Pro-Palestine protesters accost Utrecht mayor during city council meeting
The Utrecht city council meeting on Thursday evening got out of hand when a motion to boycott Israel was shot down. Mayor Sharon Dijksma escorted out a group of pro-Palestine protesters who disrupted the meeting and ended up in the middle of a physical altercation, RTV Utrecht reported.
The city council discussed a citizen’s motion to boycott Israeli products and organizations, given the country’s continued attacks on and starvation of the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip. When it became clear that the motion did not pass, the protesters became loud and aggressive.
Dijksma suspended the meeting and asked the protesters to leave. When they didn’t, she decided to escort them out herself. With some physical contact, she led the group outside. “I thought: it would help if I walked with them,” Dijksma later told the local broadcaster. “If I let the police handle that, things would be a lot less gentle.”
Outside, the situation escalated into a physical altercation when the mayor tried to go back inside. “There were blows there too, and I was actually standing in the middle of it,” Dijksma later said. She didn’t say whether she was hit.
Her security personnel pulled her out and drove her away by car. Dijksma returned to the council chamber through a back entrance because the protesters were still blocking the regular entrance. She resumed the council meeting about 30 minutes later.
Dijksma called the incident “very intense.” She told RTV Utrecht that she shares the pain and frustration felt by the people protesting against the Israeli regime. She mentioned a Syrian friend who found out earlier on Thursday that his brother-in-law had been killed.
“That does not leave me unaffected,” Dijksma said. “But being personally accused of having blood on your hands, I think, goes way too far and is no longer appropriate for a debate like the one we should be having together.”
The mayor also said the protesters should have held their demonstration outside the council chamber because of the severe penalties that would result from police intervention.
