With his statements about committing violence against Palestinian refugees, Gidi Markuszower has ‘placed himself outside the constructive forces’, says Prime Minister Rob Jetten. But despite repeated requests from Jesse Klaver (GroenLinks-PvdA), among others, the Prime Minister does not say that he is ruling out cooperation with the radical right-wing politician.
Klaver thinks it is a shame that the Prime Minister is ‘still keeping the door open’. Esther Ouwehand of the Party for the Animals finds Jetten’s position ‘astonishing’. She believes that the D66 member ‘shouldn’t give such a person any space’. Otherwise he ‘helps to normalize the extreme right and the danger to the Netherlands’.
In a video from media channel Left Laser, Markuszower made the controversial statement that ‘maximum force’ may be used to stop Palestinian refugees. Afterwards he said he meant violence by the Royal Military Police and that he had worded this ‘clumsily’, without distancing himself from his statements.
“This is the strategy of the extreme right. You say things that you think are real. And if it bothers you, you will say that you meant them slightly differently. But the signal was clear,” reads Ouwehand’s lecture.
Earlier in the debate, coalition parties D66, VVD and CDA also expressed their disgust at Markuszower’s statements. But they also did not categorically rule out collaboration with Markuszower. Previously, the coalition could use the help of the faction of the breakaway PVV member to prevent the increase in the state pension age from being rejected. The cabinet itself ultimately abandoned that plan.
