The Netherlands, the EU and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

This historical study assesses the determining factors behind the development of the Netherlands as one of Israel’s most faithful European allies in its conflict with the Palestinians. As such it wants to contribute to the academic debate on foreign policy Europeanisation that started two decades ago with the publication of Ben Tonra’s seminal study on The Europeanisation of National Foreign Policy. Comprehensive studies using primary sources of the EU’s individual member states’ policies towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continue to be scarce. This study about the Netherlands contributes to filling this gap. It first sets out why the Dutch government’s position has always been more pro-Israel compared to that of the EU by assessing the relative influences of the EU and the Netherlands’ national Parliament as external and internal foreign policy determinants. After having established the dominating role of Dutch Parliament the latter part of this article tries to explain what continues to motivate a right-wing majority in Dutch Parliament to protect the Dutch government’s traditional pro-Israel position against external influences from the European level.