The Weekly Forum - 24 April 2026

Is it possible to remain ‘pro-Israel’ after all that has happened in the last year or so? Ralf Dekker and FVD think not. We have all been brought up to think of Israel as a model democracy surrounded by Islamist dictatorships, and therefore as our natural ally against our own domestic Islamist threat. But the moral compass has been brutally spun around by Israel’s recent actions in Gaza, Iran and Lebanon. The judgement against these wars is not just a matter of morality, it is also a question of national interest. Israel has dragged the US, and potentially other structurally pro-NATO and pro-US countries like the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, into a war with Iran. Never mind the military risks, the economic risks are extreme and will soon cripple Europe and the world.

Read Ralf Dekker’s speech here

FVD has voted for two motions put down in Parliament, which were carried, calling for the trade component of the EU-Israel association agreement to be suspended. The motions provoked a sharp reaction from the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands. Ambassador Vapni deplored as ‘shameful’ ‘a dangerous coalition between the radical left and the antisemitic extreme right’. This is pretty standard-issue Israeli boilerplate – but it is false. One of the two motions was put down by an MP from the governing centre-left D66 party, which sits with Renew in the European Parliament, and an MP from the governing centre-right Christian CDA, which sits with the European People’s Party. The other motion was also supported by these two parties. So the ‘dangerous coalition’ is not between the radical left and the extreme right but also includes two eminently ‘respectable’ centrist parties who are currently in government. It is precisely not the extremes alone which are criticising Israel but instead now parties from across the entire political spectrum.

See the votes for the motions here

Is disgust a legitimate political emotion? Gideon van Meijeren MP thinks so. In a recent speech he attacked a new Dutch law changing the meaning of the word ‘embryo’ to include cloned embryos created through cell nucleus transplantation or by inserting body tissue into a sperm or egg cell. This kind of human engineering touches at the very basis of human life and risks violating its sanctity. It will soon be possible for two people of the same sex to have a child this way, or even for a single person to reproduce on her own. Such manipulation of human life is already widely practised, including for eugenicist purposes, but further down the line there could be human cloning and even genetic creations involving combinations of humans and animals. This is grotesque: the revulsion it inspires is itself eloquent. Not everything which is technically possible should be allowed, and in particular human life should not be reduced to a research project, involving the deliberate creation and then destruction of embryos, or to a product. We know from experience that things like euthanasia and abortion were initially introduced for exceptional cases and then progressively enlarged to become banal. This has to stop.

Watch Gideon’s speech here

Meanwhile, fuel rationing is clearly round the corner. While the government refuses to contemplate a cut in fuel tax, to deal with rising prices, it happily chucks away to Ukraine many multiples of the sums which would be involved in such a cut. So when you fill up your car you are paying for Ukrainians to die and for American arms companies to sell more weapons. The same goes for asylum which costs 8 billion euros a year.  With this money you could abolish fuel tax entirely. These sums should be given to Dutch nationals instead. Would you rather have cheaper petrol or an asylum centre near your house? It is not difficult to guess what the people’s answer would be to such a question but they are never asked. Frederik Jansen denounced all this nonsense in a powerful speech to Parliament.

Watch Frederik Jansen’s speech here

We had an exceptionally interesting edition of The Forum & Friends this week with two formidable guests, the former diplomat and intelligence officer, Alistair Crooke, and the Iranian geopolitical analyst Ehsan Sefarnajad from Shiraz. aIf you missed it, watch it now.

Watch The Forum and Friends here