Universities in Netherlands say they will not comply with a request for information on Israel and Jewish ties

All fourteen universities in the Netherlands said they will not comply with a request from a pro-Palestinian organization regarding their ties with Israeli and Jewish entities, writes Yossi Lempkowicz.

Under a 'Freedom of Information Act', binding public or state-funded organizations, the Rights Forumn, whose critics say it is antisemitic,  had requested last month the universities to list their staff’s interactions with Israeli and Jewish entities  involved in religion, commemoration or the fight against anti-Semitism, including the Anti-Defamation League, the Central Jewish Board of the Netherlands, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, B’nai B’rith and even the office of the Dutch government’s own National Coordinator for Fighting Antisemitism, which is headed by Edo Verdonner, who is Jewish.

Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs, the Chief Rabbi of the Netherlands, called the Rights Forum’s request ‘’antisemitic’’ and said it is reminiscent of the Mayors who surrendered information about Jews to German occupiers during WWII.

”In all my many years in Holland I can seldom remember such a toxic environment for Jews. This is an appalling submission to the base instincts of an openly hostile group towards Israel, the world’s only Jewish State,” Rabbi Jacobs, , who heads up the European Jewish Association’s Committee for Combatting Antisemism,  stated.

The Rights Forum was founded by former Dutch Prime Minister Dries van Agt, who is considered as an antisemite. He has accused Israeli settlers of poisoning their Palestinian neighbors and has compared Israel to Nazi Germany.

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