The report added that Veldkamp encountered “resistance” in several Cabinet meetings with regard to his proposals.
According to local media, Veldkamp also wanted to advance a boycott on products made by Jews in the West Bank. Cabinet members argued that such a boycott should only be introduced at the European level, while some flatly rejected new measures, the report added.
Following Veldkamp’s lead, four other ministers from his New Social Contract (NSC) party handed in their resignations, leaving the centrist People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy and the Farmer-Citizen Movement as the only members of the caretaker government.
In a joint declaration on Thursday, the Netherlands and 20 other countries decried Israel’s approval of a major housing project on the West Bank.
The move was “unacceptable and contrary to international law,” the statement read.
Earlier this month, the European nation decided not to recognise a Palestinian state for the time being, while at the same time blasting Israel for not conducting a “just war” against the Hamas terrorist organisation.
The Dutch House of Representatives in The Hague held an emergency debate on Thursday and Friday, with lawmakers recalled from their summer recess to deliberate the situation in Gaza.
With France and Britain announcing they will recognise a Palestinian state in September unless the war in Gaza comes to an end, Veldkamp told MPs that the Netherlands would not do the same “at this time.”
Meanwhile, a resolution sponsored by the Party for Freedom (PVV) – led by pro-Israel politician Geert Wilders – saying that Hamas must be completely destroyed, was recently adopted by the Dutch House of Representatives.
Wilders posted a document in Dutch on X, dated Aug. 21, which read, “Having heard the deliberation, [the House] declares that the Islamic terrorist organisation Hamas must be completely destroyed, and proceeds to the order of the day.”
The Dutch government collapsed on June 3, ushering in an October 29 election, after Wilders’s Party for Freedom withdrew from the coalition after others failed to back his plans to toughen immigration policies.
The Party for Freedom had entered the coalition some six months after its surprise victory in the Netherlands’ November 2023 general election, striking a deal with the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy and New Social Contract parties, as well as the Farmer-Citizen Movement.
Initially described as the most pro-Israel government in the history of the Netherlands due to its promise to move the embassy to Jerusalem, Veldkamp became the EU’s most vocal critic of the Jewish state.
In November, Veldkamp welcomed his Iranian counterpart in The Hague, just days after his government said it would break off all “non-essential” contacts with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
