“Kati Piri for President,” Pels wrote on Instagram on Thursday evening, after the motion not to deliver defense weapons to Israel had already been rejected. The text was supplemented with hearts and a high five emoji. Unhappy and uncomfortable, other drivers think. “This does not help to keep the city together, it even has the opposite effect,” it sounds in the corridors.
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The statement of support leads to unrest from coalition parties PvdA and D66. Although it is clear to them that Pels makes this expression as a brand new local leader of GL and not as an alderman, it is still found annoying.
Counterfeit
Two D66 aldermen shared the debate contribution of party colleague Jan Paternotte on Friday morning, who is against a collective punishment for all Israelis. Incidentally, they also shared a message in which the violence in Gaza is called an ethnic cleansing.
It is not the first time that the Amsterdam College has been in her stomach with an expression of the activist fur. When Mayor Femke Halsema did everything in a statement about Gaza last month, as a city administration not to speak of genocide itself, Pels did that a day later. This was not good at the college.
‘Impact on Jewish community is great’
“The impact on the Jewish community in Amsterdam is great,” says Chanan Hertzberger of the Central Jewish Consultation. “Aldermen must ensure that all citizens are safe in Amsterdam, including the Jewish community. Not to pursue the foreign policy of the Netherlands.”
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“We didn’t feel safe,” he continues, in which he also refers to the hunt for Israelis and everyone who was for Jewish for Jewish after the match Ajax-Maccabi Tel Aviv. One of the reports that appeared this week showed that the breeding ground for the violence is still there and can flare up again.
Text and explanation of Femke Halsema
“Many grasp this motion as: okay, we can go after the Jews again,” says Hertzberger. “An alderman should not do this. It really touches the feeling of people. This is incomprehensible.”
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Opposition parties VVD and JA21 want text and explanation from Mayor Femke Halsema. The college speaks ‘with one mouth’ and the Instagram account of Pels is also a means of communication from the municipality, which is partly managed by civil servants.
‘Tormal mess’
“The Jewish community feels a strength kinship with Israel and has had a lot to do with rising anti-Semitic incidents in the past period. Then it is very strange to defend such a controversial position so enthusiastically,” says VVD party leader Daan Wijnants. “I find that very strange and not being able to.”
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In addition, with two elections, he wants clarity in front of what is acceptable what aldermen can and cannot do. Three of them are also the local party leaders. If those constant political statements start trumping, Wijnants fears for a ‘terrible mess’.
‘Mayor must take a role’
“The mayor must take a role in this,” he says. “Pels actually throw oil on the fire here. It is very amateurish that she is not aware of it, or perhaps much worse that she is and does this for electoral considerations.”
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Also Ja21 party leader Kevin Kreuger wants to ‘call on the mat’. “Apart from Pels’ message, which I find reprehensible, these aldermen have the idea all the time that they do not have to be in line. The lecture talks with one mouth that they let go is terribly amateurish.”
‘Keep things together’
He does not understand that a well -paid alderman cannot control himself at these moments. “There is no realization that she represents a much larger organ than she is. She is completely inheritable. The city council has to keep things together.”
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The activism of Pels comes up more often. For example, she donated 50 euros in the war greenhouse of civil servant Tofik Dibi. Money with which he reportedly wants to take legal steps against the municipality. And when they replaced a sick fellow alderman for the housing file earlier this year, she received the entire real estate industry on the closet in one meeting.
Symbolist
“An alderman, civil servants and citizen have the same rights in terms of freedom of expression, as long as this does not affect the functioning of the organization negatively,” says administrative expert Michiel de Vries when asked. According to the emeritus professor of Radboud University, the text of Pels can legally be made in this case, since Amsterdam is not about foreign policy at all. “It’s just symbolic politics.”
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“Zita Pels has made this statement as party leader and party leader. Aldermen are also politicians and party leaders have this assessment space,” says a spokesperson for the municipality about the expression. When asked how it was with her genocide comment, when Pels was not a party leader, he says: “Aldermen are also politicians and have their own view.”