New Rightwing Dutch cabinet with Geert Wilders party

[pieter]

[pieter]

Dutch Right-Wing Parties Reach Preliminary Deal to Form a Government

The agreement excludes the populist politician Geert Wilders from becoming prime minister.




Geert Wilders, the leader of Party for Freedom, speaks to members of the news media after the government formation talks in The Hague on Wednesday.Credit...Koen Van Weel/EPA, via Shutterstock



By Claire Moses
Reporting from London
May 15, 2024

Four right-wing parties in the Netherlands said on Wednesday that they had reached a preliminary agreement to form a government that would exclude Geert Wilders, a populist politician, from becoming prime minister.

The breakthrough came hours before a midnight deadline and was the result of nearly six months of negotiations. After the negotiators expressed optimism about the chances of forming a government, the members of the parties that will make up the coalition said they would support the preliminary agreement.

“This won’t go wrong,” Caroline van der Plas, the leader of the Farmer Citizen Movement, a populist pro-farmer party, told reporters on Wednesday. In response, Mr. Wilders posted two prayer hands and a sun emoji on the social media platform X.

The agreement would still largely depend on Mr. Wilders’s party, Party for Freedom, which won elections decisively last fall, sending shock waves through the Dutch political system.

Since November, Mr. Wilders and his Party for Freedom had been negotiating to form a government with the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, a center-right party that had governed the country for the past 13 years; New Social Contract, a centrist party; and the Farmer Citizen Movement.

Together, the four hold 88 seats in the House of Representatives, a comfortable majority. In March, Mr. Wilders announced he would not become prime minister after the four parties could not agree on a way to work together under Mr. Wilders’s leadership.

Instead, he said, he would keep his seat in the House as the leader of his party. The leaders of the other three parties agreed to do the same, preventing any of them from taking the country’s highest office.

If the agreement is approved, the four parties will work together in a slightly different form than what the Netherlands is used to: with a cabinet that includes political outsiders and a prime minister who is not the leader of one of the governing parties.

Choosing this construction, rather than a traditional majority coalition like the one under which Prime Minister Mark Rutte has governed the country for nearly a decade and a half, aims to create more distance between the cabinet and Parliament.

But Mr. Wilders’s party will still have a lot of influence, said Simon Otjes, an assistant professor of Dutch politics at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

“It will be a cabinet on which a radical right-wing party will make a big mark,” Mr. Otjes said. “That won’t be taken away because Wilders won’t be prime minister.”

Much of the precise content of the preliminary coalition agreement remains unknown. It will most likely include a strict migration policy, the key issue on which Mr. Wilders campaigned.

A big question is who will be the next prime minister. Mr. Wilders and other negotiators have not made any public statements about it.

“We spoke about the prime minister today, as well,” Mr. Wilders told Dutch reporters on Wednesday. “And we will continue that conversation at a later time.”

Mr. Wilders is also the longest-sitting member of the House. That position could give him more weight in the public debate, Mr. Otjes said, and bolster his party’s already strong position in the House.

Mr. Wilders’s party easily became the biggest one after the Dutch elections in November. The victory by the Party for Freedom, which has advocated banning the Quran, closing Islamic schools and halting the acceptance of asylum seekers, was a clear rebuke to the country’s political establishment.

But since the election, Mr. Wilders has stepped away from some of his most extreme proposals.

And to ensure that he would adhere to the Constitution, the four parties took the unusual step of signing a document committing them to upholding it — something that had long been taken for granted.

Claire Moses is a Times reporter in London, focused on coverage of breaking and trending news. More about Claire Moses: www.nytimes.com/by/claire-moses

[Jaga]

Pieter, it is good that Geert Wilders need to learn to compromise and he would not be the prime-minister. We don't need more divisions.

[pieter]

Indian Hindu media about the Netherlands

[pieter]

An excellent explenation of the present Dutch political situation with the New Rightwing Coalition of Geert Wilders



18 may 2024

Since the November election, politicians in the Netherlands have been scrambling to form a government. This week though, Geert Wilders finally managed to bring together a coalition, one that will see the country go rightwards. In this video, we take a look at the new coalition, it's policies, and who might end up being the new Prime Minister.

