The National Monument on Dam Square, Amsterdam, was defaced with red paint on the eve of the Remembrance of the Dead on Monday, with activist groups claiming that the act was done to raise awareness on behalf of the pro-Palestinian movement.
Netherlands Police said in a statement that the cenotaph for Dutch casualties of World War II and subsequent conflicts was vandalized sometime before dawn, and they were seeking at least three suspects.
In addition to red paint and the word “genocide” as scrawled onto the monument, according to livestreams of the square and photographs published by anti-Israel activist groups.
“Activists in the Netherlands threw red paint, symbolizing blood, at the memorial statue at Dam Square, denouncing the 4th of May Remembrance Day hypocrisy, where the Second World War is remembered but the silence about the ongoing genocide on the Palestinians is deafening,” Europe Palestine Network said on Instagram on Monday. “Later today, the king and prime minister will lay down flowers at the monument, whilst the blood of the Palestinians, Lebanese, and Iranians is on their hands.”
The paint was cleaned ahead of the national ceremony and moment of silence, but the act stirred outrage among politicians.
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema called the vandalism an “incredibly cowardly act.”
“This is not a protest, but vandalism and deliberate damage to our national monument,” Halsema said on Threads. “It hurts not only the survivors of the Second World War, but all the Dutch people for whom our national memorial is important.”
Prime Minister Rob Jetten called the vandalism “idiotic and utterly unacceptable.”
“Let us today be united and together stand still with respect,” Jetten said on X.
The Dutch pro-Israel organization Center for Information and Documentation Israel (CIDI) said that the activists had defaced history with their disrespect.
“Everything must be destroyed and make way for their fanaticism,” CIDI said on social media. “It is intensely sick.”
The European Jewish Congress said that it was appalled by the vandalism, calling it a “direct attack on memory, dignity and the principles that these commemorations are meant to uphold.”