Construction in Judea and Samaria
Construction in Judea and SamariaIsrael news photo

Holland has “postponed” a tour of Israeli professionals because delegates included members from Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, IDF Army Radio reported Sunday. The tour was to address environmental issues and had been initiated by the Joint Distribution Committee in Israel and Holland.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry explained “the list of participants is controversial” and was not known when the tour originally had been arranged. Among the proposed delegates are heads of Efrat and Kiryat Arba-Hevron, located in Judea, as well as Arab communities and local upscale councils in metropolitan Tel Aviv.

Holland, part of the European Union, supports a total building freeze on new Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria. Israeli authorities refused to amend the tour list to exclude representatives from those areas, and the JDC in Israel commented that the “postponement” was, effectively, a cancellation of the tour.

National Union Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad told Israel National News' Hebrew service, “The surrender of Holland to Arabs reflects surrender to the Muslim minority that is growing in Holland.”

MK Eldad also used the opportunity to take another swipe at Israel’s building freeze policy. He said Holland’s action “echoes the surrender of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to U.S. President Barack Obama on the building freeze. If Prime Minister Netanyahu in effect writes a script of new borders for Israel and continues to choke hundreds of thousands of Jews, it is impossible to come with complaints against Holland when it surrenders to a large minority in its country."