Israel has lashed out at the Netherlands after it banned the import of goods from illegal settlements, the latest in a series of disputes with traditional allies who are growing increasingly vocal in their opposition to Israeli conduct.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar announced that Dutch diplomats serving in the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank have seven days to hand over their Israeli diplomatic credentials.
This will greatly limit their ability to carry out diplomatic work with Palestinians, after the Netherlands reportedly began enforcing a ban on goods from Israeli businesses operating in occupied territories.
“If the Netherlands wishes to continue representing its interests with the Palestinians, it may do so from Palestinian Authority territory, rather than from the territory of the State of Israel,” Mr Saar said in a post on X.
The announcement from Mr Saar came after Dutch customs officers searched the luggage of passengers arriving in Amsterdam on Israeli airline El Al for settlement goods. The Netherlands' policy came into effect last week and does not affect goods purchased within Israel's sovereign borders. Intentional violation of the law could result in up to six years’ in prison.
Israeli news outlet Haaretz reported on Monday that a kosher supermarket in Amsterdam informed customers earlier in the month that a number of products from Israeli settlements would no longer be available on its shelves.
The move marks the latest deterioration in relations with western allies, as momentum grows to act against Israel’s rapidly expanding settler movement, which throws into jeopardy the future of the two-state solution, long regarded by much of the international community as the preferred route to ending the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Since the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came into power in 2022, Israel's settlement project in the occupied territories has accelerated, alongside a huge rise in settler-related violence against Palestinians. There is also rising criticism of Israeli conduct during the Gaza war.
Territories affected by the Netherlands' ban include the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
Israel’s revocation of diplomatic privileges comes weeks after it closed the British Consulate in Jerusalem, which serves Palestinians, after the UK announced sanctions against occupied West Bank settlements. The move was followed by similar announcements from 11 other western countries.
The spate of punitive measures puts the targeted western diplomats in a complicated position, as they must now decide whether to leave the territory and possibly relocate to a nearby capital such as Amman, or operate with less protection within Jerusalem or the West Bank.
The dilemma is further complicated because much of the international community views East Jerusalem as occupied Palestinian territory under international law, in which Israel does not have the right to expel diplomats, while Israel claims the entirety of Jerusalem is its undivided capital.
The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, a strong supporter of Israeli settlements, lambasted the “insane” Dutch decision, claiming that buying a “nativity set from Bethlehem could put you in prison”. Bethlehem is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, not an Israeli settlement, so the Dutch ban would not apply to anything purchased there.
The US recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017 and moved the American embassy from Tel Aviv to the city in 2018. It also acknowledged Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, widely considered by the international community to be Syrian territory, in 2019.
Former Israeli ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, said the Dutch policy showed “the Netherlands, the most pro-Nazi western European country during the German Second World War occupation, has fully returned to its anti-Semitic roots and performing selections on Jews”.
He called on Israel to expel the Dutch ambassador in Tel Aviv “at once”.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said: “The fact that Israelis are landing in the Netherlands and rummaging through their bags to search for and confiscate products from the settlements is a diplomatic failure unlike anything that has ever happened before.”
Mr Lapid listed other moments such as a plane from Israel reportedly being denied permission to land by authorities in Mauritius last week, the mass walkout of UN delegates during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the General Assembly in New York last week and even recent controversy involving the British singer Ed Sheeran.
“With the right diplomatic work, with the right public diplomacy management, it is possible to stop the anti-Israel wave and return us to being a beloved country in the world,” Mr Lapid, who is in the midst of an election campaign, concluded in a post on X. “This won't happen with this government. The fix will begin in another month,” he added.