[pieter]

It is true that the 4 rightwing coalition parties in the Dutch parliament and in the coalition for the new cabinet are Pro-Israel political parties, whom have an aversion against the Pro-Palestinian demonstrations and rightly pointed at the extremly risen antisemitism in the Netherlands. Read not antizionism or critical attitudes against Israel, but hatred of Jews and thus antisemitism. Some Dutch Jews and other European Jews feel that the present time they are living in is comparable with the late thirties with the murderous antisemitism in Europe (Germany, Austria and other countries). That said many Jews (also Pro Israel Jews) see Benjamin Netanyahu as a large problem. They see both Hamas and Netanyahu as a large problem and want to get rid of both, but that is impossible in this world. In the meanwhile this new Dutch cabinet wants to follow Donald Trump and move the Dutch embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Geert Wilders Freedom Party (PVV) is not only a far right Dutch Nationalist political party, but also openly Zionist. The Zionism of Geert Wilders Freedom party is close to Revisionist Zionism. And I Pieter say, that is okay, a democracy has various flavors, and Geert Wilders does not beat around the bush and is open about his support for the Jewish state.

His aversion to Islam, Muslims, the Koran, the headscarves of Muslim women, Moroccans in the Netherlands goes hand in hand with his love for Israel. He sees Israel as a Western bastion against the advancing Fundamentalist Salafist, Jihadist Islamist Islam, and will always continue to defend Israel.

One of his aides and fellow PVV parliament members is the Far Right Israeli Dutch Gidi Markuszower. Between 1999 and 2005 Markuszower was spokesperson for Likud Netherlands. He subsequently served as political advisor to Member of Parliament Anton van Schijndel (conservative liberal VVD party, split off in 2006) until December 1, 2006. He was active for many years at the Bij Leven en Welzijn Foundation (In Life and Welfare Foundation), the organization responsible for the security of Jewish schools, synagogues and other Jewish institutions.





Gideon "Gidi" Markuszower (born 27 October 1977) is an Israeli–Dutch politician of the Party for Freedom (PVV). He became a member of the Netherlands Senate on 9 June 2015. During the 2017 Dutch general election he was elected to the House of Representatives, and gave up his Senate seat. He was fourth on the Party for Freedom list in 2023 Dutch general election, and thus will continue to sit in the House of Representatives.

Markuszower had earlier sat on the Party for Freedom list for the House of Representatives However, research by the Dutch security service AIVD in 2010 suggested that he was influenced by a foreign security service, likely Mossad, and was considered a security risk to the Netherlands. When this was communicated to party leader Geert Wilders, Markuszower withdrew himself as a candidate for the Tweede Kamer.

Revisionist Zionism

Revisionist Zionism is a form of Zionism characterized by territorial maximalism. Revisionist Zionism promoted expansionism and the establishment of a Jewish majority on both sides of the Jordan River.

Developed by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, this ideology advocated a "revision" of the "practical Zionism" of David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann which was focused on the settling of Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel) by independent individuals. Differing from other types of Zionism, Revisionists insisted upon the Jewish right to sovereignty over the whole of Eretz Yisrael, which they equated to Mandatory Palestine and Transjordan. It was the chief ideological competitor to the dominant socialist Labor Zionism.



Revisionist Zionism directly opposed Labor Zionism within the general Zionist movement. Revisionist Zionism had its own paramilitary group called the Irgun, out of which another organization known as the Stern Gang emerged. Both the Irgun and the Stern Gang were responsible for several attacks against the British to try to expel them from Palestine.

In 1935, after the Zionist Executive rejected Jabotinsky's political program and refused to state that "the aim of Zionism was the establishment of a Jewish state", Jabotinsky resigned from the World Zionist Organization. He founded the New Zionist Organization (NZO), known in Hebrew as Tzakh, to conduct independent political activity for free immigration and the establishment of a Jewish State.

In its early years under Jabotinsky's leadership, Revisionist Zionism was focused on gaining support from Britain for settlement. Later, Revisionist groups independent of Jabotinsky initiated campaigns against the British to open up immigration during the 1930s following the White Paper, which severely limited Jews' right to immigrate at a time considered critical as the Nazis were gaining power.

