Good morning,

It feels great to see all of you here. I am incredibly proud of you, of our movement, and the task we face.

The reason I wanted to speak to you now and welcome you has to do with the discussion that has erupted after last week. Last Sunday, one hundred and fifty thousand people dressed in red gathered at Malieveld, walking to the Peace Palace and then back to Malieveld via the Binnenhof. Many of you were there; I was there myself. One hundred and fifty thousand people saying we draw a red line, one hundred and fifty thousand people clearly telling the Dutch government: enough is enough. You must confront Netanyahu, you must tell Netanyahu to stop the bombings; we want all hostages released, we want the bombings of Gaza to stop.

Still, dozens of victims fall every day in Gaza. It continues, and the Dutch government refuses to act against Netanyahu. There is, without a doubt, genocidal violence being applied. There is a long, long list of war crimes.

On top of that, Netanyahu has now embarked on another adventure. With the bombings of Iran, of which I am convinced will not lead to the goals he seeks, namely the end of the nuclear weapons program and – as he himself says – also a regime change.

Have we not learned in the past 20 years that those who try to achieve a regime change from the air usually harvest something much worse than what was already there? Or at least do not bring about an improvement? Look at Iraq, look at Afghanistan, look at Libya: it is totally unpredictable what can happen in Iran. Only through the negotiation table can we get out of this. We have proven that before, ten years ago; we must do it again. Not bombing, but talking.

And my faction, our faction in the House of Representatives, has stated in light of what has happened in Iran – in my opinion, purely an action by Netanyahu to try to stay in power and out of prison, an action with which he hopes to draw the Americans into this conflict with terrible possible consequences, and the fact that it is well established that war crimes are being committed continuously – said: the Netherlands must not supply weapons to a country that commits war crimes. That must not happen!

And if we establish that, no weapons, and we say: we implement, as the motion by Kati Piri states, a temporary total arms embargo to ensure that negotiations take place and bombings stop, then that obviously means that you must not supply defensive weapons either. In the hope that the one who commits war crimes, believing that they are invulnerable, may understand that they are not invulnerable. And thus will also have to negotiate. People, that reasoning is, in my opinion, conclusive.

But I have seen what this has caused in pain, in sorrow. Especially for many people in the Jewish community in the Netherlands. Their reasoning is different. Their reasoning is: the Iron Dome means that no innocent victims can fall when rockets are fired at Israel. That reasoning is also conclusive.

And that is why it is so important that we are a movement, and a party, where these kinds of things are discussed among ourselves. Where we say: your reasoning is no less valuable than my reasoning; we just disagree. And then we engage in conversation and come to a resolution together. But what binds us all, whether you follow one reasoning or another, is that we all want the killing to stop. We want no more innocent victims to fall.

And we want war criminals to come before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Including Mr. Netanyahu. And we will not rest until peace comes, until people sit at the table, until they negotiate. Because we still believe, against all odds, in the right of Israel to exist within safe borders. And the right of Palestine to exist as an independent state. We still believe in that and we will continue to hold on to it.

And I promise you, from the bottom of my heart: I, and my entire faction, will continue to fight. Continue to fight to end these killings, continue to fight for peace. And I will not let anyone convince me that that would be anti-Semitism. By no one.

And we, as one hundred and fifty thousand people in red, who come from all parts of society, from all parts of the country, will not be told that we are crazy. We will not be told that we are following radicals. Those are people who fight for peace, for humanity, for the end of war. We will continue to do that; that is why we were founded, that is why we exist. That is also our present, and it must remain our future.

Thank you all, and have a great congress!