The new cabinet must no longer focus exclusively on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A large group of former ministers, diplomats and civil servants made this call in a letter to informant Rianne Letschert (D66). The signatories include former Ministers of Foreign Affairs Jozias van Aartsen (VVD) and Bernard Bot (CDA), former Minister of Development Aid Jan Pronk (PvdA) and former Minister of Defense Joris Voorhoeve (VVD).
The ‘two-state solution’ in which an independent Palestinian state is formed alongside the Jewish state from the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip has long been the cornerstone of Dutch Israel policy. However, according to the letter writers, it is time for a policy in which “the mantra of a two-state solution is not fixed in advance as an unwavering position.” The authors make no concrete proposal about what the outcome of a peace settlement, such as a unitary state in which Jews and Palestinians live together, could be.
In recent years, the ‘peace process’ between Israelis and Palestinians, which resulted from the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, has increasingly stalled. For example, Israeli settlers are occupying more and more land in the West Bank, making the establishment of a Palestinian state de facto impossible. Earlier this year, the Netanyahu government decided to authorize the construction of a settlement on a strategic piece of land near East Jerusalem, separating the north and south of the West Bank.
Powerless initiatives
The construction decision for the settlement and the ruthless bombing of Gaza were reasons for then Minister of Foreign Affairs Caspar Veldkamp (NSC) to call for stricter sanctions against Israel earlier this year. When coalition parties VVD and BBB did not want to go along with this, Veldkamp and the other NSC ministers left the outgoing Schoof cabinet.
The position of the Schoof cabinet, the ministers write, was a “hard break with the Dutch ambition to strengthen the international legal order.” […] The letter writers point to the discontinuation of funding for the UN aid organization UNRWA, the cabinet’s refusal to receive UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese and the continued legal action against the export ban on F-35 fighter jets from the Netherlands to Israel. “With the exception of a few powerless initiatives in the EU context, the Netherlands took nothing to prevent the Palestinian future from being destroyed,” the letter states.
According to the letter writers, it is time for the new cabinet to make the international legal order a priority again. “A silent continuation of the current policy” (in which Israel swallows up more and more land) “is at odds with this, because it amounts to facilitating Israeli war crimes against the Palestinians.” The government should think about other solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the authors say.
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