Dear friends,
It is an honor to speak to you today about peace and justice at a moment when our world is heading dangerously towards war and authoritarianism. As we gather here, just a few kilometers away, NATO leaders are preparing for their summit in The Hague. We already know what will come out of it: more commitments to vast increases in defense spending.
But where are the commitments to peace?
Where is the investment in a security strategy that centers people, not only state interests? A just peace, rooted in security for all, not just the well-defended few?
In the next 15 minutes, I want to share why a truly sustainable peace demands an integrated approach to security – one that combines defense with diplomacy, development, democracy, and a robust international rights-based order. A strategy that carefully balances soft powers to build and hard power to protect this order.
This is not idealism. It is realism – because a world based on rights and multilateral cooperation is far more stable than one driven by fear, force, and deterrence. The alternative is clear: a brutal world of might over right, where powerful states impose their will on weaker ones. That is not a world of order – it is a world of chaos and injustice. I reject that world. And I know many of you do too.
Ukraine: The Cost of Resistance, The Fight for Justice
In 2023 I traveled to Ukraine. In Chernihiv, a city that had been under siege in 2022, I helped open an exhibition that told the stories of those who had endured the horrors of the early invasion. It was a peaceful Sunday – people walking in the park, shops open – but just meters away stood a memorial for a little girl, surrounded by flowers and teddy bears. She and six others had been killed by a Russian ballistic missile strike only two weeks earlier. In Ukraine, death can literally fall from the sky at any moment.
The day before, I had met with Dima, a soft-spoken Ukrainian peaceworker. He told me about the fate of Ukrainians living under Russian occupation now. The fear of arrest, torture, or execution. The abduction of children. The erasure of language, history, and culture. Under occupation there is no peace. Dima has since been called to the front. He now wears a uniform – as do so many teachers, carpenters, doctors. This war has conscripted a nation not by choice, but by necessity. To protect their loved ones and society from an imperialistic war.
And those I met in Ukraine were clear: military support is not a rejection of peace – it is a precondition for survival. There is real fear, not just for death, but also for occupation. Without military support, there is no Ukraine left to negotiate for. But peace will never come through arms alone. Ukrainians also need support to sustain their democracy and their economy and to oddress social tensions; All under the enormous strain of war.
Military aid does not exclude the pursuit of peace and diplomacy – instead, they reinforce each other. Without the ability to resist aggression, negotiations risk becoming surrender, not justice. Peace without protection strengthens authoritarianism and weakens international law
And let’s be clear: peace negotiations cannot come at the cost of Ukrainian agency. The people of Ukraine – and no one else – must shape their future. We cannot allow backroom deals by great powers to rob them of their right to self-determination. That principle must be non-negotiable.
Gaza and Israel: Where Is the Red Line?
Now, let’s replace the word Ukraine with Gaza.
Again we see occupation. Again we see death falling from the sky. But this time, it is with the help – even complicity – of our own governments. The F-35 fighter jets dropping bombs on Gaza are kept in the air with European spare-parts. And our silence.
Where is our commitment to international law? To a rules-based order?
We have watched in horror as Gaza has been reduced to rubble – as Palestinians are killed in their thousands, as aid is blocked and hunger is weaponized. And yet, many of our governments do nothing. Worse – they actively enable it. For instance by continuing military cooperation with Israel.
Last Sunday, over 150,000 people marched through The Hague in the largest peace demonstration in the Netherlands since the 1980s. PAX was one of the co-organizers of this march. People dressed in red drew a line – a red line against Israeli genocide in Gaza, but also against our own governments, which are complicit by their silence.
These demonstrations call for urgent and concrete action by our leaders:
- Suspend the EU Association Agreement with Israel.
- Impose a full arms embargo.
- Join South Africa’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
- Ban all trade with illegal settlements.
If the EU fails to uphold the Genocide Convention – if it chooses hypocrisy over principle – then what credibility remains of the European project will be lost. And rightly so.
Iran: Undermining International Law Again
The situation becomes even more troubling when EU states offer support – or even quiet understanding – for Israeli aggression beyond Gaza, including the recent illegal strikes on Iran. These are not isolated incidents. They follow a pattern of previous attacks on Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria.
Let us recall: Israel has nuclear weapons. Iran does not. Israel is not a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran is. And yet it is Iran that is bombed – not Israel that is inspected. This double standard is both dangerous and immoral.
And let’s be clear: these actions violate the UN Charter. There was no imminent threat. In fact, negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program were in progress – and this violence derailed them. You can strongly oppose the Iranian regime, as I do. You can distrust their narratives, as I do. But international law is not optional. It must apply to all -or it applies to none.
Nuclear Weapons: A Sword Over Humanity
This brings me to a deeper concern: the renewed threat of nuclear escalation.
