Belgium 2001-2

 

Since 2000 the number of violent anti-Jewish incidents has risen considerably. Moreover, there appears to be a correlation between this increase and the anti-Israel atmosphere in Belgium. Seventeen violent antisemitic acts against individuals and property were committed in 2001 and 25 from January to May 2002. Young people from the Maghreb community, influenced by fundamentalist Islamist circles in Belgium, appear to have been behind some of these attacks; they also chanted antisemitic slogans during anti-Israel demonstrations and disseminated anti-Jewish propaganda.

 

the jewish community

Some 35,000 Jewish citizens live in Belgium out of a total population of 10 million. The two main centers of Belgian Jewry are Antwerp (15,000) and Brussels (15,000). The Comité de Coordination des Organizations Juives de Belgique (Coordinating Committee of Jewish Organizations in Belgium – CCOJB) in Brussels, is the community’s umbrella organization. Because many European Union institutions are located in Brussels, the community plays an important role in hosting European Jewish events and in advocating the interests of communities across Europe.

In June 2002 the Belgian government, insurance companies and the Belgian central bank pledged to pay Holocaust survivors a total of 55 million euros to compensate them for stolen assets and unclaimed life insurance policies. In October Belgian banks agreed to pay an additional 55 million euros to compensate for funds in plundered bank accounts.

In April 2002 the World Jewish Congress convened its executive in Brussels and announced plans to establish a European-Jewish body (headquartered in Brussels) that would act to counter the wave of anti-Israel propaganda that is sweeping Europe.

 

POLITICAL PARTIES AND EXTRA-PARLIAMENTARY GROUPS

Political Parties of the Extreme Right

Since its success in the 1991 Belgian legislative elections, the parliamentary far right (Vlaams Blok and Front national) has moderated its tone considerably on controversial topics such as antisemitism. This restraint is opportunistic, the goal being to acquire a certain patina of respectability, and for the Vlaams Blok (VB) in particular, to attract part of the “Jewish vote” in the city of Antwerp. Thus, for the last few years, VB local leader Filip Dewinter has indicated solidarity with the Jewish community when it incurs antisemitic attacks. Moreover, although a marginal phenomenon, some members of the Jewish community, in the face of such attacks perpetrated by some groups among the North African community (see below), have decided to support extreme right parties.

Like many VB leaders, Dewinter graduated from organizations known specifically for their antisemitism, such as the Nationalistisch Student Verbond (NSV). In tracts issued by the VB in the 1990s, the Jewish community was depicted as controlling the country through its hold of financial institutions. Ties still exist between the VB and small neo-fascist and antisemitic groups (see below).

The Front national belge, which has been in parliament since 1991, also has large numbers of antisemites among its membership. Since its establishment in Brussels in 1985, this French-speaking party has attracted the leaders of political groups and circles known for their endorsement of antisemitism and Holocaust, such as Fraternité sacerdotale Saint-Pie X (see below), Cercle Copernic (a cultural group of the neo-Nazi New Right), Parti des forces nouvelles (a political formation with the backing of Walloon former SS soldier Léon Degrelle), and others. A number of “independent” publications which print antisemitic articles have expressed support for the Front’s political struggle. These include Racines, Contre/Thèses, Le Cri du Citoyen and Altaïr (see below). A Brussels leader of the Front national, Daniel Leskens, is closely involved with the Association des Amis de Drieu la Rochelle, named after a former pro-Nazi French collaborator. Abroad, Daniel Leskens has close contacts with a number of organizations, particularly French ones, known for their antisemitism.

 

Extra-Parliamentary Groups of the Extreme Right

Among extra-parliamentary groups of the Belgian far right, antisemitism is less of a taboo than among their parliamentary brethren. Although the political strategy of extra-parliamentary groups is more radical than that of the Front national or the VB, the former maintain regular contact with the parliamentary representatives of right-wing extremism.

In French-speaking circles, the Nation movement represents this radical far right. The main leader of Nation, Hervé Van Laethem (a former non-commissioned officer in the Belgian army), had a leading position in l’Assaut, a small neo-Nazi and antisemitic group which was active from 1988 to 1993. At that time l’Assaut had regular contacts with the Front national and the VB, as well as with all Belgian and foreign neo-Nazi groups. Nation is still associated with extreme right-wing organizations in Europe, such as Unité radicale (in France) and the NPD (in Germany).

