:

(a)    that the consignments may be diverted from their destination,

(b)    that the control may not be effective, or

(c)    that a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy through the substitution of the above-mentioned consignments for goods which would otherwise be provided or produced by the enemy or through the release of such material, services or facilities as would otherwise be required for the production of such goods.

Veldkamp, as Foreign Minister, really ought to bone up on the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 23, before denouncing Israel for doing what it has every right to do.

Meanwhile, the [Israeli] War Cabinet is announcing a reoccupation of Gaza. Taken together, this is reason to draw a line in the sand,” he said.

In a missive to European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas, Veldkamp accused Jerusalem of acting in violation of the 2000 E.U.-Israel Association Agreement, which states that relations between the Jewish state and the 27-member body are “based on respect for human rights and democratic principles.”…

Israel is fighting a war that it did not start and did not want. That war was started by a terror group, Hamas, on October 7, 2023, when 6,000 members of the group smashed into Israel, an proceeded to rape, torture, mutilate, and kill 1,200 Israelis and kidnap another 251. In fighting Hamas, the IDF is not indifferent to civilian suffering, but has made every effort to minimize civilian casualties, especially by warning, through leaflet drops, text messages, and robocalls, civilians away from sites and buildings about to be targeted. By March 2024, the IDF had dropped nine million leaflets, sent fifteen million text messages, and made sixteen million robocalls, all to warn civilians away from places soon to be attacked. Caspar Veldkamp can hardly be unaware of all this, yet he claims that Israel does not “respect human rights.” What more would he have the IDF do? And why does he say nothing about Hamas’ practice of hiding both its men and weapons in civilian areas and buildings, including schools, mosques, and hospitals?

In his letter to Kallas, Veldkamp said Israel’s newly proposed system of aid distribution to bypass Hamas appeared to be incompatible with the “principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence.”

The Israeli plan to distribute aid has one purpose only: to prevent Hamas from stealing so much of the aid that rightly should go to people of Gaza. Veldkamp must not have read all the details of the plan, which are set out here.

Speaking with The Guardian following a meeting with British Foreign Minister David Lammy on Tuesday, Veldkamp criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s prioritizing of Hamas’s defeat in Gaza.

“The criticism in Israel is increasing against [the] prime minister that he does not give enough priority to the release of the hostages, and he has now stated also that he doesn’t give that ultimate priority, but he gives the priority to fighting Hamas,” The Hague’s top diplomat told paper….

Veldkamp is entitled to criticize what he sees as the wrong priorities of the Israeli government. But he is not entitled to criticize it, so unfairly, for withholding aid when Israel has just revealed to the world its plan to deliver aid fairly to the people of Gaza and to withhold it only from Hamas. Were he not so eager to distance the E.U. from Israel, he might actually look at the Israeli plan and tell us what he finds wrong with it.

“At my request, the Israeli ambassador was summoned this morning to provide clarification on the worrying developments in the Gaza Strip, including the attack on the aid convoy,” stated Veldkamp, referencing a March 23 incident in which several aid workers were reportedly killed alongside six Hamas terrorists in a convoy of Palestinian ambulances….

The IDF has already investigated that attack which killed 15 people, according to Hamas all of them medics, and according to Israel, nine were medics and six were members of Hamas. Once it discovered the attack on the medics had been an error, the IDF apologized for it, and disciplined the officers involved. Why, then, is Veldkamp still raising the issue now, seven weeks later, as if Israel had not admitted to its error and apologized?

Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom, the country’s largest political movement and a senior coalition partner, slammed Veldkamp’s move as “clumsy and premature” in an interview with Dutch media.

“He has no clue what happened in reality,” Wilders said of his coalition partner’s response to the March incident. “

Responding to Veldkamp’s latest move against the Jewish state in a post on X on Wednesday, Wilders slammed him as a “weak minister who sides with anti-Israel protesters.”

“Did the entire Cabinet actually agree to those ridiculous anti-Israel measures by Minister Veldkamp? Were all ministers from all parties informed about this in advance and did they agree to it? Was there a decision by the Council of Ministers?” he asked, addressing Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof in the social media post.

Perhaps, under pressure from Wilders, who heads the largest political movement in the Netherlands, the Dutch Council of Ministers will refuse to support Veldkamp’s determination to distance the E.U. from Israel.

Will Veldkamp’s intention to pull the EU further away from Israel prevail? Or will those “millions of our people” in the Netherlands whom Geert Wilders assured Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Defense Minister Israel Katz support the Jewish state, exert enough political pressure so that the Dutch government will put a stop to Veldkamp’s malevolent move? We will soon see.