Netherlands Mulls Date for Relocating Embassy to Jerusalem

The 26-page draft accord also calls for Holocaust education to be included in the Dutch naturalization test.

By Akiva Van Koningsveld, JNS

The Netherlands’ incoming center-right government has agreed to study the possibility of moving the Dutch embassy in Israel from Ramat Gan to Jerusalem, according to a draft coalition agreement that lawmakers of the four prospective governing parties approved on Wednesday.

“Taking into account the solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and diplomatic interests, we will explore when the embassy can be moved to Jerusalem at an appropriate time,” an advanced draft of the political agreement states, the NOS public broadcaster reported on Thursday.

The incoming coalition is set to include Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom; the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy and New Social Contract parties; and the Farmer–Citizen Movement, a group that was founded in 2019 to protest climate policies.

The 26-page draft accord also calls for Holocaust education to be included in the Dutch naturalization test and tougher policing of “discrimination, racism, antisemitism and hatred against Muslims.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are making history today. We do this together as four political parties. A collaboration that I am very much looking forward to. But the Freedom Party, my own party, will also be in the Cabinet,” Wilders told reporters at a press conference on Thursday.

“We go from being the largest opposition party to being the largest government party, in one go. And the sun will shine again in the Netherlands,” added the right-wing leader.

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PRESS CONFERENCE

We’re making history today!

Joining the Dutch government.#Wilders #PVV pic.twitter.com/XvN2ldxGN5

— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) May 16, 2024

Wilders won a clear victory in the Netherlands’ Nov. 22 general election, securing 37 out of 150 seats in parliament and paving the way for the most pro-Israel coalition in the European nation’s history.

NOS News reported on Thursday that talks about a possible prime ministerial candidate continue. The four party leaders previously agreed to remain in parliament, with Wilders confirming in March that the other parties could not support him taking up the highest office.

Wilders lived in Israel for two years during his youth and has visited the country more than 40 times. After he graduated from secondary school, he spent a year as a volunteer at Moshav Tomer in the Jordan Valley.

The politician has been a proponent of Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, having said repeatedly that “there has been an independent Palestinian state since 1946: the Kingdom of Jordan.”

“Palestinian people should be given the right to voluntarily settle in Jordan and freely elect their own government. Let the Hashemite Kingdom become a true democracy!” Wilders tweeted during the 2021 war in the Gaza Strip ( “Operation Guardian of the Walls”), and again following Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.

In 2018, Wilders tweeted, “The more Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria the better for that land is Jewish—and Jordan is Palestine!”

During a meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog earlier this year, Wilders pledged his “full support” for the war against Hamas terrorism.

“I just had a great meeting in Amsterdam with the President of Israel,” Wilders tweeted on March 11. “I told him I am proud that he visits the Netherlands and that Israel has, and always will have, my full support in its fight against terror.”