Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to the Netherlands
The Netherlands: its Jewish community, F-35 parts litigation, the ICC and ICJ in The Hague, and Israeli arms purchases
About 30,000 Jews live in the Netherlands, half of them in Amsterdam, according to the World Jewish Congress (WJC).[1] The Netherlands voted for the 1947 partition plan and was long one of "Israel"'s closest European partners; it is also a major buyer of Israeli weapons.[2] Since 2024 Dutch courts have ruled on exports of F-35 parts to "Israel",[3] and The Hague, seat of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, has been central to legal proceedings over the Gaza war.[4]
Zionist movement
- Main article: Zionist movement Netherlands
According to the WJC, five Jewish youth movements are active in the Netherlands, among them the Zionist movements Bnei Akiva and Haboniem-Dror, and more than 7,000 Dutch Jews have emigrated to "Israel" since 1948.[1]
Jewish community
The Organisation of Jewish Communities in the Netherlands (Nederlands-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap, NIK), an umbrella of more than 25 groups serving 32 communities, is the WJC's affiliate; Dutch Jewry is organised in Ashkenazi Orthodox, Sephardi (Portuguese) Orthodox and Reform councils. Of about 107,000 Jews deported from the Netherlands during the Holocaust, about 5,200 survived.[1]
Chabad
- Main article: Chabad Lubavitch of Netherlands
Chabad in the Netherlands dates from 1964, when Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, sent Rabbi Yitzchak Vorst and his wife Dobbe to the country; Chabad Nederland says it now has more than twenty emissaries in thirteen cities.[5] Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs, the Inter-Provincial Chief Rabbi, is a Chabad emissary, and Chabad.org calls him the regional director of Chabad-Lubavitch activities in the country, though Chabad Nederland's own site names Rabbi Shmuel Katzman as Vorst's chosen successor.[6][5] According to Chabad.org, Jacobs founded "Toda Raba", a programme honouring people who support Jewish life, under which he has taken award recipients to "Israel", and since 7 October 2023 he has often spoken against antisemitism before government officials.[6]
Israeli state and commercial ties
Diplomacy
The Israeli foreign ministry's 2011 list of missions records relations with the Netherlands as established in January 1949, with "Israel" represented by its embassy in The Hague and an honorary consul in Maastricht.[7] According to the WJC, the Netherlands voted for the UN partition plan in 1947, established relations in 1949 and was one of the few countries to place its embassy in Jerusalem; in 1973 it was one of only two European countries, with Portugal, to allow US aircraft carrying military equipment to "Israel" to pass. The Israeli embassy is at Buitenhof 47, 2513 AH The Hague.[1]
2025 sanctions
On 29 July 2025 the Dutch government declared Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir unwelcome and banned them from entering the country, summoned the Israeli ambassador and said it would press for the trade part of the EU–Israel Association Agreement to be suspended; Israeli President Isaac Herzog called the decision a "HUGE mistake".[8]
F-35 parts court case
The F-35 parts case concerned a 2016 general licence for exporting F-35 parts from the Netherlands, challenged by Oxfam Novib and other organisations. On 12 February 2024 the Hague Court of Appeal ordered the government to halt exports to "Israel", and the minister amended the licence. On 3 October 2025 the Supreme Court (Hoge Raad) ruled that the courts should not assess the risk themselves, but ordered the minister to reassess the licence within six weeks; the licence remained amended in the meantime.[3] In a letter of 14 November 2025 the government told parliament that "Israel" would remain excluded from the general licence and that it would reassess within six months, taking account of the ceasefire of 10 October 2025.[9]
ICC arrest warrant
On 21 November 2024, after the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said that the Netherlands would arrest him if he entered the country, that it was "100% behind the Rome Statute", and that it would limit contacts to those that were essential.[4]
Trade
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reports that "Israel" imported goods worth $4,160.1 million from the Netherlands in 2025 (2024: $3,784.8 million) and exported goods worth $2,663.9 million to it (2024: $2,702.0 million).[10]
Arms
