Give the mayor space to make decisions. And making mistakes is also part of that

In my situation I don't have to choose. I'm Jewish, I'm also a rabbi and I live among the small, but certainly not silent, Jewish community. So it's easy. I belong to Israel. I think what the Hamas terrorists did on October 7th is terrible. Yes, and I may think that what has happened in Gaza since then is terrible, but it is a war and Hamas must be destroyed. I am expected to adhere to this position as a Jew in the Netherlands linked to Israel. I don't have to make another personal choice.

And that lady who walks around with the Palestinian scarf and who I sometimes talk to? She doesn't have to choose for herself either. She is Muslim. She has her family roots somewhere in the Galilee Hills in northern Israel. Her parents ended up in a refugee camp in Lebanon in 1948. For her, October 7 was not the beginning, but the logical conclusion of decades of occupation, of the drama of the Palestinian people since the founding of the Jewish state. For her, it is self-evident that accusing Israel of genocide is not a personal opinion, but merely a fact. Since her ancestors are from Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel, she also does not have to choose.