A Dutch politician from an anti-racist party declined to shake hands with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, before a meeting at the Dutch parliament in The Hague on Wednesday.
Tunahan Kuzu, a member of Parliament who was born in Turkey and co-founded the new multi-ethnic party, Denk, or Think, in 2014 to represent immigrants to the Netherlands, explained later that he intended the gesture as a sign that many in the Netherlands object to the abuse of Palestinian civilians living under Israeli military rule in the occupied territories.
Photographs and video of the incident showed Kuzu, who was wearing a Palestinian flag pin on his lapel, smile and nod as he was introduced to the Israeli leader but withdraw his right hand behind his back as Netanyahu extended his.
Tunahan Kuzu durft Benjamin Netanyahu (ex-commando) de hand niet te schudden pic.twitter.com/cGkMl2gvtB
— Ernst Lissauer (@ErnstLissauer) September 7, 2016
Netanyahu reacted to the snub by making a gesture of dismissal and turning away as he said, “Oh, OK.”
@tunahankuzu weigert Benjamin #Netanyahu de hand te schudden #Kuzu #Hand pic.twitter.com/DNMYcPH3UK
— Bart Maat (@bartmaat) September 7, 2016
In a statement posted on Facebook, Kuzu said that after the cameras left the room, he confronted Netanyahu with photographs of Palestinians suffering abuses in Gaza and the West Bank — including one of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, with one arm in a sling, who was placed in a headlock by an Israeli soldier — and asked the Israeli leader if this matched his rhetoric about promoting democracy, technology, and security in the region.
Dutch Councilman Tunahan Kuzu responds to Netenyahu's "israel is the only democracy in the Middle East" #Burn pic.twitter.com/w9La7rOZAJ
— Abbs Winston (@AbbsWinston) September 7, 2016
Netanyahu was greeted more warmly by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, but the Dutch leader made it clear that his government wants an immediate end to the building of Jewish-only settlements on the territory Israel seized in 1967, supports the labeling of Israeli exports produced in the occupied West Bank, and would not bar citizens of the Netherlands from taking part in the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against firms that aid Israel’s occupation.
In his remarks, Netanyahu said that “Israel is not only defending itself, Israel is also helping to defend Europe” from “radical Islamist terrorists.”
On the flight home, Netanyahu recorded a message for his social-media followers in which he said the incident showed the difference between “those who want peace and those who don’t.”
PM Netanyahu: Today, we saw another clear example – of those who want peace and those who don’t. pic.twitter.com/E6FClNdF7E
— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) September 7, 2016
The Israeli prime minister could find a much more receptive audience on his next trip to the Netherlands if the anti-Islam Freedom Party, which is leading in the polls, comes to power after elections in March.
Just spoke Israeli PM @netanyahu – visiting The Netherlands – and assured him of the strong support and friendship of my party PVV.
— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) September 7, 2016
The nativist party’s leader, Geert Wilders, encouraged Israelis to build settlements across the occupied West Bank during a visit to Israel in 2010 and has described Muslim immigrants as a threat to Europe’s Judeo-Christian roots.
— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) September 2, 2016
In his party’s platform, released last month, Wilders promised to “de-Islamize the Netherlands” by closing the nation’s borders to immigrants from Muslim countries, expelling refugees, closing all mosques and Islamic schools, and banning the use of the Quran.
Not shaking hands with Netanyahu should become the standard.
There’s nothing anti-racist about Kuzu and the DENK party. Guy refuses to condemn ISIS and other terrorist groups, wants to ‘cleanse’ (read: murder) Gulen supporters in both the Netherlands and Turkey and only got his parliament seat due to hijacking it from his previous party (PVDA, Dutch Labour) together with his co-hijacker Ozturk. The entire DENK platform is based on getting ‘brown votes’ and nothing less (which is fine in a democracy, but it has nothing do to with anti-racism). Both Ozturk and Kuzu will soon be under investigation for their alleged short ties to Erdogan.
