Simon Wiesenthal Center: Dutch Are ‘Fixated’ on Israel Criticism

The Times of Israel reports: AMSTERDAM — The Simon Wiesenthal Center said the Dutch government has an “obsession” with Israel following the publication of a foreign policy platform singling out the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

“The Dutch are fixated” on the conflict, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center’s associate dean, wrote in an article published Tuesday by the Huffington Post website, co-authored with Manfred Gerstenfeld, an anti-Semitism researcher with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. The op-ed noted that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was the only international conflict mentioned in the coalition agreement of the new government of the Netherlands, which was announced this week.

The coalition agreement was reached following protracted negotiations between the ruling People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy of Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whose center-right party was reelected in March, and three other partners, including the left-wing D66 party.