TL;DR: The dispute at Loods 24 is not simply about criticism of Israel or the presence of an ambassador. Political parties and activist organizations are using accusations against Israel to claim authority over a Jewish commemoration and to assign 686 murdered Jewish children a political position they never expressed. Mayor Carola Schouten’s response risks converting that pressure into municipal leverage by treating the ambassador, rather than the threatened boycott, as the problem to be resolved. The result is a conditional form of solidarity: Jewish suffering is honored while Jewish continuity, agency and connection to Israel become grounds for withdrawal. That demand is antisemitic, and the mayor should reject it rather than mediate it.

Every July 30, Rotterdam gathers beside the remaining wall of Loods 24, the warehouse compound where the German occupation authorities assembled Jews for deportation. Between July 1942 and April 1943, 6,790 Jews passed through the site in eight transports. Most were murdered at Sobibor and Auschwitz; only 488 survived. Nearby, the Jewish Children’s Monument bears the names of 686 Rotterdam Jewish children who were deported and murdered. The commemoration joins Jewish ritual and municipal presence: rabbis recite the memorial prayers, the mayor speaks, and Jewish institutions, the city and other public bodies lay wreaths. Israeli diplomatic participation has been part of the ceremony for years: an Israeli ambassador addressed it in 2018, and the embassy again provided a speaker and laid a wreath in 2025. This year, Ambassador Zvi Aviner Vapni is scheduled to speak. His presence has become the reason political parties, neighborhood bodies and activist organizations are threatening to stay away.

The initiative comes from the Rotterdam branches of DENK and the Party for the Animals, two fringe parties that each hold three of the 150 seats in the Dutch lower house. Both parties supported a parliamentary motion for a complete economic, military, political, academic and sporting boycott of Israel. Several wijkraden (elected neighborhood councils) have joined the threatened withdrawal. A separate letter signed by 63 organizations and individuals asks Mayor Carola Schouten to press the organizers to cancel the invitation and to stay away while the ambassador remains on the program.

How the burden shifts

The campaigners invoke the war in Gaza, the conduct of the Israeli government and allegations of grave violations of international law. Those claims explain their opposition and may shape how they view the ambassador. They do not give external actors authority to determine the program of a commemoration organized by the institutions responsible for it. Loods 24 commemorates Jews deported because they were Jews. It is not a tribunal on any Israeli government. Political actors may draw their own........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)