According to SIPRI, the Netherlands' purchases of Israeli weapons include 2,400 Spike-MR anti-tank missiles (ordered 2001, delivered 2006–2011), Litening and RecceLite targeting and reconnaissance pods, 164 Spike-LR missiles (2017) and 1,000 Spike-LR2 missiles (2021). In 2023 it ordered 20 PULS rocket launchers for about $305 million, 16 of them to be built under licence, together with EXTRA and Predator Hawk rockets; in 2024 it ordered Harop loitering munitions and Barak-ER air defence missiles for its new Multifunctional Support Ships. SIPRI also records Dutch supplies to "Israel", including S-11 trainer aircraft (1949), Super-Fledermaus radars (1966) and Centurion tank engines, some supplied as aid during the October 1973 war.[2]
Political interference
UN voting
The Netherlands voted in favour of the September 2025 General Assembly resolution endorsing the New York Declaration on a two-state solution.[11]
Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters in Amsterdam
On 7–8 November 2024, around a Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv, Israeli supporters were attacked in "hit-and-run" incidents across Amsterdam; five people were taken to hospital. Mayor Femke Halsema's report described a "toxic cocktail of antisemitism, hooliganism and anger over the war" and said that Maccabi supporters had earlier pulled down a Palestinian flag and attacked a taxi; ten Israeli residents were among those arrested.[12]
Ehud Barak emails
The following items come from the two leaked mailboxes of the former Israeli prime minister and defence minister Ehud Barak (ehbarak1@gmail.com and ehud.barak@hyperion-eb.com, 2007–2016). They were hacked and leaked by Handala, a group that Distributed Denial of Secrets describes as "believed to have ties to Iranian intelligence", and were published by Distributed Denial of Secrets in August 2025. The emails carry no cryptographic signatures, and Distributed Denial of Secrets warns that material from such hack-and-leak operations may have been altered.[13]
- On 29 September 2014 the producers of a planned documentary on the "Magic of the Diary of Anne Frank", presented as a Clinton Global Initiative "Commitment to Action", asked Barak's wife Nili Priell Barak to arrange an interview with Barak; Barak replied in Hebrew, "let's go for it".[14]
See also
- Zionist movement Netherlands
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Ireland
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Belgium
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 World Jewish Congress, Community in the Netherlands worldjewishcongress.org, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database SIPRI, trade register for Israel as supplier, 1950–2025, data generated 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Hoge Raad der Nederlanden, Supreme Court: Minister must perform reassessment of licence to export F-35 parts to Israel hogeraad.nl, 3 October 2025, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Dutch would arrest Netanyahu if he came to NL, minister confirms DutchNews, 21 November 2024, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Chabad-Lubavitch in Nederland", Chabad Nederland, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Mendel Scheiner, "Despite the Odds, Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs Has Led Jews of the Netherlands for 50 Years", Chabad.org, 14 January 2026.
- ↑ Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic Missions Abroad: Status of relations mfa.gov.il, archived 5 August 2011.
- ↑ Dutch govt. issues entry ban on 2 Israeli ministers, summons ambassador over Gaza NL Times, 29 July 2025, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Tweede Kamer, Kamerstuk 22054, nr. 469 (letter on the reassessment of the F-35 parts licence) officielebekendmakingen.nl, 19 November 2025, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Foreign Trade Statistics Monthly, Table D1: Trade Countries – Imports and Exports CBS, December 2025 issue (library copy).
- ↑ United Nations General Assembly, Recorded vote on A/80/L.1/Rev.1: Endorsement of the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, 12 September 2025 (copy hosted by Al-Quds Al-Arabi).
- ↑ Oliver Holmes and Jon Henley, "Toxic cocktail" led to Amsterdam violence, mayor says The Guardian, 12 November 2024, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Distributed Denial of Secrets, Ehud Barak emails, 27 August 2025, with download at data.ddosecrets.org, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Emails between Charles Ruffolo, Nili Priell Barak and Ehud Barak, "Interview for our Anne Frank Documentary", 29 September 2014, file
ehbarak1@gmail.com/Inbox!29/1 (18).html, Ehud Barak emails, Distributed Denial of Secrets, released 27 August 2025 (hacked and leaked by the Handala group), accessed 25 October 2026.