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Dutch Voters Have 'Turned the Page,' Center-Left Leader Says as Far Right Rebuked in Elections
"We’ve shown not only to the Netherlands, but also to the world that it is possible to beat populist and extreme-right movements," said Rob Jetten.
Oct 30, 2025
The leader of the Netherlands' center-left Democrats 66 Party hailed the results of Wednesday's snap parliamentary elections as proof that "millions of Dutch people have turned a page and said goodbye to the politics of negativity," with the far-right Party for Freedom set to lose 11 seats and its vehemently anti-migration leader, Geerts Wilders, appearing to have no path to a majority.
"We’ve shown not only to the Netherlands, but also to the world that it is possible to beat populist and extreme-right movements," D66 Leader Rob Jetten, who is now likely to become the Netherlands' youngest and first openly gay prime minister.
Full election results may not be known for weeks, but the Dutch news outlet NOS reported Thursday morning that the D66 was in the lead by 15,122 votes, putting Jetten in a likely position to lead talks on forming a new coalition government.
Both D66 and the Party for Freedom (PVV) were projected to win 26 seats in Parliament's 150-seat lower house.
The results represented a precipitous fall from power for PVV, which stunned observers in 2023 with its first-place finish in that year's elections, capturing 37 seats.
Wilders has led the far-right party for nearly two decades, and his surprise victory two years ago earned him the nickname the "Dutch Donald Trump" as he promoted his virulently Islamophobic rhetoric and pushed to eliminate all migration from Muslim-majority countries, end asylum, and revoke Dutch citizenship from people with dual passports.
He also called to revoke climate regulations and pull the Netherlands out of the European Union, but as the New York Times reported in an analysis of the election, Wilders "could not rally the support to turn those extreme stances into reality."
In June, Wilders—whose chants against Moroccan immigrants at a rally in The Hague led to him being convicted of inciting discrimination in 2016—withdrew his party from the governing coalition after failing to get support for his extreme anti-migration proposals.
The PVV's campaign ahead of the parliamentary elections promised those same policies and led other major parties to pledge that they would refuse to form a new coalition with Wilders.
René Hendriks, an election volunteer in the Hague, told the Times that "the Netherlands is a bit fed up" with PVV's leadership.
Jetten's party focused heavily on affordable housing, proposing the construction of 10 new cities to help solve the country's chronic housing shortage. D66 also called for "making smart use of [artificial intelligence] and digital progress" to pave the way for a four-day workweek, ending fossil fuel subsidies, the passage of an Anti-Discrimination Act, and “well-thought-out and effective policies, rather than using strong language" on migration.
D66 did shift to the right on some migration policies, however, backing a proposal requiring refugees to submit their asylum applications outside of Europe.
But Kristof Jacobs, a political scientist at Radboud University, told the Times that the election results suggest the far right in Europe may not be poised to seize power as it campaigns on anti-migration policies.
"We thought it was almost a deterministic thing, that the radical right was always going to become bigger—that they were bulletproof," Jacobs said. “Not so bulletproof after all.”
Far-right movements have recently gained favor with the public in Germany, the United Kingdom, and France, although have largely failed at actually achieving power within governments.
Jetten said as the election results came in that "the positive forces have won!"
"I want to get to work for all Dutch people," he said, "because this is the land of us all!”
Meetings to start the process of forming a new coalition government are expected to begin next week.
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Will Popular Pressure Finally Push Western Governments to Stand Up for Palestine?
People's power is proving more than capable of swaying some governments to impose sanctions and sever diplomatic ties with Israel.
Sep 05, 2025
Is it finally happening? Is the West turning against Israel? Or are we, whether motivated by hope or driven by despair, simply engaging in wishful thinking? The matter is not so simple.
In July 2025, a significant number of countries and organizations signed the "New York Declaration," a strong statement that followed a high-level meeting titled, "Conference on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine."
The conference itself and its bold conclusion warrant a deeper conversation. What matters for now, however, is the identity of the countries involved. Aside from states that have traditionally advocated for international justice and law in Palestine, many of the signatories were countries that had previously supported Israel regardless of context or circumstance.
These mostly Western countries included Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, among others. Some of these nations are also expected to formally recognize the state of Palestine in September.
Of course, one has no illusions about the hypocrisy of supporting peace in Palestine while still arming the Israeli war machine that is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. That notwithstanding, the political change is too significant to ignore.
In the case of Ireland, Norway, Spain, Luxembourg, Malta, and Portugal, among others, one can explain the growing rift with Israel and the championing of Palestinian rights based on historical evidence. Indeed, most of these countries have historically teetered on the edge between the Western common denominator and a more humanistic approach to the Palestinian struggle. This shift had already begun years prior to the ongoing Israeli genocide.
But what is one to make of the positions of Australia and the Netherlands, two of the most adamantly pro-Israel governments anywhere?
In Australia's case, media accounts argue that the friction began when the federal government denied an Israeli extremist lawmaker, Simcha Rothman, a visa for a speaking tour.
The precious blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians in Gaza deserves for history to be finally altered.
Israel quickly retaliated by ending visas for three Australian diplomats in occupied Palestine. This Israeli step was not just a mere tit-for-tat response but the start of a virulent campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to wage a diplomatic war against Australia.
"History will remember [Australian Prime Minister Anthony] Albanese for what he is: a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia's Jews," Netanyahu said, again infusing the same logic of lies and manipulation tactics.
