Despite calls by Jewish groups and politicians to the Dutch authorities to prohibit an annual conference ‘’Palestinians in Europe’’ organized in Rotterdam by a the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC), regarded by German intelligence sources as a support group of Hamas in Europe, the city Mayor and Justice Minister refused to block the event. The conference is planned for April 15.

CIDI, the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI), a pro-Israel Dutch advocacy group, Jewish leaders and political figures in the country warned that such an event could encourage anti-Semitism and embolden terrorist groups among young people. Hamas is on the EU list of terrorist groups.

Rotterdam Mayor, Ahmed Aboutaleb, a Labor politician who was born in Morocco to a Muslim family, explained his refusal to ban the public gathering by the fact that it was not absolutely proved that Hamas is involved in the organization of the conference. But he promised to the Jewish community that justice officials will be present at the April 15 PRC event to “make sure nothing anti-Semitic will happen or will be said.”

Also Dutch Security and Justice Minister Stef Blok and Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk rejected a call to ban the conference. ‘’Given the interdependence between the Palestinian community in the Middle East and elsewhere in the diaspora, it is likely that there are relations between the Hamas Gaza rulers and people who are involved in organizing the conference,’’ Blok told the Dutch parliament in response to a question from an MP

‘’But if there is a danger from the coferece to public order, the competent authorities will intervene,’’ he added, stressing that responsibility lies in the hands of the city of Rotterdam.

What is the Palestinian Return Centre ?

Established in London in 1996, argues that millions of Palestinian Arabs from around the world should be allowed to settle in Israel. Its current initiatives include the “Balfour Apology Campaign,” which seeks to have the British government publicly apologize for its 1917 declaration endorsing the establishment of a Jewish national home.

According to Western intelligence sources, it is an essential part of the Hamas network in Europe. PRC hosts senior Hamas officials at their international conferences and it is funded by the same foundations that fund Hamas in Europe. This is an organization that does not erely oppose a specific Israeli policy or government, it rejects the right of Israel to exist and openly calls for its annihilation.

PRC is also affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe.

One of PRC's main activities is organizing is the Annual "Palestinians in Europe" Conference in various European countries. The participants of these conventions consist of the PRC’s operatives and activists alongside many Hamas and Muslim brotherhood activists, Hamas’s funds representatives in Europe, as well as representatives of Hamas in Gaza (some who deliver speeches via video due to their lack of mobility).

This is in effect the annual Hamas convention which takes place in a different city every year. Indications for the involvement of Hamas in these conventions have been received from different sources, revealing the notion that a presence of a Palestinian Authority representative is unwanted.

In 2010, the PRC was designated by the state of Israel as an unlawful association, for being part of the Hamas terror organization.

The PRC is managed by Zaher al-Birawi, Majed al-Zeer and Dr. Arafat Shoukri, well known Hamas activists who have ties to Hamas-Gaza and abroad and who are operating to promote Hamas’s economical, organizational, conceptual and operational interests in Europe.

The Netherlands’s Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs has expressed his concern that the conference “will incite anti-Semitism or pro-terrorist sentiment” in the country, particularly among the country’s rapidly growing community of ethnic Turks.

Jacobs said that the PRC’s activities are “just like the ‘Denk’ party, whose three seats in the new Dutch parliament look small, but is the beginning, God forbid, of a direction which we don’t want to go.” The Denk party, which chiefly represents Dutch citizens of Turkish and Morrocorigin, is harshly anti-Israel,’’ he said.

Tanya Hoogwerf, a member of the City Council of Rotterdam, has repeatedly pressed the mayor to cancel the conference. “Especially with anti-Semitism on the rise in the Netherlands and Rotterdam as well,we think it’s irresponsible and a bad signal to lay out a red carpet for on organization that believes and states in it's own manifesto that all Jews need to be killed,” she said.

According to Manfred Gerstenfeld, the choice of Rotterdam as site of the conference ‘’is far from arbitrary.’’ ‘’The town as a record of many years of anti-Israel initiatives,’’ he said, recalling that las month also in Rotterdam Dutch Turkish hooligans shouted ‘’cancer Jews”” at the police in a confrontation that had nothing to do with the Jews.

CIDI said that Aboutaleb told the group that he had consulted with the Dutch National Coordination for Counterterrorism and Security, a homeland security governmental organ, and it said there was no grounds to ban the event.

But CIDI said that the security agency said it had not given such an advisory opinion to the City of Rotterdam.

“The basis for the mayor’s decision is unclear to us and we find this highly disconcerting,” CIDI wrote