Dutch minister buckles to Pro-Israel group, uninvites guests to controversial meeting

Minister Sigrid Kaag for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation regrets that four of her guests were not welcome at a meeting she had with the center for information and documentation on Israel CIDI in The Hague on Sunday, she said to NOS.

CIDI invited Kaag to the meeting in the Mauritshuis, so that she could discuss her policy plans. The Minister was allowed to invite guests to the meeting, but according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, CIDI later announced that four of them were not welcome. The four guests "constantly attack and blacken" CIDI, chairman Hanna Luden said, according to NOS.

NRC reports that it concerns Gerard Jonkman and Martijn de Rooi of The Rights Forum, Jaap Hamburger of the foundation Een Ander Joods Geluid, and publicist Maarten-Jan Heijmans.

In her speech at the meeting, Kaag addressed the refusal of the four guests. The meeting was "a great opportunity to let people with different points of view talk to each other in a respectful way", she said. She considered canceling the meeting outright, but eventually decided against it so that she could talk about the refusal of her guests in the meeting.