In the Flemish community, various far right groups associated with the VB were or remain close to antisemitic and revisionist theses. These include the Hertog Jan van Brabant (HJVB, an association of former Flemish SS soldiers), the Nationalistisch studenten verbond (NSV, an association of university students), the Nationalistisch jongstudenten verbond (NJSV, a branch of the NSV in high schools), the Vlaamse Jongeren Mechelen (VJM, an organization which operates out of the town of Malines [Mechelen] and whose supporters include neo-Nazi skinheads), the Voorpost action group and the Were Di think tank.

Since 2000, the neo-Nazi splinter group Blood & Honour – Vlaanderen – the official Flemish section of the British, avowedly National Socialist, skinhead organization Blood & Honour (B&H) – has been active in Flanders. B&H has organized (or taken part in) numerous propaganda events glorifying Nazism, including a “revisionist congress” (2 March 2002; see below), and a ceremony in honor of Adolf Hitler’s birthday (20 April 2002). Several times a year this section organizes and takes part in concerts together with leading Belgian and foreign neo-Nazi skinhead groups.

B&H Vlaanderen has ties with other organizations, especially the Comité Nationalisten tegen globalisering, a nationalist anti-globalization political network operating out of Malines and supported by several far right Flemish-language (Jongeren Aktief, Voorpost, the VB youth wing Vlaams Blok jongeren) and French-language (Nation) groups.

 

Islamist Fundamentalism

A number of Islamist bookshops stock politico-religious works containing arguments that nurture antisemitism, often through anti-Zionist or anti-Jewish discourse. As of 1996, one of these bookshops (in Brussels) was selling The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics, the antisemitic and Holocaust denying work of former French communist turned fundamentalist Muslim Roger Garaudy.

Fundamentalist Islamist circles in Belgium seem to have some influence among Muslim youth in the country, some of whom chanted antisemitic slogans during anti-Israel demonstrations organized in Brussels and Antwerp. Activists within the Maghreb community have circulated anti-Jewish propaganda, despite calls for calm issued by various Islamic religious and cultural bodies. Antisemitism appears to be promoted by Islamic fundamentalist groups such as Centre Islamique de Belgique. In April 2002 the Centre pour l’égalité des chances et la lutte contre le racisme (CECLR, the federal government’s public anti-racist agency) lodged a complaint against the Centre Islamique on the grounds that it had breached the laws against racism and revisionism. The Centre Islamique had broadcast on its Internet site a short video document – produced by Lebanese students – equating the State of Israel with a Nazi dictatorship. In June 2002, CECLR lodged another complaint against the Antwerp-based Arab European League, also for infringing the anti-racist law.

 

Christian Fundamentalism

While Islamist fundamentalists have been in the spotlight in recent years, antisemitism and anti-Judaism are still very much present within fundamentalist Christian organizations and religious groups, with Jews representing one of the main targets of their politico-religious discourse. Most of these organizations and groups are still much influenced by the writings of Charles Maurras, the leader of Action Française, a monarchist and antisemitic movement that was active in France at the beginning of the twentieth century. Numerous ties exist between Christian fundamentalists and the far right, which often share the same theories against “rootless and anonymous high finance” (coded terminology for the Jews). The Front national belge, for example, is linked to Lecture française, a nationalist Catholic magazine published by Chiré (also known as Diffusion de la pensée française, DPF). As noted above, Altaïr, a Walloon publication for a narrow readership issued by a Catholic professor of religion known for his antisemitic writings over the last twenty years, also supports the Front.

In Belgium, the Fraternité sacerdotale Saint-Pie X (FSSP X) is the chief embodiment of Christian Judeophobic fundamentalism. Founded in Switzerland in 1970 by the late Monseigneur Lefebvre (whom the Vatican excommunicated in 1988), this religious “fraternity” can today be found worldwide. FSSP X views Judaism and Islam as “false religions.” The former dictatorships of Pétain (France), Franco (Spain), Salazar (Portugal) and Pinochet (Chile) are openly declared by the FSSP X to be desirable models of political systems. Lefebvre’s movement continues to condemn punishment meted out to Nazi collaborators in the wake of the defeat of the Third Reich, and to oppose the various conciliatory steps taken by Pope John Paul II over the years, such as openness toward Jews.

