Antisemitic conspiracy theorist David Icke posing with a supporter at a demonstration in London. Photo: Reuters/Jay Shaw Baker

The Dutch Minister of Justice has declared her support for efforts by the municipality of Amsterdam to prevent David Icke, a notorious British antisemitic conspiracy theorist and Holocaust denier, from speaking at a rally in the city on Sunday.

Delivering a lecture hosted by the Dutch Jewish community on Sunday night, Dilan Yeşilgöz — the Minister for Justice and Security of the Netherlands — condemned Icke’s planned appearance, complaining that protests had been “too late and too limited.”

“Again it was the Jewish organizations that signaled this and protested against it,” Yeşilgöz remarked. “Again, it had to be explained why this is a problem. Again there is a double standard, because we all know what would happen if it were an imam.”

A former professional soccer player and television presenter, Icke has spent more than 25 years pushing occult conspiracy theories holding that the world is governed by a race of reptiles in thrall to the power of the “Rothschild Zionists.” Icke has also promoted Holocaust denial, claiming in a 1995 book that “alternative information to the official line of the Second World War” had been suppressed. A March 2019 speaking tour of Australia that Icke had planned to undertake was canceled after he was banned by the government, which cited concerns about the impact of his presence on the Jewish community, from entering the country.

Icke’s outlandish views were amplified earlier this month by a far-right Dutch MP in an interview with an extremist website.

“I am definitely a conspiracy theorist,” Thierry Baudet of the Forum for Democracy (VVD) said. “I believe we are ruled by a global conspiracy of evil reptiles.”

Baudet — who has previously tweeted conspiracy theories about the Rothschild banking dynasty and is an outspoken supporter of Russian leader Vladimir Putin — later said he had not meant to be taken literally.“Of course it was a metaphor,” he told Dutch news outlets. “I was talking about a behind-the-scenes conspiracy of globalists, secret services, psychopaths, which is destroying democracy and freedom. Those who do this to us are a kind of non-humans, reptiles, machines — in short, the insensible.”

In her lecture on Sunday, Yeşilgöz accused Baudet and his supporters of “exchanging dog whistles for a fully-fledged wind orchestra.”

She pledged to back new legislation that would criminalize “denying or grossly trivializing” the Holocaust. She called on Dutch citizens in general to voice their rejection of antisemitism “not only during a demonstration, but also at a birthday party, in class and on Twitter. Let us know that there are more of us, and that we will no longer indulge it.”