Dutch politician Geert Wilders says Jordan is Palestine, Arab world outraged

The leader of the Dutch PVV Freedom Party and a staunch supporter of Israel, Geert Wilders, outraged the Arab world on Saturday when he wrote: 'Jordan is Palestine.'

Wilder's party won 37 seats in the recent elections in the Netherlands, which means the politician might be on his way to becoming the nation's next prime minister.

This was not the first time that Wilders expressed his belief that the conflict in the Middle East could be solved by transferring Palestinians out of Gaza and Judea and Samaria into the Kingdom of Jordan.

In 2016, Wilders tweeted: “Judea and Samaria belong to Israel. Jordan = Palestine.”

In addition, he has stated that he will move the Dutch embassy to Jerusalem if he becomes prime minister.

In the past, Wilders has said he believes Israel is the West’s first defense against Islam.  

“We are all Israel – Israel is the West's first line of defense against Islam.”

The Dutch parliamentarian has also said that he feels a special connection with Israel.

“I have visited many countries in the Middle East – Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey, Cyprus, Iran – but nowhere have I felt a special sense of identification like the one I always feel when I land at Ben Gurion Airport.”

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas said Wilder's statements constituted “a call to escalate the aggression against our people and a blatant interference in their affairs and future,” according to the WAFA Palestinian News Agency.

Both the Arab League and some Arab nations – including Abraham Accords partners United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and the Republic of Yemen – have issued separate condemnations of Wilders.

“Irresponsible statements made by Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, in which he incites the displacement of the Palestinian people to Jordan, is considered interference in the internal affairs of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and is rejected and condemned,” the UAE Embassy in the Netherlands wrote on X, formerly Twitter. 

“The UAE stands in full solidarity with brotherly Jordan, and stresses the importance of respecting its sovereignty. It also rejects any denial of the rights of the brotherly Palestinian people and their right to an independent state.”

Wilders is a controversial figure in the Netherlands because of his anti-Islamic stance and his opposition to the large Muslim migration to the Netherlands. He has received multiple death threats and has been forced to live under police protection for nearly two decades.

He has also been taken to court by the Netherlands government several times for making statements about Islam and Muslim immigrants.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was established by the British in the 1920s and constitutes more than three-quarters of the territory that Great Britain defined as “Palestine.”

More than 90% of the Jordanian population is Palestinian. The Arab population in Jordan is indistinguishable from the Arab population in Judea and Samaria, internationally known as the West Bank.

The royals in Jordan are Hashemites and constitute a ruling minority in the kingdom that originated from the Hijaz province in modern Saudi Arabia.

Jordanian King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein recently warned the international community against any mass movement of the Arab population in Gaza and the West Bank into Jordan, fearing that his regime would be overrun.