Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen recently called on a construction equipment company from the Rotterdam area, Riwal, to terminate its involvement in the construction of the West Bank separation fence.

"I expect Riwal to stop providing cranes for the wall's construction. I hope this will be the last we hear of it, but the government will keep a close watch on the matter," Verhagen said late last month.

In a separate statement, the Dutch Foreign Mministry branded the company's actions "undesirable," citing the 2004 ruling by the Hague-based International Court of Justice that the fence is illegal.

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Riwal's involvement in the construction of the fence is not a new development. Last year, the company agreed to end its supply of equipment, following a request by the Dutch Foreign Ministry.

But the issue resurfaced last month after United Civilians for Peace (UCP), an organization promoting peace in the Middle East, provided evidence that Riwal was still providing heavy machinery for the construction work.

Riwal's spokesman argued that the company has no control over how its products are used, a comment which led the Dutch Foreign Ministry to suggest that the company introduce stipulations in its contracts to cover such eventualities.

Dutch politician and former United Nations envoy in Sudan Jan Pronk told Haaretz that Verhagen's statement had "political significance." Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, an expert on The Netherlands and senior official at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, said that the statement corresponded with "the Hague's interventionist attitude toward Israel."

But UCP has also accused the Dutch government of not taking sufficient steps to hold Israel to account for its actions.

"The Hague often affords Israel unlimited backing despite serious violations of international law. We hope Verhagen's recent statement is more than lip service," Martin Siepermann of UCP told Haaretz. "The government should pursue the matter independently instead of merely responding to our queries, as it has done so far."

UCP has continued to pursue the matter, irking pro-Israel organizations in The Netherlands by revealing two weeks ago that one of Riwal's owners, Doron Livnat, is a member of the board for a prominent Dutch pro-Israel organization, Centrum Informatie en Documentatie Israel (CIDI.)

"We have a rich experience with UCP," said CIDI director Dr.Ronny Naftaniel. "At first, they were committed to a two-state solution but recently they have become increasingly pro-Hamas, calling for dialog with the organization. They may say they still believe in the two-state solution, but their support for Hamas proves the opposite. They are deeply anti-Israeli and ridiculously one-sided."

Naftaniel said he believes that UCP's press release was an attempt to defame CIDI, by creating the impression that the organization had a financial interest in the separation fence.

UCP denied accusations that its approach to the conflict was slanted.

"Our organization operates within the framework of human rights and international humanitarian law. From that point of view, the clash between Israel and the Palestinians is very asymmetrical, to the Palestinians' disadvantage," countered UCP chairman Jack van Ham. "Our criticism of Israel is a reflection of that. We now sharply criticize the internal Palestinian violence."

In an editorial on the issue, the financial magazine Management Team went so far as to compare Riwal with Nazi Germany's suppliers of Zyklon B, the poison gas used to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust.

While acknowledging that Riwal's case was "more complicated," the article also drew parallels between the company and firms that supplied late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein with the ingredients for chemical weapons.