IndyMedia - Vrij Media Centrum Nederland

Wanneer: 17/05/2025 - 08:59

Sign the petition here: https://demonstreer.github.io/openbrief/index_en.html#top

Amsterdam 16th of May 2025

Subject: CIDI Symposium

Dear Geert van Meerveld, Mayada El Zoghbi, Michiel Leijenaar, Gina Pattisson, Maarten van den Berg, Annerink Post, en Mariëlle van Rumpt,

We are writing to you as concerned citizens who are committed to building a more inclusive and sustainable world. You state that this is your mission as well: to work toward a sustainable and inclusive society by empowering people to create positive change. We take you at your word and we are holding you to it today.

This coming Sunday, KIT will serve as the venue for the symposium of the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI), marking the organization’s 50th anniversary. CIDI is a Dutch lobby group for Israël that is dedicated to portraying Israel in a positive light — even when the country systematically violates human rights and commits acts of genocide. It is unacceptable that KIT is providing a platform to an organization that actively normalizes hatred, racism, and division, all under the guise of a celebratory event.

CIDI has invited six speakers to its anniversary event, all of whom are known for their racism, Islamophobia, and justification of Israeli violence — at the expense of truth, justice, and human rights (source 1, source 2). One of them, Douglas Murray, has publicly claimed that all Palestinians — including children — are responsible for violence against Israel and therefore may be killed. Another, Amos Yadlin, is a recognized war criminal against whom the Turkish judiciary has issued an arrest warrant for his role in the deadly attack on the Mavi Marmara. These speakers do not merely call for war crimes; they are directly complicit in them.

And all this is happening in a city that this week is projecting a photo of Hind Rajab — the six-year-old girl who was killed by Israel with 335 bullets — onto the Eye Filmmuseum. In the same week, Mayor Femke Halsema referred to the violence in Gaza as genocide and called for the Israeli government to be held accountable and for peace to be enforced. How is it possible that in this very city, and in an institution that claims to stand for inclusion and human rights, an event can take place that so blatantly contradicts these values?

How can an institution like yours align itself with an organization that denies genocide, spreads racism, and defends Israeli violence? KIT presents itself as a place where there is no room for exclusion or discrimination. Your own website explicitly states: “KIT acknowledges that discrimination and exclusion are unacceptable.” That makes it all the more incomprehensible that you would host an event that stands in direct opposition to these core principles.

Especially when this event takes place on a day when tens of thousands of people will gather in The Hague to draw a red line against Israel’s genocidal violence toward the Palestinian people. An event that openly spreads discriminatory and hateful ideas has no place in an institution that claims to be working for a better world.

We therefore urgently call on you to cancel the CIDI event.

Sign the petition here: https://demonstreer.github.io/openbrief/index_en.html#top