The Dutch government has decided to ban imports from Israeli “settlements” in Judea and Samaria, presenting the move as a moral stand for international law and human rights. But look beyond the press releases, and the decision reveals not principle but contradiction, selectivity, and an unsettling echo of history.

Small Market, Big Symbolism

In practical terms, the imports at stake are marginal: wine, dates, olive oil, and a few cosmetics. These make up only a tiny fraction of Dutch trade with Israel. Since 2015, EU regulations have required that settlement products be labeled, and Dutch customs already have the authority to verify origin. The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) monitors compliance.

In other words: the infrastructure to distinguish products already exists. The shift to a ban is therefore not about logistics or consumer protection. It is about politics and symbolism. Amsterdam is choosing to stage a national gesture rather than follow the common European framework, which requires labeling rather than prohibition.

The question is: what purpose does this gesture serve?

Who Really Pays the Price?

Boycotts are rarely surgical tools. In Judea and Samaria, many Israeli businesses employ Palestinians at wages that far exceed what the Palestinian Authority or local employers can offer. Trade dries up, and it is not the politicians in Jerusalem who feel the pinch. It is ordinary Palestinian families.

Those who frame the boycott as a blow against “settlers” should be honest: the real victims are the very people the policy claims to protect.

The Historical Echo

There is another, darker layer to this debate. In online reactions and newspaper commentary, one finds a disturbing undertone: the boycott framed not as a policy dispute, but as punishment of Jews for living and working in parts of their ancestral homeland.

That language has an echo. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency once reported in 1937 on Nazi envoys in Damascus encouraging Arab youth groups to boycott “Zionist goods from Palestine.” The article describes Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach coordinating with Arab nationalists to cut off Jewish trade.

The Netherlands, of all countries, should understand the dangers of such language and policy. During the Holocaust, Dutch Jews were rounded up with devastating efficiency, while much of the surrounding society looked away. To this day, the Netherlands wrestles with that record. Against that backdrop, a Dutch government choosing to single out Jewish economic activity for exclusion cannot be detached from memory. The déjà vu is not accidental.

Selective Morality

But even if one brackets history, the inconsistency of Dutch trade policy is glaring. The Netherlands trades freely with regimes guilty of brutal and ongoing human rights abuses. Chinese products enter Dutch ports daily, despite well-documented forced labor in Xinjiang and other crimes against humanity. Oil and gas flow from Gulf states where dissidents are jailed, women have few rights, and foreign workers are often treated little better than slaves. Turkish exports face no ban, despite Ankara’s military occupation of northern Cyprus, an actual member state of the European Union.

Yet Israel’s “settlements” are singled out for punitive treatment. One set of standards for Israel, another for the rest of the world. If that is morality, it is morality without consistency. And without consistency, morality becomes politics by another name.

The Strategic Trap

Even if the Dutch boycott could be defended as principled, its strategic effect is counter-productive. Isolating Israel economically or culturally does not encourage compromise. It strengthens extremists who can claim vindication, while moderates lose leverage.

When European governments apply pressure asymmetrically, punishing Israel while excusing Palestinian violence and intransigence, they reduce incentives for Palestinian leaders to negotiate. Why make painful concessions if Europe is already delivering symbolic victories? The result is not peace, but paralysis.

International policy should be measured by outcomes, not optics. A ban that reduces Palestinian livelihoods, hardens political positions, and isolates one party to the conflict is not a tool for peace. It is theatre.

A Better Way Forward

This is not a defense of every Israeli government decision, nor of every settlement. It is a call for honesty in policymaking. If the Netherlands truly seeks to help build a just, durable peace, it should act strategically, not theatrically.

That means targeting individuals or groups directly responsible for violence, not small businesses selling olive oil. It means supporting humanitarian access where it is blocked. It means investing diplomatic energy in bringing both Israelis and Palestinians to the table, rather than passing one-sided measures that satisfy domestic political constituencies but change little on the ground.

The Dutch government faces a choice. It can pursue policies that genuinely promote peace and protect the vulnerable. Or it can indulge in gestures that hurt those already on the margins and echo a history Europe should never wish to revisit.

Do we want to be remembered for principled action that saved lives, or for symbolic boycotts that punished the powerless and repeated history’s cruelest ironies?

Sabine Sterk is CEO of Time To Stand Up For Israel.