By Khaled Shawkat, IOL Holland Correspondent

AMSTERRDAM, January 12 (IslamOnline) – The Dutch peace activist wife of the European Central Bank (ECB) chief Wim Duisenberg was given a warm reception from dozens of the Muslim community in the Netherlands following her visit to the occupied Palestinian territories.

Greta Duisenberg, the founder of the “Stop the Occupation” committee, slammed the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories as inhuman and accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of provoking violence.

Greta’s solidarity visit to the occupied Palestinian territories triggered a fierce media and political campaign against her, sparked by official and unofficial circles close to the Zionist lobby in the Netherlands, the Israeli Ha’aretz daily newspaper said.

“The power of the Israeli government to humiliate [Palestinians] like that - I cannot stand it... If you see it yourself, it's more inhuman," Greta said. “If [Israelis] want really to have peace, they should stop confiscating land all the time for all those settlements. It goes on and goes on and that's not logical."

Emerging from a meeting with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, the ECB president's wife asserted that Israel should "give back the occupied territories" and said that Arafat hates killing, underling that “there should be peace and the military situation of the Israeli government should stop because their actions are terrible."

"I did ask [Arafat] about the suicide bombings and he's absolutely against it," Duisenberg said.

"He even told me that yesterday he prevented two attempts."

She blamed Israel for the violence afflicting the region, saying that Sharon "always provokes [violence] in my view... and then he blames the Palestinian people."

The Israeli occupation was worse than Nazi Germany's occupation of the Netherlands, Greta was quoted by a Dutch newspaper as saying.

Duisenberg had earlier in the week said he was 100 percent behind his wife, but the Simon Wiesenthal Center called Friday, January 10, for him to either resign or be fired if he supports what it claimed anti-Semitic comments by his wife over the past year, the daily added.

Gretta Duisenberg denied again Saturday, January 11, that she was anti-Semitic, asserting she only opposed Israeli policy in the occupied Palestinian territories.

"If [Israelis] want really to have peace, they should stop confiscating land all the time for all those settlements. It goes on and goes on and that's not logical."

Arab Women festival will lionize Greta

Meanwhile, Wafa’ Bobnad, Chairwoman of the sponsor committee of Arab Women festival, scheduled on March 6 through 9, told IslamOnline that the festival would lionize Greta in the closing ceremony.

"This praise comes in appreciation from the Arab and Muslim community for her pains-taking efforts, which serve best the Palestinian cause, and to assert that all Arab and Muslim women in the Netherlands are rallying behind her in her uphill struggle against the brutal campaigns launched by the Zionists and their followers," Bobnad said.

Bobnad added that the festival would also honor a number of Arab women, who provided significant services to the Arab minority, in particular, and the Dutch society, in general.

In April 2002, Duisenberg hung a Palestinian flag from the balcony of her house in Amsterdam.

In June, she founded "Stop the Occupation," and when a Dutch radio interviewer asked her how many signatures she hoped to collect on a petition of support for the organization, she responded: "Six million" and laughed.