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Kari said that he had a small lunch with his son and had to constantly drive women away from the car, whom he referred to with a derogatory term and described as being at a beauty pageant level. According to him, they didn't even allow for peace while eating. https://t.co/ndNoV62Zh0 #lounas #suomi #ruoka (translated)

Sander Sassen addressed Henri Bontenbal and wrote that he had been little visible for months, despite an earlier column by Sassen about his absence. According to Sassen, Bontenbal had published a long thread on October 7, in which he labeled Hamas a terrorist organization and reflected on the victims and the Jewish community. Sassen felt that Bontenbal had subsequently blurred the responsibility for the violence by talking about a chain of violence, the Israeli response, and civilian casualties. He also believed that Bontenbal had pointed to Benjamin Netanyahu's settlement policy as an obstacle to a two-state solution. Sassen argued that this approach equated Hamas's attack and kidnappings with Israel's response, thereby fueling antisemitism. Sassen also criticized Bontenbal's reference to an article in Trouw about Maoz Inon, who lost his parents to Hamas, and Aziz Abu Sarah, whose brother died in an Israeli prison. Sassen described their pursuit of reconciliation as hopeful but felt that Bontenbal presented this initiative as a serious way forward without giving sufficient attention to Hamas's persistence and objectives, according to him. He also stated that Hamas deliberately saddled Palestinian children with hatred for Jews. Sassen wrote that, in his opinion, Bontenbal offered false hope and insufficiently placed responsibility for Hamas's violence on the perpetrators. He claimed that Hamas and its supporters aimed for the destruction of Israel and stated that disarmament by Palestinians, in his view, would bring peace, while Israel's disarmament would lead to a new attack like the one on October 7. #Israël #Hamas #Antisemitisme (translated)

slaghound used offensive language for people at stations and wrote that Johan Derksen joined them. The author accused Derksen of not being able to keep his aversion to Israel to himself for a day and said he was glad that Wierd and Dilan put up strong opposition to him. The post was accompanied by the hashtag #vandaaginside. #vandaaginside #Israël #vandaaginside #mening (translated)

Weird Duk wrote that CIDI director Naomi Mestrum has been going through an emotional rollercoaster since October 7, 2023. He quoted her as someone who said that the hate she and others received was unprecedented. https://t.co/wQVlqkTOKi #CIDI #emotioneleachtbaan #haat (translated)

Bart Nijman wrote that Dutch media in 2015 portrayed participants in the Ukrainian referendum, including GeenPeil, as antidemocratic and pro-Putin. Nevertheless, he called the referendum a great success. In 2017, according to him, newspapers and parts of the NPO tried to boycott GeenStijl but were unsuccessful. He also accused the media of labeling critics of Greta Thunberg as climate deniers in 2019 and of presenting support for Black Lives Matter as a civic duty in 2020, while according to him, Zwarte Piet was pressured with unfounded accusations of racism. During the coronavirus pandemic, according to Nijman, the media shielded criticism of the measures and labeled those who deviated as irrational. He argued that this permanently damaged the credibility of the press and trust in its fairness and objectivity. From 2021, he stated that media opposed the farmers' movement with reporting on nitrogen that journalists did not understand sufficiently, and starting in 2022, labeled critics of Ukrainian accession to the EU or NATO's contribution to the escalation as pro-Putin. Nijman wrote that after October 7, 2023, many media condemned Israel and Jews in general and based reporting on genocide and starvation on lies. According to him, the media concealed the reasons for Hamas' attack and subordinated facts to information from NGOs, including Oxfam. He also claimed that journalists who disagreed were not offering enough public dissent, partly because they had to save for a mandatory heat pump in 2028. Furthermore, Nijman accused the media of shifting their own problems onto disinformation and Elon Musk and of leaving X for their own, small online environment. According to him, DPG, RTL, and the NPO imposed standards that many Dutch people did not conform to. He wrote that readers should hate the mainstream media even more and asserted that the free press had again chosen the wrong side on October 7. #Media #Nederland #VrijePers (translated)

Maaike van Charante wrote that it was a day of mourning, not only for the horrors of 2023 but also for what followed. She said she shared her text to bring people together, not to make them sadder, and that the next day they would continue to fight for the truth and against hate. https://t.co/NjHf5a9yla #Rouw #Samensterk #Strijdtegenhaat (translated)

Jacques Monasch wrote that Jetten's paragraph about the Israeli army amounted to an indirect declaration of war against Israel. He called it a deceitful license for hatred against Israelis, on the day when the largest genocidal attack on Jews since the Holocaust was commemorated. Monasch said that Jetten was not his prime minister. #Israël #genocide #politiek (translated)