Revisionist Zionism has strongly influenced modern right-wing Israeli parties, principally Herut and its successor Likud. Geert Wilders PVV party is Rightwing Populist and National conservative in the cultural and political sense, rather Social Democratic (leftwing) is social and economical sense, fiscal conservative in Financial sense and strongly connected to the Israeli, Flemish Belgian, British and American Far right and conservatives. Geert Wilders is an admirer of Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013).

Raised a Roman Catholic, Wilders left the church at his coming of age. His travels to Israel and the Arab world as a young adult significantly helped form his political views. Wilders worked as a speechwriter for the conservative-liberal VVD; he later served as parliamentary assistant to party leader Frits Bolkestein from 1990 to 1998. He entered the municipal council of Utrecht in 1997. The following year he entered the House of Representatives. Citing irreconcilable differences over the party's position on the accession of Turkey to the European Union, he left the VVD in 2004 to form his own party, the Party for Freedom. Wilders has campaigned to stop what he views as the "Islamisation of the Netherlands". He has compared the Quran to Mein Kampf and has campaigned to have the book banned in the Netherlands. He advocates ending immigration from Muslim countries, and banning the construction of new mosques. Wilders was a speaker at the Facing Jihad Conference in Israel in 2008, which discussed the dangers of jihad, and has called for a hard line against what he called "street terror" exerted by minorities in Dutch cities. His controversial 2008 film featuring his views on Islam, Fitna, received international attention and extreme criticism. His party was also sued because content was used in his film without permission. He has been described in the media as populist and labeled far-right. He was also described by the media as an Islamophobe. Wilders rejects being labeled as far-right and views himself as a right-wing liberal, while saying he does not want to be "linked with the wrong rightist fascist groups". More recently, Wilders has worked together with Marine Le Pen of the French National Front, as well as Austria's Freedom Party, Italy's Lega Nord and Belgium's Far right Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest, a militant and xenophobe Far right Flemish Nationalist party which would like to abolish Belgium to esteblish the 'Republic Flanders'.)

On 4 September 2020, the Dutch court convicted Wilders for group insults.

Early life and career Geert Wilders

Wilders was born on 6 September 1963 in the city of Venlo, in the province of Limburg. He is the son of Johannes Henricus Andreas Wilders and Anne Maria (Ording) Wilders. He is the youngest of four children, and was raised Catholic. His father was Dutch; his mother Maria Anne Ourding was born at Sukabumi, the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) with a mixed Dutch and Indonesian background. His father worked as a manager for the printing and copying manufacturing company Océ, and had hidden from the Germans during the Second World War, an experience so traumatizing that he refused to physically enter Germany even forty years later.

Wilders received his secondary education at the Mavo and Havo middle school and high school in Venlo. Reflecting passions that came to the fore later in his career, Wilders took a course in health insurance at the Stichting Opleiding Sociale Verzekeringen in Amsterdam and earned several law certificates at the Dutch Open University.

Wilders' goal after he graduated from secondary school was to see the world. Because he did not have enough money to travel to Australia, his preferred destination, he went to Israel instead and volunteered for a year in a moshav, Tomer, on the West Bank. With the money he saved, he travelled to the neighbouring Arab countries, and was moved by the lack of democracy in the region. When he returned to the Netherlands, he retained Israeli ideas about counter-terrorism and a "special feeling of solidarity" for the country.

Living in Utrecht, Wilders initially worked in the health insurance industry. His interest in the subject led him into politics as a speech-writer for the Netherlands' People's Party for Freedom and Democracy. He started his formal political career as a parliamentary assistant to the party leader Frits Bolkestein, specialising in foreign policy. He held this job from 1990 to 1998. During this time Wilders travelled extensively, visiting countries all across the Middle East, including Iran, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Israel. Bolkestein was the first Dutch politician to address the consequences of mass immigration for Dutch society, including a sharp criticism of Muslim immigrants. He set an example for Wilders not only in his ideas but also in his confrontational speaking style. Political analyst Anno Bunnik later described Wilders as a "sorcerer's apprentice" to Bolkestein.


