{"id":2322768,"date":"2026-03-11T09:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T09:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2322768"},"modified":"2026-03-11T09:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T09:18:15","slug":"the-dutch-ruling-elite-its-royals-and-the-war-against-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-dutch-ruling-elite-its-royals-and-the-war-against-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dutch ruling elite, its royals, and the war against Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Rob Jetten, leader of the Democrats 66 (D66), arrives to be sworn in as prime minister by King Willem-Alexander at Royal Palace Huis ten Bosch in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. [AP Photo\/Peter Dejong]<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The criminal bombardment of Tehran\u2014an illegal act of aggression orchestrated by the United States and Israel against an oppressed country\u2014has also sent shockwaves through the Netherlands. Far from being a passive observer, the Dutch ruling class stands exposed once again as an active accomplice in the machinery of imperialist war, genocide and plunder.<\/p>\n

The eruption of war against Iran, and the rapid and fascistic character in its unravelling course, has demolished any pretence of \u201cneutrality\u201d or \u201crestraint\u201d in Dutch bourgeois politics, revealing how swiftly the new minority cabinet <\/a>of Prime Minister Rob Jetten, Democrats 66 (D66), aligns itself with the interests of international capital, imperialist powers and their predatory wars.<\/p>\n

Public political sentiment in the Netherlands, by contrast, reflects mounting anti-war opposition. A recent RTL Nieuws<\/em> poll revealed that a majority fears the escalation of the war into a third world war involving the Netherlands itself. Yet the Jetten cabinet, taking office just five days before the bombing of Iran, not only signalled support for a war of annihilation against Iran, but has also accelerated its plans to expand the Dutch military.<\/p>\n

This dual dynamic\u2014growing mass opposition from below confronted by an almost unanimous warmongering consensus above\u2014reveals the ever-widening and irreconcilable gulf between the working class and the entire bourgeois political establishment as seen internationally.<\/p>\n

That gulf already found its striking expression in the mass \u201cRed-Line\u201d demonstrations <\/a>that filled the streets of Amsterdam and The Hague against the genocide in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands have marched, convinced that official politics, the media, and every established party and their accomplices speak the language of militarism and are utterly alien to the social concerns of the working class. As the social, political and economic repercussions of the war deepen, this movement will inevitably take the widest expression, bringing to bear social and cultural questions as well as the political and economic foundations that have caused it.<\/p>\n

During his official visit to Brussels on March 3, where he met European Union leaders Ant\u00f3nio Costa and Ursula von der Leyen to discuss the latest war and its refugees, Jetten told NOS Journaal<\/em>: \u201cIt\u2019s actually quite simple. The Iranian regime is a brutal regime that has recently massacred many of its own citizens. That is why the Netherlands has a great deal of understanding for the actions now being taken against Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jetten\u2019s assertion that the Netherlands has \u201ca great deal of understanding\u201d for the crimes being inflicted upon Iran\u2014a nation of 90 million people and immense cultural and intellectual heritage, 45 times larger than the Netherlands\u2014was greeted with approval across the political spectrum. <\/p>\n

The mounting toll of civilian casualties, the destruction of infrastructure and the immiseration of an already oppressed population due to decades of sanctions, count for nothing in The Hague\u2019s calculations, which are guided by the strategic imperatives of Washington and Tel Aviv. What Jetten cynically presents as \u201cquite simple\u201d is in fact the distilled ideology of imperialist geopolitics and the former colonial power\u2019s own interest in the scrambles in the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n

Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen (Christian Democratic Appeal, CDA)\u2014one of the most strident anti-Chinese spokespersons in the government\u2014echoed this line in a further interview with RTL Nieuws<\/em>, granting Washington and Tel Aviv a blank cheque: \u201cWe understand the risky attacks carried out by the US and Israel, given that the regime in question poses a major threat to the region and much more broadly to the world.\u201d When asked whether these attacks violated international law, Berendsen shrugged: \u201cThat\u2019s not for me to judge. I think these are legitimate questions for the US and Israel in particular.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new defence minister and acting prime minister, Dilan Ye\u015filg\u00f6z (People\u2019s Party for Freedom and Democracy, VVD), a law-and-order hawk who served under Mark Rutte as justice minister from 2022 to 2024, praised the war as a liberation: \u201cAfter decades of oppression by a murderous regime, many Iranians are now breathing a sigh of relief.\u201d She accused Tehran of undermining global security through its nuclear programme, ties to Russia and alleged backing of \u201cterrorist proxies,\u201d adding that \u201cTehran\u2019s long arm was also felt in the Netherlands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such remarks reveal not only the Dutch government\u2019s unconditional alignment with US-Israeli aggression but also its eagerness to cloak imperialist crimes in the threadbare garb of \u201cmoral righteousness.\u201d This hypocrisy is not new. It continues a historical pattern stretching from the 17th-century colonial conquests in Asia, Africa and the Americas to present-day participation in NATO\u2019s wars of \u201cregime change.\u201d <\/p>\n