Sander Sassen reflected on the legacy of October 7. He wrote that three years earlier he had watched livestreams filled with rage and disgust in which, according to him, Palestinians were killing Jewish civilians while the Palestinian population celebrated the murders. Sassen stated that he commemorated the victims and argued that Israel was still being attacked from all sides and that Jews worldwide had to fear for their lives. According to him, October 7 had shown that civilization was an illusion for many and that antisemitism had returned in 2026. He said that his support for Israel and the Jewish people remained unwavering and called for speaking out against antisemitism, which, according to him, had also reached institutions, governments, politicians, and policymakers. Sassen referred to antisemitism as a "canary in the coal mine" and a measure of the tolerance and freedom of a society. In the Netherlands, he claimed that things had been declining over the past three years: propaganda was dominant, antisemitism had once again become socially acceptable, dialogue was often made impossible, and ideology drove many Dutch people. He wrote that the Netherlands had completely ignored the warning of the "deceased" canary. #antisemitisme #Israël #solidariteit (translated)

Harm Beertema shared statements in which it was stated that there was a feeling in Israel of a fierce attack from the Dutch political system. The current treatment of Israel was compared to the expulsion of Jews during the Holocaust. Beertema wrote that the statements made him feel ashamed and said that he would never forgive Rob Jetten from D66, Ruben Brekelmans from the VVD, and Henri Bontenbal from the CDA. https://t.co/5YwlFaB3fP #Israëlië #politiek #holocaust (translated)

Remco Yizhak Cooremans wrote that he had been on a candidate list for the House of Representatives a year earlier, but now deeply ashamed of the country, especially towards the children and the man. Cooremans said he had always stayed within the rules, but felt alarmingly anti-democratic that day, and asked where the line was drawn for hate. #politiek #Nederland #rechten (translated)

Letschert in a tight spot! The Jewish and Israeli students in Maastricht are stating it clearly. They are no longer carried away by the dialogue merry-go-round of the D66 Minister of Education, after spending years in her merry-go-round when she led the university. Result: an antisemitic climate and the import of hate rallies. Letschert's reward: the plush of The Hague. Read the letter below. Support these brave students who let their voice, and only their voice, be heard. Who do not bow to the established order and do not allow themselves to be exploited and misled by them. Bravo! To the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, IJAR Maastricht has learned that Minister of Education Rianne Letschert intends to organize a meeting about Jewish students, following the recent developments at Maastricht University. As the representative organization of Jewish and Israeli students at Maastricht University, we have received no formal invitation from the minister or her ministry. Nor have we been informed about the purpose, the mandate, the intended participants, or the measures that may be considered. If the subject concerns the position and experiences of Jewish and Israeli students at Maastricht University, consultations should begin with the organization that represents these students and within the university environment where the relevant events take place. During Ms. Letschert's previous term at Maastricht University, Jewish and Israeli students and their representatives spoke with her and other members of the university administration on numerous occasions. They repeatedly expressed concerns about safety, intimidation, the campus climate, institutional decisions, and the implications of those decisions for Jewish and Israeli students. From those discussions, it appeared that consultations were taking place, but in our experience, they did not lead to measures that corresponded to the issues raised. Clear lines of accountability were also not established for what followed. This history means that the mere fact that there is again a meeting cannot be considered an achievement in itself. Other Jewish organizations and individuals elsewhere in the Netherlands may have legitimate perspectives on broader issues concerning Jewish life, antisemitism, or national policy. However, they do not represent the Jewish and Israeli students at Maastricht University and cannot replace the representative organization of the students whose campus, lecture halls, and daily living environment are directly at stake. A meeting held elsewhere, with discussion partners who do not represent these students, can be viewed as discussions with Jewish organizations, but cannot reasonably be presented as a consultation with the representative organization of Jewish and Israeli students studying at Maastricht University. For that reason, we believe that if the minister wishes to address what is happening at Maastricht University, she should come to Maastricht and engage directly in conversation with the representative organization of Jewish and Israeli students here. The location is important, as responsibility must be aligned with where the issue occurs and not be disconnected from it: the issues being discussed involve this university, the decisions being made here, and the students who experience the consequences of those decisions. Thus, consultations regarding Maastricht should take place in Maastricht and begin with those who are institutionally responsible for representing the involved students. Before such a meeting takes place, we also demand clarity about what the minister aims to achieve with it. We expect to know what questions are being investigated, what decisions or measures remain open, what responsibility the ministry will take on itself, what responsibility it expects from Maastricht University, what concrete follow-up steps are foreseen, and how the outcomes of the meeting will be recorded and communicated. Without that information, participation threatens to serve mainly as proof that consultations have taken place, rather than as a means by which those consultations can actually have an impact. Our concern, therefore, is not about whether there will be a meeting, but about the relationship between consultation and responsibility. We have previously participated in discussions, we have laid out the problems before, and our presence has previously shown that a dialogue existed. What too often has remained unclear, however, is who was responsible for acting on what was raised during those discussions and what actually changed as a result of those discussions. A representative consultation should not end once the participants leave the room, but should record who is responsible for the issues raised, what actions follow from that, and how those actions will be assessed. We remain willing to engage seriously with the minister in Maastricht. However, that consultation must take place with the representative organization of the Jewish and Israeli students whose situation is at stake, with a clear purpose, with well-defined responsibilities, and with an explicit connection between listening and acting. Anything less than that threatens only to reproduce the form of consultation, while the substance — and the responsibility for it — remains unresolved. Signed, The Board of IJAR Maastricht *link to the original letter in the tweet below #antisemitisme #onderwijs #studentenrechten (translated)