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Add as a favourite source on Google Add DutchNews as a favourite source on GooglePrime minister Rob Jetten has branded it “a disgusting act” that campaign group Farmers Defence Force (FDF) handed out Star of David stickers at Friday’s farmers’ protest in Den Bosch, according to Omroep Brabant.

The stickers show a Star of David in the pattern of a red farmers’ handkerchief, with the letter B for “boer”, or farmer. The star was a reference to the badge Jews were forced to wear under Nazi occupation.

“If you think you can make your point with this, I think you are only damaging your own cause,” Jetten said.

FDF leader Mark van den Oever said the stickers were meant to underline the injustice being done to farmers. Asked whether he thought the comparison with Jews during the WWII was inappropriate, he said revoking permits was also inappropriate.

Van den Oever also told Hart van Nederland permits were revoked in 1938 and that the same was now being done to farmers, that he understood the stickers could hurt people, but that action groups need to cause friction.

CIDI, a Jewish organisation called the comparison baseless and reprehensible. Ronny Naftaniel, a former director of CIDI and former chairman of the Central Jewish Council, said the farmers were undermining their own position by using the symbol.

Farm permits

The protest was called against the provincial executive’s plan to revoke the nature permits of five poultry farms near protected nature areas, which the farmers say would put them out of business.

After a debate lasting most of Friday, the executive said it was provisionally sticking to that plan, and a no-confidence motion against the executive member responsible, Saskia Boelema, was defeated.

Boelema told the council she had sought contact with the five farmers, who had waited eight months for a response to their plans. Broadcaster NOS, which has seen the email she sent to one of them, reported that it was sent two days before the debate.

The only motion to pass tells the executive to meet the farmers as soon as possible and to consider alternatives such as keeping fewer animals or relocating. A formal decision is due on October 1. Two people died on Friday morning in a crash on the A59, at the back of a queue that had built up as tractors drove to the protest.

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