The FSSP X has had a Belgian section since 1979. In summer 2001 its international second-in-command, Abbé Paul Aulagnier (close to the French FN), settled in Belgium to run a local section in the country. Most of the Belgian FSSP X leaders are associated with or are members of the far right. For example, current spokesman Alain Escada comes from the Front nouveau de Belgique. Escada, who maintains contact with the French FN, is president of Belgique & Chrétienté, a fundamentalist political association which seeks to combat “anti-Belgian racism” and anti-Christianity. Escada also owns a bookshop which, among other works, sells the writings of the main Christian fundamentalist theoreticians and ideologues of the European far right. Together with Abbé Paul Aulagnier, he runs CEPHAS-Diffusion, a new mail order book service which is a direct offshoot of the Belgian FSSP X. Recruits for this new fundamentalist structure, which aims to “restore Christianity,” are advised to read the works of theoreticians of racism, antisemitism and the historical or contemporary far right, and of former Nazi collaborators, such as Robert Brasillach, François Brigneau, Henry Coston, Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, Jean Mabire, Jean Madiran, Charles Maurras and Robert Poulet.

This politico-religious miasma also includes semi-clandestine Orders of Chivalry, including the Ordre des Chevaliers de Saint-Michel et de Saint-Georges (which has ties to Alain Escada and the FSSP X). Le Lien fraternel, the in-house magazine of these “knights,” has in the recent past upheld both revisionism and antisemitism. In the 1960s, one of these knights played a part in publishing Révolution européenne, edited then by a former Belgian collaborator of the SS, Jean-Robert Debbaudt.

 

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism

As in many other countries, since October 2000 (the beginning of the second intifada), a new form of antisemitism has become evident, although other forms of antisemitism, generally emanating from the far right, have not completely disappeared. In the opinion of Pierre-André Tanguieff, a French political analyst and author of a book on the subject (La Nouvelle judéophobie, Paris, 2002), nouvelle judéophobie, or “neo-antisemitism,”

... is based on a polemical hotchpotch, blending Jews, Israelis and ‘Zionists’, imagined as representing an evil power. For the new anti-Jews, all the misfortunes of the world can be explained by the existence of Israel … The old European antisemitism was a specific form of racism, directed against the Jews. In the new worldwide Judeophobia, the charge of racism is turned against the Jews.

For the French association SOS Racism and the Union of French Jewish Students, co-authors of a book on this phenomenon, the new antisemitism is “very much part of the younger generation despite its anti-racist stance” (Le livre blanc des violences antisémites en France depuis septembre 2000, Paris, 2002). This antisemitism is mainly expressed among groups of young people whose families have immigrated from Arab/Muslim countries.

The 2001 annual report of CECLR (Egalité et diversité, 2001, Brussels, March 2002, pp. 43–4.), emphasized that this new wave of antisemitism was an outcome of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that the intention was to make the Jewish community play the role of the scapegoat. The CECLR expressed its concern that far right organizations had taken advantage of this wave to aggravate tensions between the Arab/Muslim and Jewish communities.

Since autumn 2000 antisemitic expressions in Belgium have become part of a trend to merge the terms Jews, Israelis and Zionists into a single evil entity. While criticism of Israel by many leftists in Belgium does not necessarily stem from an antisemitic worldview, antisemitic expressions can be found in anti-Israel articles by leftists, even in mainstream publications. Texts that are either blatantly antisemitic or have a more specific anti-Jewish slant circulate in a large number of political and religious circles. Several mainstream Belgian newspapers, such as Le soir, have published opinions equating the Palestinian territories with the Warsaw Ghetto, or Zionism with Nazism. (For more on this subject, see Joel Kotek, Antisemitic Motifs in Belgian Anti-Israel Propaganda.)

Among extreme right groups in Belgium, as in other European countries, anti-Zionist slogans camouflage antisemitic concepts. The term “Zionist” or “international Zionism” implies the “Jewish lobby,” for example. In Belgium, all far right organizations demonstrate their support for the Palestinian cause in one way or another. Among Flemish nationalists (demanding independence for Flanders), support is mainly through identification with a landless people. Among the francophones, Nation has long been the movement most closely involved in categorical support for the Palestinians. Nation leader Hervé Van Laethem even served as a figurehead for a number of pro-Palestinian far right structures. After taking parting in the activities of Anti-Zionistische Aktie (AZA), together with Dutch neo-Nazis, he co-founded – in 1999 at the time that Nation was set up – Intifada européenne, a small group which supported the Palestinian armed struggle. Since spring 2002, Van Laethem has been involved with a new group, the Comité Europe-Palestine. The latter is promoted by the magazine Devenir and by Vlaamse Jongeren Mechelen.