The Doomsday Clock stands at just 89 seconds to midnight -closer than ever to global catastrophe. Yet instead of disarming, nuclear states, such as the US, Russia and China, are pouring money into expanding their arsenals.
This arms race is not only reckless – it’s illegal under existing international treaties like the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which obliges nuclear states to disarm. But that promise is being ignored.
PAX, as a leading member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), proudly works for the total abolition of nuclear weapons, for which it received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 . We call on the Netherlands and all European states to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
We urgently need a new commitment to mutual, negotiated disarmament, backed by inspections from the IAEA. This is not idealism – it’s survival.
The Netherlands can play a role. Instead of talking about a ‘Euro bomb’, we should remove U.S. nuclear weapons from our soil. In doing this, we can take the first step toward real global leadership on disarmament.
We need to renew the commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons.
The Real Security We Need: A Just and Human Vision
Let me bring us back to what this moment truly calls for: a new vision of security – not just for Europe, but for the world.
Here are five principles we must stand for if we want a just and lasting peace:
- No European peace at the expense of others. We have to break with the old habit of “peace for us, war for them.”
- Positive peace. Not just stopping war, but building justice, dignity, and fairness
- Human security. Real safety means protecting people – not just borders or regimes.
- Consistency in human rights and international law – everywhere. Our values lose meaning if they only apply selectively.
- Global cooperation – through diplomacy, development and international cooperation, in solidarity.
These aren’t new ideas – they’re the foundations of the UN Charter and the Sustainable Development Goals. But let’s be clear: the silence around those goals is growing. What was once a global promise to leave no one behind is being pushed aside by war, crisis, and short-term politics.
Development aid is being cut everywhere. In the US, in The Netherlands, in the UK. And also our social systems are strained. Inequality is deepening.
This isn’t a path to peace – it’s a recipe for more instability.
Defense Spending: Real Security or Corporate Welfare?
Let me be clear: I recognize and support the need for Europe to build its defense capacity, especially in light of an unreliable U.S., the threat to Easter Europe from Russia and the growing global instability. I also recognize the importance and our dependency on NATO for European security. However, I find the new NATO spending target of 5% of GDP reckless – driven less by strategy, and more by politics and profit. Even Trump now said he will not obey to this norm!
In the Netherlands, we can’t even spend the current 2% effectively. There is a lack of personnel, raw materials and capacity to supply all these arms and prices of arms are soaring right now exactly due to the rising budgets.
Moreover, without strong coordination, EU countries duplicate efforts, as each nation tries to protect its own arms industry. Worse, the surge in military budgets risk coming at the expense of education, healthcare, climate policy, and social protection – the very things that build lasting peace and resilience in society.
Europe can do better. We need a smarter, more collaborative defense capacity that focusses on our key vulnerabilities – not a race to feed the arms industry.
And as Europe invests in defense, it should use the opportunity to hold the arms industry to higher ethical standards: no sales to human rights abusers, no production of banned weapons like landmines and cluster bombs and alignment with norms for Corporate Social Responsibility.
Yet we see the opposite. EU export rules are being eroded – as with the continued supply of F-35 parts to Israel, despite court rulings that it violates international law. In the Netherlands, our government simply rerouted the shipments via the U.S. That’s why PAX, with Oxfam and The Rights Forum, went back to court. Because the rule of law must be upheld.
The Dutch government is also pushing to join a Franco-German-Spanish treaty that would hand over control of arms exports to states that already supply weapons to major human rights violators like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel. This weakens already limited democratic oversight.
That’s why PAX opposes this treaty and continues to push for stronger export controls – including a full arms embargo on Israel. We’re glad to have the SP’s support in this fight.
The Broader Threats We Face
Let us not be fooled: the threats to our societies today are not just military and only military means and deterrence will not keep us safe. They will stir-up a dangerous arms race and mutual distrust among competing nations. Yes we need a reliable and capable defense force, but we face other threats such as domestic social unrest, climate collapse, digital authoritarianism, cyber sabotage, and rising inequality.
These challenges cannot be met with missiles. They require strong democracies, inclusive societies, and resilient institutions. Therefore we need a strategy that links defense to development, diplomacy, democracy and a rights based order. Both domestic and at the international level.
In Closing: A Call for Moral Leadership
Peace, real peace, requires more than weapons. It demands courage – to invest in diplomacy, development, democracy, and human rights. It requires consistency – to apply international law fairly, regardless of who breaks it. And it calls for solidarity – not only among Europeans, but with people everywhere who yearn to live in dignity and freedom.
The U.S. may have the world’s strongest army. But its democracy is threatened not by foreign invasion – but by Trump.
Let us protect our democracies not just with weapons – but also with justice.
Let us not forget: we are not powerless. We are mobilising masses and we can see them standing up right now. Our voices are becoming louder. Demanding for peace and knowing that just peace only exists, if it is universal.
Thank you.
