Geert Wilders has come under fire for visiting an illegal settlement on the occupied West Bank during his 36-hour visit to Israel.

The PVV leader met with Yossi Dagan, a prominent settler leader who has called for Israel to reoccupy the area and heads the Samaria Regional Council, which manages 35 settlements in the Palestinian territory.

Wilders’ visit sets him squarely at odds with the Dutch government’s policy of supporting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as stated in the coalition agreement that the PVV and its three partners signed off in September.

Foreign affairs minister Caspar Veldkamp made clear last month that Wilders was free to travel abroad as an MP, but his visit was not sanctioned by the government.

Veldkamp had been due to visit Israel this month, but his invitation was cancelled after he supported the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague against Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant.

The ICC ruled last July that the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank by Israel was illegal and should be ended as soon as possible. The court began an investigation in 2021 into alleged war crimes in the occupied territories.

“No responsibility”

Eric van den Burg, foreign affairs spokesman for another coalition partner, the right-wing liberal VVD, said Wilders’s actions were undermining the international position of Veldkamp and prime minister Dick Schoof.

“He’s deliberately doing things that undermine cabinet policy. He’s entitled to do it, but it’s extremely unwise and shows how he feels no responsibility for Dutch government policy,” Van der Burg told NPO radio programme Sven op 1. “Geert Wilders only thinks about Geert Wilders”.

Wilders, a long-standing supporter of Israel and its right-wing government, also met other prominent politicians iincluding Netanyahu, president Isaac Herzog and the speaker of the Knesset, Amir Ohana, after landing in Tel Aviv on Sunday.

He denounced the arrest warrants issued against Netanyahu and Gallant as “the world gone mad” and said Israel should be supported in its efforts “to drive out barbaric terrorists who shelter in hospitals and schools”.

In the wake of the attacks on supporters of Israeli football club Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam last November, Wilders said the Dutch Moroccan community was to blame and called for those responsible to be stripped of their passports and deported.

“Racist position”

He also called for Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema to be sacked after she said the violence was fuelled by “a poisonous cocktail of anti-Semitism, football hooliganism and anger over the war in Palestine and Israel”.

In July Jordan summoned the Dutch ambassador to protest against a tweet by Wilders in which he called the country the “only true Palestinian state”. In the past Wilders has said Arabs living in the West Bank should be resettled in Jordan and given citizenship.

The Jordanian foreign affairs ministry described Wilders’ message as a “racist position that imagines the possibility of resolving the Palestinian issue at Jordan’s expense”, while Veldkamp said the remarks did not reflect cabinet policy.