Gidi Markuszower, an Israeli-born Dutch lawmaker, is facing backlash after making openly hostile comments about Palestinian asylum seekers and using language that critics say normalizes violence. In a video interview, he said Palestinians seeking refuge in the Netherlands and Europe should be stopped with “more force” than the violence they fled. When pressed about shooting people at the border, he answered, “with force, yes,” a remark that has intensified outrage over his remarks.
He also suggested Palestinians should remain in “Arabia” or “wither away” in Gaza, language widely seen as dehumanizing and inflammatory. Human rights advocates argue that his words go beyond hardline politics and amount to dangerous incitement against people fleeing war and destruction. The Rights Forum has said it plans to file a complaint, calling the comments morally reprehensible. His statements have drawn criticism for echoing the kind of brutality Palestinians are trying to escape, while framing refugees as targets rather than people in need of protection.
In a place where Israel has destroyed most of the infrastructure—hospitals, schools, and water systems—while imposing crushing blockades, mass detentions, and systematic home demolitions, Palestinians have endured years of constant killing, collective punishment, and documented war crimes.
International investigations have highlighted widespread arbitrary imprisonment, torture, forced displacement, and the use of disproportionate force against civilians, including children, as well as reports of sexual violence and rape in custody. Against this backdrop of documented abuse, Markuszower’s call for Palestinians to face “more force” than Gaza represents not just a harsh political stance but a morally grotesque escalation. That a sitting politician demands that people fleeing such devastation should confront even worse violence at Europe’s borders shows less the rhetoric of a statesman and more the mindset of a zealot—someone who sees victims not as humans to protect, but as enemies to crush.