Wilders started off his political development under his mentor, Frits Bolkestein. Frederik "Frits" Bolkestein (born 4 April 1933) is a Dutch retired politician and energy executive who served as Leader of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) from 1990 to 1998 and European Commissioner for Internal Market from 1999 until 2004 under Romano Prodi.

Frederik "Frits" Bolkestein (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈfreːdərɪk frɪdz ˈbɔlkəstɛi̯n] ⓘ;[1] born 4 April 1933) is a Dutch retired politician and energy executive who served as Leader of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) from 1990 to 1998 and European Commissioner for Internal Market from 1999 until 2004 under Romano Prodi.

Views on Islam

Wilders is best known for his criticism of Islam, summing up his views by saying, "I don't hate Muslims, I hate Islam". His brother Paul claimed in an interview that, in his private affairs, Wilders has no problems with Muslims. Although identifying Islamic extremists as 5–15% of Muslims, he argues that "there is no such thing as 'moderate Islam'" and that the "Koran also states that Muslims who believe in only part of the Koran are in fact apostates". He suggests that Muslims should "tear out half of the Koran if they wished to stay in the Netherlands" because it contains "terrible things" and that Muhammad would "... in these days be hunted down as a terrorist". Wilders argues that Islam is not a religion, but rather a totalitarian political ideology such as communism and fascism.

On 8 August 2007, Wilders opined in an open letter to the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant that the Koran, which he called a "fascist book", should be outlawed in the Netherlands, like Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. He has stated that "The book incites hatred and killing and therefore has no place in our legal order". He has also referred to Mohammed as "the devil". In September 2009, Wilders proposed putting what he called a "head rag tax" on Hijab wearing by Muslim women; he suggested that women could purchase a license for €1000 and that the money raised could be used in projects beneficial to women's emancipation.

He believes that all Muslim immigration to the Netherlands should be halted and all settled immigrants should be paid to leave. Referring to the increased population of Muslims in the Netherlands, he has said:

Take a walk down the street and see where this is going. You no longer feel like you are living in your own country. There is a battle going on and we have to defend ourselves. Before you know it there will be more mosques than churches!

In a speech before the Dutch Parliament, he stated:

Islam is the Trojan Horse in Europe. If we do not stop Islamification now, Eurabia and Netherabia will just be a matter of time. One century ago, there were approximately 50 Muslims in the Netherlands. Today, there are about 1 million Muslims in this country. Where will it end? We are heading for the end of European and Dutch civilisation as we know it. Where is our Prime Minister in all this? In reply to my questions in the House he said, without batting an eyelid, that there is no question of our country being Islamified. Now, this reply constituted a historical error as soon as it was uttered. Very many Dutch citizens, Madam Speaker, experience the presence of Islam around them. And I can report that they have had enough of burkas, headscarves, the ritual slaughter of animals, so‑called honour revenge, blaring minarets, female circumcision, hymen restoration operations, abuse of homosexuals, Turkish and Arabic on the buses and trains as well as on town hall leaflets, halal meat at grocery shops and department stores, Sharia exams, the Finance Minister's Sharia mortgages, and the enormous overrepresentation of Muslims in the area of crime, including Moroccan street terrorists.


Nonetheless, Wilders has traveled widely in the Arab world and Der Spiegel has stated that Wilders will "wax poetic" over those "magnificent countries". Wilders has also said that "It's a real shame that these places are so chaotic."

After the Dutch parliament turned down his request for an exhibition of cartoons depicting Muhammad be shown in parliament, Wilders vowed to show cartoons depicting him on television during time reserved for political parties.

After the November 2015 Paris attacks, Wilders, in an article in The New York Times, argued for a national referendum in the Netherlands to decide about the refugee crisis.

[karl]

Pieter

Only as a viewpoint, Mr. Wilders is by his example a very well-travelled man and quite knowledgeable of his outspoken views of the Koran. Of this on the surface, Mr. Wilders would be a valuable asset to The Nederlands as a PM, but he seems to go extremes with viewpoints that antagonizes leadership that would otherwise be of his greatest supporters. For as he has spoken, most of his viewpoints are very truthful and valid, but not presented as acceptable.

Karl