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Travelers say Dutch customs hunted their bags for olives. Israel pulled the diplomats' papers.

Israel Strips Dutch Diplomats of Credentials After Netherlands Bans Goods From Judea, Samaria and the Golan

by
M.A. Rothman

By M.A. RothmanSeptember 28, 2026 · 4 min read
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Israel has ordered Dutch diplomats posted in Ramallah to hand back their Israeli-issued diplomatic credentials within seven days, after which their privileges and immunities will expire. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced the move on Sunday, September 27, in direct retaliation for a new Dutch law banning goods from Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

The law took effect on September 22. Within a day, travelers arriving at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on an El Al flight from Tel Aviv were reporting that customs officers had pulled them aside to search their luggage for wine, dates and olives.

Sa’ar’s message: there is a price

Sa’ar did not dress the decision up. “Israel will not ignore measures intended to harm it,” he said, according to JNS and the Algemeiner. If the Netherlands wants to keep representing its interests with the Palestinians, he added, it “may do so from Palestinian Authority territory, rather than from the territory of the State of Israel.” He also warned that countries acting toward Israel “in a hostile and unilateral manner” would lose influence in the region, and he pointed to rising antisemitism and incitement in the Netherlands, which he tied to the Dutch government’s own policies.

The practical effect is significant. The Dutch Representative Office in Ramallah handles relations with the Palestinian Authority, but its diplomats hold Israeli-issued documents. Once those lapse, Dutch diplomats lose the immunities Israel granted them.

This is not the first Israeli response. In August, Israel removed Dutch representatives from the international Gaza support center in Kiryat Gat, citing Dutch government actions against Israel. And Israel has already shown it will push back on bigger players: earlier in September, according to the Algemeiner, it announced the closure of the British Consulate in Jerusalem in response to Britain’s new settlement trade measures.

What the Dutch law actually does

The Dutch cabinet agreed to the ban in May. It prohibits importing, buying and selling goods produced in Israeli communities beyond the 1967 lines, including products with components from those areas, and bars intermediary services that help that trade. It applies to Dutch companies operating abroad. According to Jewish News and Ynet, deliberate violations can bring up to six years in prison, and customs officers are empowered to inspect personal luggage. Gifts and souvenirs are covered.

Put plainly: a tourist who brings home a bottle of Golan wine or a box of Jordan Valley dates can now be treated as a smuggler. US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee summed it up: “A Nativity set from Bethlehem could put you in prison! Insane!”

Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen called Israel’s response “unnecessary” and said he “deeply regrets” it, insisting the ban “is not directed at Israel” but reflects Dutch obligations under international law. The Dutch say trade with Israel inside its pre-1967 lines is unaffected. A challenge brought in The Hague by the Israel Product Center failed after a court ruled the group lacked standing.

The scene at Schiphol

The account of what happened at the airport comes from Dutch commentator Sivan Behr, who was on the flight and wrote about it for the Dutch site NieuwRechts. Her report has been relayed by Israel National News, Ynet and Jewish News; those reports carry no response from Dutch authorities, and the details have not been independently confirmed.

According to Behr, arrivals from Israel were directed to baggage X-ray screening, including people in the “Nothing to Declare” lane, and asked about wine, dates and olives. When passengers objected, an officer said such checks were routine on intercontinental flights, which Behr said she had never experienced on earlier trips. When told some Israelis didn’t understand Dutch, one officer reportedly shouted in English, “Shut the [expletive] up, shut the [expletive] up and wait!!!” A mother traveling with young children told officials, “We are just tourists. We didn’t do anything wrong, we come here for Sukkot, Jewish Holidays.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has since warned travelers to expect “lengthy, invasive baggage inspections.” Behr also asked the obvious question: do travelers arriving from Russia or other sanctioned countries get the same treatment?

Why this lands so hard in the Netherlands

For Jews, the image of Dutch officials sorting people off a flight from Israel into a separate line carries weight that no Dutch minister should need explained. Behr wrote that her own 82-year-old uncle, preparing to fly from Tel Aviv to Amsterdam, was afraid of having to prove where his purchases came from.

His fear has history behind it. According to the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, around three quarters of the Jews in the Netherlands were murdered in the Holocaust, compared with about 40 percent in Belgium and 25 percent in France, the highest rate in Western Europe. Anne Frank was one of them.

Nobody is claiming that a customs check is a deportation. The point is simpler. A country with that history has chosen to write a law that sends its customs officers digging through the luggage of Jewish families coming from the Jewish state, looking for olives. The Netherlands is one of Israel’s largest export markets, taking about 5 percent of its exports, so the government in The Hague knew exactly whose suitcases would be opened.

Israel’s answer is the right one. Settlement sanctions are spreading; according to The National, Britain, Canada and France have also announced restrictions on settlement goods. If Jerusalem lets them pass for free, there will be more.

The Netherlands decided Jewish tourists’ olives were a threat to international law, and Israel just reminded The Hague that diplomacy runs in both directions.

Sources

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