Canaan Lidor
Times of Israel, May 23, 2024
“The victory by Wilders, who has agreed to not serve as prime minister in order to facilitate a coalition agreement, is a rare achievement that could give the far right a new and prominent podium, and galvanize sister movements across the EU in next month’s vote.”
At a particularly bleak moment for European Jews, one of their most vocal supporters has effectively reached power in the Netherlands, the European Union’s fifth-largest economy and an influential founding member of the bloc.
A staunch advocate of Israel who worked as a volunteer in his youth in an Israeli agricultural community, Dutch politician Geert Wilders last week formed a new coalition that’s so pro-Israel and pro-Jewish that its founding contract promises to look into moving the Dutch embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and mandates Holocaust education for all new naturalized citizens.
The new coalition led by Wilders and his Party for Freedom marks an unprecedented departure from the Middle East policies of all its predecessors, not only in the Netherlands but in all of Western Europe. … [To read the full article, click here]