Former prime minister Dries van Agt of the Netherlands has founded a group campaigning for the rights of Palestinians. He has been joined by former foreign ministers Hans van den Broek and Hans van Mierlo, as well as other prominent Dutch people.

When in office, Mr Van Agt was a staunch supporter of Israel, but after he stepped down in 1982 he changed his mind. The former PM's views are at odds with the majority view of his party, the governing Christian Democrats, which generally ignores him.

Stunned
As Mr Van Agt explains on his own website: "The scales fell from my eyes on a visit to the Holy Land in the 1990s, when I found myself in occupied Palestinian territory. I was stunned by what I heard and saw. For a long time I had been blinded and speechless about the fate of the Jewish people in World War II. For a long time I thought that Israel could not put a foot wrong and transgress international law. That was my failure. The truth is quite different: for hundreds of thousands of Palestians the founding of the state of Israel has turned into a disaster."

The new group The Rights Forum posits that international law is being flouted in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, mainly to the detriment of Palestinians. The Forum intends to exert diplomatic pressure on Israel to respect the international rule of law, which should include a halt to building settlements, and the demolition of the wall that separates the West Bank and Israel.

Thursday, International Human Rights Day, was chosen as the group's launch date.

The wall fencing off East Jerusalem, seen from the Israeli side (Photo: driesvanagt.nl/madisi)