Netherlands: Jewish journalist accused of being an Israeli spy in the Dutch parliament

Via JTA (by Cnaan Liphshiz):

This week, only six months after I became a Dutch citizen, my wife congratulated me for being mentioned in parliament for my reporting on the Netherlands’ relations with Israel. Flattered, I looked it up, expecting to find praise for my work. I was already kind of drafting, as journalists instinctively do, some grateful Facebook post on my integration success story. 

There was just one tiny problem: The mention, which local Jewish leaders later condemned as anti-Semitic, was by a pro-immigrant, Muslim rights party that insinuated that I am a Zionist spy for Israeli intelligence. 

The charges appear in a set of questions submitted to the chamber by Denk (“think” in Dutch), a party founded by two Dutch-Turkish politicians. Citing my reporting for JTA and prior service in the Israel Defense Forces, they suggested to Cabinet ministers that as a former member of the military, I am part of an effort by Israel to “spy on pro-Palestine activists in Europe.” 

Seeing this elicited a rash of emotions, from disbelief and anger at my accusers to gratitude when strangers publicly leapt to my defense. 

Let me back up. When I became a citizen earlier this year, I had both hope and doubts. Would a country defined by centuries of tolerance continue to show respect and acceptance for its religious minorities? Or would it succumb to pressures from the far right on the one hand and Islamists on the other? 

To me, Denk’s attack demonstrated that my roots can be used against me — and maybe against my children, too — even in the once-tolerant society into which I thought I integrated.

What seemed to have inspired the party’s attack was my reporting about the appointment of Cabinet minister Sigrid Kaag, a former staffer for UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, who is married to a former ambassador of the Palestinian Authority to Switzerland. 

In an article about her appointment, I wrote that in 1996, she accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of using racist language. Denk accused me of misquoting Kaag in a “campaign of libel,” arguing that she was merely quoting Israeli critics of Netanyahu while expressing no opinion herself.  (...)

Above all, I am saddened by the fact that the query accusing me of treason or disloyalty came from a party that represents mainly immigrants from the Middle East. It shouldn’t go unnoticed that our common enemies accuse them of the exactly the same thing.

On a personal level, I wonder what the people I interview – and more crucially for my extensive travels, immigration officers with no knowledge of the affair — might think when they Google my name, only to find an accusation on the Dutch parliament’s website that I am a spy. Or what an Islamist terrorist in search of a quality target might think upon reading my name — singled out publicly by his favorite party — which is also listed in the Dutch White Pages.

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