The Netherlands has included Israel for the first time on its list of foreign states that pose a threat to the country, according to a new report published by the Netherlands’ main counter-terrorism agency, the National Coordinator for Security and Counter-Terrorism (NCTV).
The document, titled Threat Assessment by State Actors, highlights Israel’s efforts to manipulate Dutch public opinion and influence political decision-making through disinformation campaigns.
One of the incidents cited in the report concerns a document that an Israeli ministry distributed informally to Dutch journalists and politicians last year. The report says the document contained unusual and undesirable personal information about Dutch citizens, following tensions during a rally in Amsterdam in support of the Maccabi Tel Aviv football club.
The NCTV also expressed concern about the increasing threats coming from both Israel and the United States to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. The report says such threats could potentially undermine the work of the court.
As the host of several international judicial institutions, the Netherlands has been described as a country with a “special responsibility” to protect their operations from external pressures.
Although NCTV has previously expressed concerns about Israeli spyware and surveillance tools, this report does not mention Israel in the section on espionage.
