How many times must we see the same lesson before we recognize it? 

When the Dutch seized Curaçao in 1634, they didn’t see a living island with its own people. They saw a strategic outpost for trade. The Caquetío – our original inhabitants – were removed from their land, shipped to Venezuela, or forced into servitude. In plain words: they were erased to make the island “useful” to the Company. Afterwards, history was rewritten as if they had never existed. 

Now, four centuries later, we see Palestine – Gaza, the West Bank – going through the same process. Entire communities are uprooted, homes turned to rubble, and the land itself is treated as more valuable than the lives who have lived there for generations. Human rights organizations and the International Court of Justice call it what it is: ethnic cleansing, even genocide. 

The parallel is unmistakable: 

• Then: The Caquetío were removed to make Curaçao profitable. 

• Now: Palestinians are displaced to secure strategic control. 

For Curaçao, this is not distant politics. Our soil remembers. It remembers the silence after our people were taken. It remembers the generations who had to fight to reclaim their own history and identity. 

When the Netherlands stands by Israel as Palestinians are erased, it is not just a foreign policy. It is our own past, repeated on another shore. 

History warns us clearly: if erasure is not confronted, it never stays in the past. It adapts. It survives. And one day, it arrives at another people’s door.