Research into the relations between the Netherlands and Israel provides a dominant image of a ‘special relationship’ – a relationship between two ‘sworn friends’. The question is to what extent that image is correct. And if it is, what the explanatory factors are for this relation. Could it be reduced to a sense of guilt because of the deportation and murder of so many Jews from the Netherlands, even emphasised by the fact that their number was high in proportion to other Western European occupied countries? In the discussion between prominent Jewish intellectuals as mentioned in chapter 5, the economist Salomon Kleerekoper came up with the term philosemitism to depict the dominant attitude among the Dutch Gentile population towards the Jews. At the same time, however, he reminded his discussion partners of the acute antisemitism in the first years after the liberation. Moreover, he and his partners in dialogue had come together on the request of the Jewish weekly Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad (niw) to reflect on several antisemitic incidents that took place in the beginning of the 1960s.

So, how should we conceive the concept of philosemitism – a fascinating but also highly complex and multi-interpretable phenomenon? This chapter opens exactly with this question, trying to provide some answers. Subsequently we shall turn to the attitude of the Dutch population and government towards Israel, and will examine and address a similar coincidence of philosemitic and antisemitic tendencies. Taking into account doubts, countervoices, ambivalent or critical attitudes, this chapter looks, more in general, at how the approach of the Netherlands towards Israel has shifted. Which interests have guided the Dutch government? And how did Dutch Jews relate to Israel and to what they regard, within this context, as antisemitism? There was a wide range of opinions among Jews. This chapter looks at the shifting approaches towards Israel among both Jews and non-Jews until the ‘watershed’ of 1967.

Philosemitism and sense of guilt

The term philosemitism, described by Van Dale, the leading dictionary of the Dutch language, as ‘Joodsgezindheid’ [Jewish disposition], can be interpreted in various ways. It literally means ‘love for Jews’, i.e. the opposite of antisemitism in its most embryonic form: aversion or hatred of Jews. Philosemitism can be interpreted as a genuine sympathy for Jews.