Do some research writer.
Disclaimer: I live in the Netherlands.
Good on Tunahan Kuzu. Much respect.
So, does this Turkish “anti-racist” accept the facts about the Armenian Genocide?
another clear example – of those who want peace and those who don’t.
Well, give the guy credit. He does tell the truth once in a while after all.
Kuzu lives in the SAFETY of Europe from his OWN Brothers, while the Dutch kill and maim Nigerians to steal all their oils with Shell!
Shell Oil boast ” LARGEST AND OLDEST NIGERIA OIL COMPANY”!
And NOT a Netanyahu fan here!
i like a guy with good morals and high standards. zionists are bottomfeeders.
Mackey’s PCness irritates me even more when he’s falling for an obvious media stunt like this one. All it takes to be praised in one of his articles is a calculated refusal to shake a blood-stained hand.
Many other (probably Dutch) commentators (Volkert and Pirrewiet for instance) already stressed Kuzu’s dubious double political allegiance, so I won’t elaborate on that except by saying that if one really wants to prevent a dangerous bitchy demagogue like Wilders (In comparison, even Le Pen appears moderate when she’s calling for “appeasement”) from rising to power (He has not only be leading in the polls for almost a year now : if said polls are to be believed, he’s literally outdistanced every other party by huge margins.), creating an addition of one- (or two-)man parties is probably not the best way in an already split political landscape. Moreover, taken at face value, The Kuzu/Oztürk party’s political platform is perfectly soluble in a variety of other parties (the Green Party for instance, whose new leader has been championing diversity and inclusiveness, taking a courageous stand against Wilders on the refugee-issue, but also the liberal-leaning D66).
But back to Mackey : hand-symbolism is fine, but substance to back it up is a lot better, and in that area, someone like Dries Van Agt (a veteran Christian progressive who happened to be the Netherlands’ PM in the seventies) has a lot more to offer. Unfortunately, he’s not tweeting much, to my knowledge…
Fortunately, a few videos are making up for that :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmRM_5obsFY
Could this white Caucasian European atheist remind Geert Wilders where he can shove “Europe’s Judeo-Christian roots”?
Given the terrible pro-Clinton articles Robert Mackey has authored in the past, I have to acknowledge the relevance of this piece. Thanks.
Give the guy a medal!hoo haw!
He should keep one eye open and both ears at night for buzzing.
Somebody should tell Geert Wilders that Islam actually *does* have a place in Europe. It used to be called “Yugoslavia”. (The Balkans were formerly part of the Ottoman Empire, so there are native European muslims there.)
I’ll let my Slavic grandmother know that some American thinks native Southern Slavics were all originally muslims and its history began with the Ottoman Empire. What kind of historical revisionist BS is this? Oh, and Yugoslavia was formed after WWI and after the Ottoman Empire was broken apart. The didn’t have nation-states or self-determination.
“…some American thinks native Southern Slavics were all originally muslims and its history began with the Ottoman Empire”
I said no such thing. All I meant was that there *are* native European muslims who live in the former Yugoslavia, parts of which were formerly part of the Ottoman Empire.
Calm down…
I am glad the ICC is located in The Netherlands. Hopefully the Dutch will stay true to their leadership within Europe on demanding withdrawal from occupation in Palestine over the UN Green Line. Until Israel de-occupies, this will serve as the greatest recruitment tool for Islamic extremism. I hope soon for a new gen of Israeli leaders like Omer Goldman.
To the blatantly racist supporters of the Israeli regime, refusing to shake hands with a man who runs a violently racist regime is the racist act, while denying citizenship and residency to the legal population of a state to maintain the illusion that a minority ethnic group is the majority (the actual definition of Apartheid) is the opposite of racism. And so those willing to subsume morality to group identity screamed that the racist was Kuzu, not Netanyahu. Rather like those who claimed it was Desmond Tutu who was the racist, rather than the leaders of the South African Apartheid regime.
