Speech Verhagen tijdens bezoek aan Israel, mei 2008
Gelegenheid: bezoek aan IsraelLadies and gentlemen,
It’s a great pleasure to be here today in the art gallery of the University of Tel Aviv, surrounded by 153 beautiful Rembrandt reproductions. These beautiful pictures by this quintessentially Dutch artist are being shown here at a particularly festive moment this spring: Israel’s sixtieth anniversary. I would like to express my warm congratulations to Israel on reaching this milestone!
Since the nineteenth century, many people have become convinced that there is a special relationship between Rembrandt and the Jewish people, because of the suggestion of Jewish ancestry and the Jewish themes and Old Testament stories depicted in his paintings. The so-called Jewish Bride is probably the most famous, not least because of the mystery that surrounds it. Rembrandt is said to have been a good friend of both the physician Dr Ephraim Bueno and the Dutch Republic’s leading rabbi, Menasse Ben Israel. In 2006, when we celebrated the four hundredth anniversary of Rembrandt’s birth, the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam opened an exhibition with the intriguing title the ‘ Jewish’ Rembrandt.
This is my third visit to Israel since I took office about fifteen months ago. My first two visits were dominated by Israel’s political and security issues and their implications for the wider Middle East peace process. Tomorrow, I will meet my opposite number Tzipi Livni and we will certainly talk about these issues again. The developments between Israel and its neighbours have a constant hold over international attention. However, our agenda is broader than the peace process. This time around, I will also engage in the ‘normal’ bilateral activities, reflecting the exceptional relations that exist between our two countries.
At the Herzliya conference in January, I expressed a personal wish for the Israeli people in 2008: normality. I think Israel’s sixtieth anniversary and our common desire for normality are a great opportunity to put our bilateral relations in the limelight. At the time of the creation of the State of Israel, the Netherlands developed warm relations with this young democracy. Every successive government, without exception, has provided support to your state.
And these warm relations have endured into the twenty-first century. Since 1948, Israel has welcomed Jews from all over the Diaspora, including thousands from the Netherlands who have found a new home in Israel.
In the last few years, Israel has gained in popularity as a destination for emigration. Since 2002, the number of Dutch people who want to settle permanently in Israel has doubled, according to Statistics Netherlands (CBS).
Dutch companies have also found an attractive climate for investment in Israel. That’s why our Minister for Foreign Trade will be visiting Israel with a trade delegation next year. Heineken, for instance, set up business here in the early nineties and invested in the successful local brewery Tempo Beer Industries in 2004. Heineken is now a major brand in Israel. I’m happy to see that our beer is being served this evening by Dutch waiters, who are here as part of an exchange programme run by Heineken. I’m sure they will find as many beer loving customers in Israel as they are used to in the Netherlands! And, as a beer lover myself, I hope that beers from my own region, Limburg, will eventually find their way to Israel as well.
Apart from our leading position as an international brewer, the Netherlands also has a very good track record in areas such as water management, environmental technology, public transport and logistics, medical technology, food and agricultural technology. This morning, the Israeli Minister of Environmental Protection, Mr Gideon Ezra, together with the Dutch ambassador, opened a conference on waste disposal. Tomorrow, I will open a seminar on sustainable urban transport together with the mayor of Tel Aviv, Mr Ron Huldai. Recently, your government invested heavily in a national bicycle network. That makes us feel even more at home here, as the Netherlands is said to be a cyclist's heaven on earth. Everybody rides a bicycle in the Netherlands, including one of my colleagues in the Dutch government, who goes to work by bike. It has been said that his driver accompanies him by car to bring his heavy briefcases … but I don’t believe that for one moment!
Israel ranks among the world’s top performers in the area of high technology. Your country produces the world’s highest proportion of engineers – people who are driven by innovation. This is important considering the global shortage of software professionals, especially in a world which is becoming increasingly interconnected. Haifa is one of the leading cities in Israel’s technology-driven economy with a number of hi-tech parks. Tomorrow, I will visit Technion (the Israel Institute of Technology) in Haifa to learn more about its cooperation with the medical technology industry. It gives me great satisfaction that Philips Medical Systems is an important player in this industry as a producer of highly advanced medical equipment.
According to Richard Florida, a leading intellectual and author of the bestseller The Flight of the Creative Class, the keys to economic development are the ‘three Ts’: Technology, Talent and Tolerance. Tolerance attracts talent and talent attracts technology-driven growth. Haifa has all three. Technology, Talent and – as a city where Jews and Arabs live together – Tolerance.
For many people, the city is a model of coexistence: relations between Jews and Arabs are for the most part good. It stands out as an example of how the people of Israel, both Jews and Arabs, can live in normality and succeed as a mixed society. The mayor of Haifa, Mr Yona Yahav, will accompany me during my visit and will update me on what’s happening in his beautiful city, including his urban policy on tolerance between different communities. I’m sure that the experiences and insights of mayors Huldai and Yahav will clarify my own thoughts on future Jewish-Arab cooperation, in Israel and in the wider region. I truly hope to see Israel live in normality soon, within its own borders and in its relations with its neighbours.
Once again, congratulations, and thank you. The time has come to let the beer flow again!