Israel's anger was not directly related to Rothman's visa. The latter was a mere opportunity for Netanyahu to respond to Australia's signature on the New York Declaration, its decision to recognize Palestine, and its growing criticism of Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Though Albanese did not engage Netanyahu directly, his Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, did. He answered the accusations of weakness by boldly arguing that "strength is not measured by how many people you can blow up."
This statement is both true and self-indicting, not only for Australia but for other Western governments. For years, and numerous times during the genocide, Australian leaders have argued that "Israel has the right to defend itself." Since blowing people up hardly qualifies as self-defense, it follows that Canberra had known all along that Israel's war is but an ongoing episode of war crimes. So, why the sudden, though still unconvincing, shift in position?
The answer to this question is directly related to the mass mobilization in Australia. On a single Sunday in August, hundreds of thousands of Australians took to the streets in what organizers described as the largest pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the country's history. Marches were held in more than 40 cities and towns, including a massive rally in Sydney that drew a crowd of up to 300,000 people and brought the city's Harbour Bridge to a standstill. These protests, which called for sanctions and an end to Australia's arms trade with Israel, demonstrated the immense public pressure on the government.
In other words, it is the Australian people who have truly spoken, courageously standing up to Netanyahu and to their own government's refusal to take any meaningful step to hold Israel accountable. If anyone should be congratulated on their strength and resolve, it would be the millions of Australians who relentlessly continue to rally for peace, justice, and an end to the genocide in Gaza.
Similarly, the political crisis in the Netherlands, starting with the resignation of Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp on August 22, 2025, is indicative of the unusually significant change in European politics toward Israel and Palestine.
"The Israeli government's actions violate international treaties. A line must be drawn," said Eddy van Hijum, the leader of the country's New Social Contract Party and deputy prime minister.
The "line" was indeed drawn, and quickly so when Veldkamp resigned, ushering in mass resignations by other key ministers in the government. The idea of a major political crisis in the Netherlands sparked by Israeli war crimes in Palestine would have been unthinkable in the past.
The political shift in the Netherlands, much like in Australia, would not have happened without the massive public mobilization around the Gaza genocide that continues to grow worldwide. While pro-Palestine protests have occurred in the past, they have never before achieved the critical mass needed to compel governments to act.
Though these governmental actions remain timid and reluctant, the momentum is undeniable. People's power is proving more than capable of swaying some governments to impose sanctions and sever diplomatic ties with Israel, not only through pressure in the streets but also through pressure at the ballot box.
While the West has not yet fully turned against Israel, it may only be a matter of time. The precious blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians in Gaza deserves for history to be finally altered. The children of Palestine deserve this global awakening of conscience.
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Netherlands Bans Two Israeli Cabinet Ministers Who 'Called for Ethnic Cleansing' in Gaza
As mass starvation in Gaza reaches horrific new levels, European governments are attempting to pressure Israel to stop blocking humanitarian aid.
Jul 29, 2025
As Israel's starvation campaign in Gaza accelerates, the Netherlands has banned two far-right Israeli ministers from entering the country after they "repeatedly incited violence against the Palestinian population," and "called for ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip."
The officials—National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—are both members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition, and they have called for Palestinians to be forced out of Gaza in order to make room for Israeli settlers.
In a letter sent to Dutch lawmakers Monday evening, Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp declared the two ministers "persona non grata," adding that "the war in Gaza must stop."
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports that one in three people in Gaza is going multiple days at a time without eating. Meanwhile, acute malnutrition rates have quadrupled over the past month to the point where nearly 1 in 5 children is at risk of death from hunger.
"People are starving not because food is unavailable, but because access is blocked, local agrifood systems have collapsed, and families can no longer sustain even the most basic livelihoods," said Qu Dongyu, the director-general of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Israel said it allowed 120 aid trucks to enter the strip on Sunday. But according to U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher, that is "a drop in the ocean" compared to what the population needs to survive.
As starvation in Gaza approached what a U.N.-backed report described Monday as the "worst case scenario," Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have doubled down on calls for maximum torment.
After Netanyahu announced that Israel would allow a meager trickle of aid into the strip following international outcry, Ben-Gvir described Netanyahu as "morally bankrupt" for allowing any food into the strip.
"I think at this stage, the only thing you should be sending to Gaza is shells," Ben-Gvir said. "To bomb, conquer, encourage emigration, and win the war."
Last week, at a conference in the Israeli parliament with far-right Jewish settlers, Smotrich discussed plans "to relocate Gazans to other countries," which he said "will serve as a means of facilitating the settlement of the strip" by Jewish Israelis.
In May, Smotrich said, "Within a few months, we will be able to declare that we have won. Gaza will be totally destroyed," and spoke of "concentrating" its civilians in preparation for their mass exodus from the strip.
"They will be totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places," he added.
The Netherlands is not the first country to attempt to punish the far-right ministers.
Earlier this month, Slovenia became the first nation to ban Smotrich and Ben-Gvir from entry, citing their incitement of "extreme violence and serious violations of the human rights of Palestinians" with "their genocidal statements."
The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Norway have also imposed financial sanctions on the two men.
On Tuesday, the European Commission proposed partially suspending Israel from the $100 million Horizon research program, citing the Gaza famine.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said that unless Israel complies with agreements to allow humanitarian aid access, he would support banning Israel from the prestigious research program and potentially take other "national measures to increase the pressure."
"The government's goal is crystal clear," Schoof said. "The people of Gaza must be given immediate, unfettered, safe access to humanitarian aid."
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