“Very dangerous”: Rights group condemns Kristallnacht speech

The Kristallnacht remembrance service in Amsterdam’s Portuguese Synagogue has stirred controversy after the keynote speaker condemned the Red Line protests and said labelling the Gaza war a genocide was rooted in anti-Semitism.

In an unusually political speech, Chanan Hertzberger, chair of Jewish umbrella organisation CJO, denounced the “genocide lie” in front of a congregation containing senior cabinet members including the prime minister Rob Jetten, who also spoke.

“Who is being held responsible, in Arnhem, in Groningen and in Amsterdam for this so-called genocide?” he said. “We, the Jews. In our own own cities. In our streets. In our children’s classrooms. We are being ostracised and pushed to the margins of society.”

He mentioned the numerous attacks on Jewish schools and synagogues in the Netherlands this year, and said that the images of Gaza left no one unmoved, including himself.

Gerard Jonkman, director of Amsterdam-based Rights Forum, which campaigns on behalf of Palestinian rights, told Dutch News Hertzberger’s speech was “absolutely unacceptable”.

“This is also mixing the issue of anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel,” he said, “which is very, very, very dangerous.”

Linking the protest to anti-Semitism in this way makes Jewish people in the Netherlands appear accountable for the policies of the Israeli government, he said.

Hertzberger said the “lie” that Israel was committing genocide now “marches weekly through our streets”, citing chants at Sunday’s protest, though he added that not all demonstrators were anti-Semites.

Zionism

He claimed that in fact the majority of Jewish people in the Netherlands are Zionists, that Zionism is the recognition of Israel’s right to exist as a “safe, independent Jewish state”, and that those things are now “more important than ever”.

A United Nations commission of inquiry concluded in September 2025 that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, a finding Israel rejects. The International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Jonkman said many Jewish people joined Sunday’s Red Line demonstration, and that many people he had spoken to, among them Holocaust survivors and children of Holocaust survivors, were hurt by the speech.

Jewish people who are critical of Israel are rarely heard, he said.

“He embarrassed Jetten”

Hertzberger began his speech by thanking Jetten for not giving in to “the demands of the organisers of yesterday’s anti-Israel demonstration”, which he said amounted “directly or indirectly” to wiping Israel off the map.

Only hours before, Jetten had spoken to RTL Nieuws saying it had been “impossible to miss” the protest and that he decided to stay away (having attended previous ones) because of his new role as PM, which he and his fellow cabinet member have used from the beginning to “increase pressure on Israel”.

Jonkman said he thought Hertzberger had embarrassed Jetten, and that the prime minister should now react to “these ridiculous accusations of hatred towards Israel.”

The CJO has not yet replied for comment.

Jetten’s premiership has marked a downturn in Dutch-Israeli relations. Since the cabinet enacted a ban on goods from illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories in September, Israel has responded by stripping Dutch diplomats of their status and removing Dutch officials from a US-backed Gaza ceasefire centre.