Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof saved his governing coalition on Friday despite threats of an exodus by Cabinet members over the right-wing government’s response to violence against Israeli football fans last week.
Junior Finance Minister Nora Achahbar unexpectedly quit the Cabinet on Friday to protest claims by some politicians that Dutch youths of Moroccan descent attacked Israeli fans in Amsterdam around the November 7 match between a Dutch team Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Her resignation triggered a crisis Cabinet meeting at which four ministers from her centrist NSC party also threatened to quit. If they had, the coalition would have lost its majority in parliament.
“We have reached the conclusion that we want to remain, as a Cabinet for all people in the Netherlands,” Schoof said at a news conference late on Friday in The Hague.
Last week’s violence was roundly condemned by Israeli and Dutch politicians, with Amsterdam’s mayor saying “antisemitic hit-and-run squads” had attacked Israeli fans.
The city’s police department has said Maccabi fans were chased and beaten by gangs on scooters. Police also said the Israeli fans attacked a taxi and burned a Palestinian flag.
Achahbar, a former judge and public prosecutor who was born in Morocco, felt comments by several political figures were hurtful and possibly racist, De Volkskrant daily reported.
“Polarization in the recent weeks has had such an effect on me that I no longer can, nor wish to fulfill my position in this cabinet,” Achahbar said in a statement.
Schoof, a former civil servant who does not have a party affiliation, denied any ministers in the Cabinet are racist. Details of the Cabinet discussion were not disclosed.
The coalition is led by the anti-Muslim populist party PVV of Geert Wilders, which finished first in a general election a year ago. The government was installed in July after months of tense negotiations.
Wilders, who is not a Cabinet member, has repeatedly said Dutch youth of Moroccan descent were the main attackers of the Israeli fans, although police have not specified the backgrounds of suspects.
Schoof said on Monday the incidents showed that some youth in the Netherlands with immigrant backgrounds did not share “Dutch core values.”
