The chairman of the Dutch Socialist Party, Jan Marijnissen, said he believes the perpetrators of the Paris terror attacks that killed 129 people were motivated in part by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“These guys…who committed the attacks likely to come from a group of indignant people in the French suburbs,” Marijnissen said in an interview with a Dutch radio station, NPO Radio 1.
“The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is for them a metaphor for the subordination of the Arab world and the Muslim community,” he said, further calling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “a breeding ground for such an attack.”
The comments by the Dutch politician follow similar rhetoric by Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallström, who said Monday that Palestinian grievances with Israel led to the Paris attacks.
“Obviously, we have reason to be worried, not just in Sweden but across the world —because there are so many that are being radicalized. Here, once again, we are brought back to situations like the one in the Middle East, where not least, the Palestinians see that there is not a future. We must either accept a desperate situation or resort to violence,” Wallström said in a television interview.
In response to Wallström’s comments, Israel summoned Sweden’s ambassador to the Jewish state for an urgent meeting with Israeli Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold, calling the Swedish minister’s remarks “brazen,” “shocking,” and “hostile.”