Via JTA:
A Dutch activist for Palestinian rights who is married to a senior member of the PLO was nominated to the second-most powerful Cabinet post in the Dutch Foreign Ministry.read more
Sigrid Kaag’s nomination as minister for international aid will be formalized in the coming days following the signing of a coalition deal between the ruling People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy and three other partners, including her left-wing D66 party, the NOS public broadcaster reported Friday.
The wife of Anis al-Qaq, a deputy minister under Yasser Arafat in the 1990s and a Palestinian Authority ambassador to Switzerland, Kaag has worked for UNRWA, the United Nations agency that aids Palestinians.
As minister for aid, Kaag will not be directly responsible for the foreign relations of her country, which is one of Israel’s strongest allies within the European Union. But she will be responsible for implementing aid projects in the West Bank — including ones considered illegal by Israel and that have led to friction between the Jewish state and the Netherlands.
In an interview from 1996, Kaag said that Benjamin Netanyahu, who was that year elected prime minister for the first time, does not represent peace-seeking Israelis. (...)
Kaag in the interview called settler “illegal colonists on confiscated land.” She also said that settler called her “whore of the Arabs.” She also said in that interview that her father-in-law was in 1995 stabbed on the Jerusalem promenade by a Jew wearing an Arab kaffiyeh – a claim that was later contested by critics who said Israeli police records show no record of such an incident that year.
“Netanyahu’s way is of soundbites with racist, demagogic overtones about the Palestinian peace partner, his Arab peace partners, who are being sidelined,” added Kaag.
The Netherlands’ next foreign minister will be the ruling party’s Halbe Zijlstra, whom pro-Palestinian activists in the Netherlands described as “very pro-Israel.”
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