Genocidal president speaks at opening of museum dedicated to victims of genocide.

March 10 was the official opening of the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam which sheds light on the persecution and murder of the Dutch Jews during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands.

Four days before the official opening of the Museum, it became known that the Israeli president Isaac Herzog would speak at the opening ceremony. This led to much dismay in Dutch society. Not only does Herzog represent a country that is perpetrating a genocide at this very moment, he is also one of the many Israeli politicians that have openly called for the mass killing of the Palestinian people – as South Africa documented in their genocide case against Israel.

During an international press conference 5 days after the Hamas-led breakout of camp Gaza, Herzog said:

“… it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved – it is absolutely not true. […] and we will fight until we break their backbone.”

At the end of last year, Herzog made the news again with a personalized message he wrote on one of the massive bombs that Israel drops on the defenseless population of Gaza. “I trust you,” he wrote next to his autograph.

The museum defended their invitation to Herzog by saying that they had sent the invitation long before October 7. This ignores the reality that Israel was oppressing, cleansing and occupying the natives of Palestine long before that.  And was it impossible for them to withdraw the invitation after the person in question is actively involved in a current genocide?

Upon hearing the news about Herzog’s involvement with the ceremony, several groups initiated protests. One of the groups, the Jewish anti-Zionist group Erev Rav called a demonstration close to the museum and the Portuguese Synagogue where the ceremony would be held. Some 3000 people turned up at a loud protest which was co-sponsored by the Dutch Palestinian Community and the International Socialists under the banner Never Again is Now.  Joana Cavaco, a member of the Erev Rav collective addressed the crowd with the words, “For us Jews, these museums are part of our history, of our past. How is it possible that such a sacred space is now being used to normalize genocide?”

According to newspaper reports the protesters could be heard during the ceremony which was presided over by the Dutch king.

There were also protests in other parts of the city. Gate 48, an organization of Israelis living in the Netherlands that oppose the occupation, held its own protest at the Wertheimpark in the east of the city. And in Amsterdam-West, some 600 people turned up at a protest organized by the Islamic organization Hizb ut-Tahrir. Meanwhile members of Amnesty International stood at different places in the city where the car of Herzog would pass with road signs that carried a big arrow and the words Detour To International Criminal Court. (The ICC is based in The Hague, Netherlands).

Erev Rav and Een Ander Joods Geluid (A Different Jewish Voice) also filed a complaint at the ICC and the Dutch police against Herzog. They argued that The Netherlands have a duty under international law to do everything to prevent genocide and called for the arrest of Herzog the moment he puts his feet on Dutch soil. Unsurprisingly the ICC nor the Dutch police reacted to the complaint of the Jewish organizations.

Some people involved with the museum also expressed discomfort with the appearance of Herzog. A person who donated a cradle to the museum in which Jewish babies lay in hiding during the occupation of The Netherlands wrote on Facebook that she was “baffled” by the invitation of the president of Israel.  “The memory of my parents-in-law is seriously tarnished. If only I could take away the cradle!”, she wrote.

The protests reflect a broader discontent in society with Dutch complicity with the Israeli onslaught on Gaza. According to polls, since December almost three-quarter of the Dutch people favour an immediate ceasefire. But Holland is one of the Western states that consistently abstains in UN General Assembly votes on a ceasefire. The (caretaker) government of conservative Mark Rutte also used to ship weapon parts that Israel uses in the genocide. A couple of NGO’s won a court case against this but now the Rutte government has appealed, and a new trial is pending. The Netherlands were also one of the rich Western countries that cut off funding of UNRWA after the baseless accusations of Israel against the relief organization.

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