King Willem-Alexander is in Israel tonight and tomorrow. At the invitation of President Reuven Rivlin, he is a guest at the World Holocaust Forum, which is being organized for the fifth time this year.
The king is one of more than forty heads of state and government who come to Israel to commemorate the Holocaust. Among others, Mike Pence, Vice President of America, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prince Charles will speak at the Thursday ceremony in Jerusalem. It is in Yad Vashem, the memory center for the victims of the Holocaust.
Dinner with kings
Willem-Alexander has no invitation to speak on the forum. He will sit down tonight at a dinner that the Israeli president is offering his guests. There, more kings present the presence, including the Belgian king Filip and the Spanish king Felipe.
The conference tomorrow, which almost coincides with the liberation of Auschwitz extermination camp 75 years ago, also focuses on a new wave of anti-Semitism in the world. The organization of the forum calls the Netherlands, in addition to countries such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom, as an example of a country where the number of anti-Semitic incidents reaches record highs.
Ronny Naftaniel, vice president of the Central Jewish Consultation, travels with the king’s delegation. According to him, there is no record number of anti-Semitic incidents in the Netherlands, but he does call the number ‘worrying’.
Own initiative
Before the king goes to the World Holocaust Forum, he visits the Yad Vashem museum on his own initiative. He will be given a guided tour in which attention will be paid to Dutch history during the Second World War.
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