It’s great to see Kuzu give Netanyahu the smack-down he so thoroughly deserves. Here’s Netanyahu’s response to the Dutch government’s criticism of Israeli government ‘Jews only’ settlements and plainly evident apartheid policies against Palestinians: “Today, we saw another clear example – of those who want peace and those who don’t.” Talk about double-speak nonsense: Israel “wants peace”? Really? Was ‘Operation Cast Lead’, ‘Operation Protective Edge’, etc examples of Israel’s peaceful intentions? What pure bullshit. Further: Netanyahu natters on about ‘Israel being the only democracy in the Middle East blah blah blah': pure bullshit again. If you are an Arab living in Israel you are definitely not given the same legal rights and privileges that Jews of Jewish ancestry receive legally–this is a racist, apartheid regime. It definitely is not a democracy.
That takes guts…wish more people had it..Isreal’s PM is a racist and should be treated with distain.
Kuzu is actually in a party that is actually very discriminating. Just not towards immigrants but towards the media, politicians and the rest of the “elite”. Here, his party is compared to the extreme right PVV (Wilders’ party). But then positive towards muslims and negative towards others. His party members have the same emotions and they actually explained that very clearly in some of their (amateuristic, tin-foil-hat-theories) videos. You should do research before calling Kuzu ‘anti-racist’. ‘Cause he’s not.
This man is not an anti-racist but an ethnic Turk promoting the interests of Turkey within the Dutch government. He uses there’s stunts to gain Muslim voters, whose vote he uses to the benefit of Erdogan. This man is right wing and there is nothing progressive about him.
Netanyahu will defend his actions as rightful, since his kind of person always does. Believe me, I know from experience.
Any action showing disdain by another is interpreted as envy.
envy? that’s interesting.
Good to know that not everyone submits to disgusting zionist policies and behavior.
Not to worry, Netanyahu will plot his revenge…he’s not one to pass that up.
So, maybe he knows that Netanyahu’s gonna be on trial there soon enough…
Calling a bigoted Turkish politician living in the Netherlands an ‘anti-racist’, is one of the funniest things I have read this week. Of course, there are much more important things to discuss at the moment, like the fact that Turkey is killing Kurdish people in Northern Syria, right now, as we speak – while the Western media, including this website, is deafeningly silent to the point of complicity.
In other news the liberal left lobbies that prostitution is work like any other and Islam is the religion of peace.
Im a german – arab man and a practicing muslim – still im a bit puzzled by this article.
While i like Kuzus and Öztürks stance towards Israel, at the same time it is completely obvious they are mere shills of the turkish government to sow discord in Europe because that is what turkey (obviously) wants, just as Europe wants it in Turkey. Its part of a political game.
Their propositions have been caricatures of anti-racist policy designed only to enrage white people and polarize black and PoC ppl.
They are the Anti-Wilders, i.e. basically anti-white Populists whose politics are a strange mix of postcolonial and critical whiteness thinking and conservative political Islam (which is ok IMO).
Especcially because of the latter they have absolutely no interest in any kind of peaceful coexistence on the tbasis of liberty, freedom, equality, tolerance.
As i said, im a practicing muslim but i really dont like to lie about my faith (like: “we only have a problem with you when you are racist, when in reality i have a problem with you not being a muslim”) just to get white people to feel guilty. This is a form of taqiyyah which doesnt exist in Sunni Islam.
please take this seriously, dont delete it, im not a troll.
Nobody can say Up is Down better and with more phony sincerity than old Bibi. Nobody!
Well, this guy won’t be around much longer…
(No, not Mackey – unfortunately.)
Thank you Robert Mackey for bringing this to light!
And congrats and thanks to Tunahan Kuzu for leading in the world for human beings.
Amen to that.
The sad part is that Kuzu is very selective in his morals and only leads when he sees fit. He and his party actively deny the Turkish genocide on the Armenians. So much for this champion of Human Rights.