Geert Wilders’ name was ‘consciously’ removed from an advert against anti-semitism, the Dutch Israeli information centre CIDI said on Thursday.

The leader of the anti-immigration PVV was asked by CIDI to sign the full-page advert, along with other famous Dutch people. It was published in Thursday’s Telegraaf.

However, shortly after Wilders gave his support to the action, he made derogatory remarks about a meeting on anti-semitism between the government and a number of Jewish organisations.

Criticism

Commenting about the removal of his name via Twitter, Wilders said: ‘So criticism of (CIDI director) Esther Voet is not allowed. Nor is saying that anti-semitism comes from islamisation.’

The CIDI did not contact Wilders before removing his name from the advert, but is now in contact with him to put things right, a spokesman told Nos television.

Regrets

The organisation regrets the incident, not least because all the attention is now focused on Wilders rather than on the message.

Dozens of famous people from politics, show business and business signed the advert decrying the increase in anti-semitism in the Netherlands.