Albert Verlinde finds it wrong that Israel is accused of genocide by some. He mainly points to Hamas counterparty. “They used billions of support to build tunnels.”
It didn’t matter much or Albert Verlinde had been stuck in Israel. His husband Onno Hoes wanted to go there to visit family and they returned last Thursday, which turned out later, the last scheduled flight before the airspace was closed due to the war with Iran. One day later and they should have crossed land …
Family visit
Anyway: Albert gained even more understanding for the Israeli people during that trip. “I don’t want to raise all that discussion about Gaza here, but what really struck me – we were on a family visit in Israel, so I spoke to many people – is that they feel so much abandoned,” he says in Good morning Netherlands.
He continues: “Let’s not forget: it is the only democracy in the Middle East. Many people are also against Netanyahu and how far this war goes. They feel so abandoned by the Netherlands. The ordinary people who are also against Netanyahu and against the war feel so alone.”
Festival grounds
Albert and Onno also went to the place where the current conflict with Gaza started: on the site of the Supernova music festival. “Yes, so we also went to the festival site where a thousand people were killed in a beastly way.”
He continues: “The word genocide is used very easily. Everyone is now full of mouth: Ahhh. And it is also very much in Gaza, but what is very bad in recent years, is that the billion support, also from Iran, is not used to help people in the Gaza Strip, but to build tunnels. Huge tunnels.”
Beastly
That should have been a shame about that, Albert believes. “Then I think: had your mouth open, because everyone knew that dancing was on the volcano. It is deliberately among schools and hospitals.”
He concludes: “I agree that it is going too far, I think so, but when you see how a thousand people have been killed and hunted in a beastly way … almost no one is talking about that, isn’t it? That has become a kind and forgotten murder.”