Dutch politician: Palestinian youth losing faith in two-state solution

Young Palestinians are losing faith in the two-state solution as settlements push peace further away, a senior Dutch politician told Haaretz last week after meeting with Palestinian leaders and academics during her visit to Israel.

"People are not too optimistic," Dutch President of the House of Representatives Gerdi Verbeet said about her talks with Palestinian public figures, including Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. She said this before the apparent collapse of proximity talks and violent protests by Palestinian demonstrators in East Jerusalem.

"It seems the two-state solution is losing support among young people as something that can solve some problems. The young female Palestinian students I have been speaking to don't believe in this solution, and I'm wondering what there would be instead of it."

"When I see [young Arabs and Jews] I see no difference. I just see young people. It must be possible to find a way they can get along," she added after visiting a Palestinian university.

In her talks with Israeli politicians, including Foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, Verbeet - a member of Dutch Labor - stressed "the importance of compromise, although any compromise might be painful to those who want to support a compromise."

"Settlements place enormous pressure on the peace process and will not bring peace closer," she said. " Verbeet, who is visiting Israel for the fourth time, first came her as a student in 1970 for vacation with a friend.

"I must admit that within Dutch society there is more understanding to the position of the Palestinians than 20 years ago," she said in reference to increasingly critical voices about Israel from parliament.

"There's also an ongoing discussion as what is the way in which Israel can respect some resolutions. There is another attitude to the politics of Israel. My parents didn't criticize it at all. That's different now." "There's also an ongoing discussion as what is the way to get Israel to respect some resolutions. There is more criticism toward the politics of Israel. My parents didn't criticize it at all. That's different now."

But Verbeet said that calls by members of her own party last year to inflict sanctions against Israel if it thwarts peace efforts did not progress into legislation. Last year Labor MP Martijn van Dam said his party insisted the European Union take "concrete" action that demands Israel accept Hamas as a partner for dialog.

She declined to comment on a call last year by the leader of the liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) to make Holocaust denial fully permissible under Dutch law.

In her position, she explained, she was "strictly neutral," and does not take part in any discussion following statements of Dutch MPs. "Any statement a Dutch MP makes is the responsibility of that individual MP," she said.

Commenting on the recent fall of the Dutch cabinet over participation in NATO's mission in Afghanistan, Verbeet said this was "a politically unstable period" for the Netherlands, as it prepares for general elections June.

Over the past few months, polls have consistently named Geert Wilders, a controversial anti-Muslim and anti-immigration politician and leader of the Freedom Party, as the leading candidate for the premiership.

But last week, Amsterdam's mayor, Job Cohen, who is Jewish and hails from Verbeet's party, announced his candidacy for the post after the party's leader stepped down. Some polls predicted he would receive wide support, and even defeat Wilders at the polls. Unlike Wilders, Cohen's is an outspoken proponent of cooperation and compromise.

Explaining that her position as speaker of the Dutch parliament "limits" her in what she can say, Verbeet said: "We have not seen the election manifesto of any of the parties, so we'll have to wait and see about that."

She added: "It's important political parties are more explicit about making compromises, not talking about compromise as something filthy," Verbeet said. "You can't have it all."

So far, no Dutch party has agreed to form an alliance with the party headed by Wilders, an outspoken parliamentarians known for his uncompromising stance on "opposing the Muslim takeover' of Dutch society, as he has defined it.

Democracy, Verbeet said, must have "respect for the position of minorities within society. That's the way in which we believe in the Netherlands. I hope politicians feel responsible for that kind of democracy." She later commented she did not mean ethnic minorities, but electoral ones.

Commenting on the dramatic surge in anti-Semitic incidents in the Netherlands in 2009 ? which doubled from the previous year ? Verbeet said: "Maybe police must be more attentive to things like that, but we don?t need a law on it because it's already in the law, in the first article of the constitution about freedom of religion. There is not a climate that's becoming anti-Semitic. That's not the case."