Mohammed Khatib instead addressed Dutch students at Radboud University via video link.
By JNS
The government of the Netherlands has banned Belgium-based Palestinian activist Mohammed Khatib from entering the country over his membership in the terror-designated Samidoun NGO. The move led to the cancellation of his planned in-person speech at a Dutch university on Monday.
“There is absolutely no place in the Netherlands for sowing hatred, glorifying violence and spreading antisemitism,” Asylum and Migration Minister Marjolein Faber, a member of Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party, said on Friday.
Khatib, who serves as the European coordinator for Samidoun, had been invited to address students at Radboud University in the eastern city of Nijmegen by “Situating Palestine,” which describes itself as a “collective of academics from various disciplines.”
After the lecture was announced two weeks ago, dozens of faculty and students urged the institute to cancel, arguing in an open letter that “extremist hate preachers should not be given a platform.”
However, the university refused, with a spokesperson telling local media that “this speaker is legal in our country and has the same rights and obligations as everyone else.”
On Friday, Radboud University announced that “the entry ban means that the speaker will be refused entry to the Netherlands. Based on this decision, the meeting with Mohammed Khatib will not take place.”
Instead, Khatib addressed several dozen students—who gathered in protest outside the university’s Spinoza building on Monday—via video link, the Netherlands’ Telegraaf newspaper reported. The speech was said to have lasted some 15 minutes.
In his address, the activist called for the “liberation of Palestine, and the liberation of all of us, and the defeat of the E.U., and Zionism, and the U.S. and all of this imperialist capitalist society.”
Commenting on the speech, Dutch Justice and Security Minister David van Weel tweeted that “an open and free web is important, but has risks. To protect the democratic rule of law, we must examine the troubling consequences of online hate speech and respond to them.”
Earlier this month, the Dutch House of Representatives approved a resolution calling on the government in The Hague to designate Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network as a terror group.
The resolution urged the government to include “organizations such as Samidoun on the national terrorism sanctions list and in the CTER [Counter-terrorism, Extremism and Radicalization] register.”
Then-Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz designated Samidoun a terrorist organization in February 2021 due to its links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, recognized as a terror group by the United States, Canada, Israel and the European Union.
According to Jerusalem’s National Bureau for Counter-Terror Financing, Samidoun plays a leading role in the PFLP’s anti-Israel propaganda efforts, fundraising and activist recruitment.
Samidoun has also advocated for the release of terrorists, including PFLP Secretary-General Ahmad Sa’adat, who is serving a 30-year term in Israel for his involvement in planning the 2001 murder of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi in Jerusalem.
Several prominent members of Samidoun are also members of the PFLP. The NGO’s chief coordinator, Khaled Barakat, is a senior member of the PFLP and the head of the terrorist group abroad. Samidoun’s international coordinator, Charlotte Kates, is also a PFLP member.
Kates celebrated the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 massacre as “a brave and heroic operation.”
On Oct. 15, the United States and Canada announced they would be formally designating Samidoun as a front group for PFLP.