The zionist lobby group in the Netherlands, CIDI (Centre for Information and Documentation Israel), pressures the president of the Dutch parliament Arib to reprimand Tunahan Kuzu after refusing to shake hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday during his visit to the Netherlands.

According to the director of the zionist lobbbygroup, Hanna Luden, also a member of the Dutch labour party (PvdA), “An MP has more than enough opportunities and resources at his disposal to vent his or her opinion”. Luden furthermore says “MP Kuzu could have chosen to stay away but he deliberately sought the confrontation and knowingly insulted the prime minister of the friendly state of Israel in public.”

CIDI asks Arib, also a member of the Labour party (PvdA) dissident Kuzu was forced out of, to address the behavior of Kuzu, because his attitude according to the lobby group “is not an acceptable way of treating a guest of the Dutch state and parliament”. CIDI also explicitly points to the fact that the incident was picked up by the international media.

Lobbygroup CIDI is partially funded by the Dutch state through MAROR-payments (Restitution payments/Project grants to the jewish community in the Netherlands) and donations, and has a significant influence on Dutch media, politics and academics. The director of the group, Hanna Luden, is also a member of the Labour party’s Foreign Affairs Committee as a Middle East specialist.

Although CIDI claims to be an independent organisation, an interview with CIDI and the Israeli embassy in the tv-show Zembla in 2003 shows the opposite. The Israeli embassy in the Netherlands admitted then that they monitor the Dutch press and alert CIDI when the embassy finds it necessary for them to react on an article.