Israeli president Yitzhak Herzog has been invited to attend the opening of the Dutch National Holocaust Museum. This while his genocidal statements on Gaza are still reverberating. The Jewish organization Erev Rav is calling for his arrest.
The Israeli news medium Ynet confirmed on March 4 the circulating rumor that Israeli President Herzog will visit the Netherlands in the coming days. On Sunday, March 10, he will join king Willem-Alexander for the opening of the National Holocaust Museum. Herzog will be accompanied by family members of Israelis held hostage in Gaza. He will also meet with Prime Minister Mark Rutte for ‘political talks’.
In late 2023, Herzog made headlines with a personal message he wrote on a giant shell that was subsequently fired into Gaza. ‘I trust in you’, the president wrote, in the almost certain knowledge that the shell would cause death and destruction among completely innocent and defenseless Palestinian civilians.
But Herzog thinks very differently about their innocence. As early as October 12, 2023, he emphasized that Israel does not distinguish between Palestinian fighters and civilians in Gaza. At an international press conference, he justified this as follows:
It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved – it’s absolutely not true. […] and we will fight until we break their backbone.
Nearly five months later, Israel has put its money where its mouth is, creating an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe – not only by using massive force of arms, but also starvation of the population as a weapon of war. On January 26, the International Court of Justice assessed the risk of Israel committing genocide in Gaza as ‘plausible’, and imposed six temporary measures to prevent it.
Israel didn’t care. Instead, Herzog sought to degrade the Court. He compared the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel to a blood libel. Israel, he claimed on January 29, neatly abides by international law. ‘There is no excuse for killing an innocent civilian population, in any context,’ he added.
In other words, the nearly 31 thousand Palestinians, including some 14 thousand children, that Israel has killed so far were all guilty and deserved their fate. That is exactly what Herzog announced on October 12. And that is why his statements were included in the indictment filed by South Africa as ‘Expressions of Genocidal Intent against the Palestinian People’. The judges went along with that and included Herzog’s genocidal incitement in their ruling.
That is why it should be unthinkable for him to set foot on Dutch soil – other than to answer to the International Criminal Court. His reception by the king is a slap in the face of the Palestinians who must watch helplessly as Israel murders their loved ones and destroys their land. And of the countless Dutch people who lie awake at night because of the Israeli killing spree. Not to mention Herzog’s disdain for international law.
Dutch Jewish organization Erev Rav is calling on the organizers of the opening of the Holocaust Museum to bar Herzog, and the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the police to arrest him on arrival. This is the time to give substance to the ‘Never Again’ message chiseled in granite, according to an Erev Rav spokesperson:
Remembering the Holocaust is important, but loses any value when we do it with heads of state who themselves call for genocide.
Erev Rav is preparing a demonstration against Herzog’s arrival.