The Rotterdam branch of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement organized the July 22 action under the name of a newly formed organization called the Palestinian Community in the Netherlands (PGNL), according a statement released Wednesday by the Dutch Central Jewish Board.
Rotterdam BDS advertised the event on their Facebook page a day before through senior Al-Aqsa Foundation operative Amin Abou Rashed. Al-Aqsa was banned in 2003 after being flagged as a "front" group for the Palestinian Islamic organization Hamas by the Dutch Secret Service.
The rally was held in protest of Israeli security measures around the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, in light of the July terrorist shooting attack at the mosque complex that left two Israeli police officers and three Palestinians dead. Israeli forces installed metal detectors at entrances for safety measures as a result.
Protesters chanted in Arabic: "Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning," according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, referencing to the seventh-century massacre and expulsion of Jews by Muslims from a town in modern-day Saudi Arabia called Khaybar.
Shebab News Agency, a platform banned by the Palestinian Authority over alleged Hamas ties, broadcast the rally and the chants.
In 2014, a Palestinian in Antwerp was convicted for shouting the same words, and according to the statement the police complaint alleged racist incitement to violence.
In a separate statement BDS Rotterdam said that organizers "noted that the chants were not welcome," claiming that the chants came from "one group of a coalition of several groups” that attended the action, and that none of the groups involved "intended to call for violence or discrimination against Jewish people generally."
The Central Jewish Board’s statement argued that the Netherlands should join Romania, the United Kingdom, the European Parliament and Austria in including the demonization of Israel under its definition of anti-Semitism.
The group wrote that the Rotterdam rally was one of the "examples that demonstrate why the Central Jewish Board is a strong supporter of giving also in the Netherlands a juridical status to the definition…We regret very much the outgoing cabinet’s announcement that it would not do this."
In late July two people were arrested for allegedly shouting “Death to the Jews!” at a Gaza solidarity event at the Hague.