But support of part of the European, including Belgian, far right for the Palestinians against the State of Israel has always triggered stormy and vehement discussion. Since the outbreak of the second intifada, right-wing European nationalists appear to be genuinely divided over the Palestinian question. Two tendencies have emerged: one unconditionally defending the cause of the Palestinian people against Israel, the other considering that support for the Palestinians should be provisional rather than absolute. While recognizing the Palestinians as “objective allies” against “international Zionism,” the latter group stipulates that once the conflict with Israel is over, the Palestinians will revert to being enemies. “Our struggle is situated in Europe, and for Europe, and so we will soon defend ourselves in the streets using the slogan, ‘No keffiyahs, no kippahs! Europe awake!’” said Fabrice Robert, leader of the French  Unité radicale (UR) (“Vers le combat identitaire,” editorial, 8 April 2002, www.unite-radicale.com/Archives–editos/edito080402.htm). Robert Steuckers, an emblematic figure of the intellectual New Right in Belgium who is close to the Nation movement, also opposes any unconditional alliance with the Palestinians.

 

antisemitic activity

Violence and Vandalism

Belgium, unlike Germany, for example, has no official body that collects statistics on antisemitic (or racist) acts nationally. However, a number of anti-racist associations, such as Mouvement contre le racisme, l’antisémitisme et la xénophobie (MRAX) and CECLR, and Jewish community organizations, such as the Comité de coordination des organisations juives de Belgique (CCOJB) in Antwerp and Forum der joodse organisaties (FJO), record reports or complaints when an act against a Jewish individual or Jewish property is committed.

Given this lack of overall statistics for antisemitism in Belgium, it is difficult to determine quantitative developments throughout the entire country. However, since 2000 the number of violent anti-Jewish acts reported to these organizations has been rising considerably. Moreover, there appears to be a correlation between this increase and the anti-Israel atmosphere in Belgium.

According to CECLR’s criteria for determining a violent antisemitic act (beatings and other forms of physical violence against individuals, violent attacks on property, vandalism), 17 such acts were committed in 2001 and over 25 from January to May 2002. Several violent acts were committed in the months of May and June 2001. For example, on 10 June 2001 a group of young religious Jews in Antwerp was assaulted, allegedly by youths of Arab origin. In addition, on 2 October 2001 the Beth Habad rabbi and his family were stoned and insulted as they were leaving the Forest (Brussels) synagogue. Several other attacks took place in the next few days in the vicinity of this synagogue. In another incident on 5 December 2001, Chief Rabbi of Brussels Albert Guigui was assaulted as he was  leaving the rue de la Clinique synagogue in Anderlecht (a Brussels suburb), allegedly by youths of North African origin. Synagogues were the target of Molotov cocktail attacks and stone throwing. Other antisemitic incidents included anonymous phone threats, sporadic graffiti and the distribution of pamphlets and chanting of antisemitic slogans during anti-Israel demonstrations.

Complaints were filed in respect of most of the examples quoted above, but no one was arrested. In come cases, as noted above, the perpetrators appeared to be of North African/Arab origin. Most took place in Antwerp and Brussels, where many members of the Belgian Jewish community live. However, on 20–21 April 2002 a serious attack was reported on the Charleroi synagogue (in the Wallonia region), where machine gun fired raked its outside wall.

 

Holocaust Denial

In the 1980s, Belgium became one of the main European hubs of Holocaust denial. Since then a number of foreign Holocaust deniers (Olivier Mathieu, Vincent Reynouard and others) have found refuge from prosecution in Belgium. Protected by neo-Nazi organizations and a Christian fundamentalist community close to the Fraternité Saint-Pie X, these Holocaust deniers contributed to the rise of Belgian revisionism. Frenchman Robert Faurisson, a leading Holocaust denier, used to make regular lecture visits to Belgium. Despite this support, in the early 1990s Holocaust denial increasingly became a marginal phenomenon in Belgium, including among the far right. For opportunist reasons and for reasons of “political correctness,” ultra-right parliamentary parties dropped the “revisionist cause.” Previously, several VB and Front national leaders had expressed their support for Holocaust denial.

After the anti-revisionist law was passed in 1995, a number of fundamentalist Christian political and religious organizations continued (openly or covertly) to defend “freedom of expression” for Holocaust deniers. These included the Ordre des Chevaliers de Saint-Michel et de Saint-Georges, Nation, the Front nouveau de Belgique, Contre/Thèses, the Nationalistisch Jongstudenten Verbond and Blood & Honour – Vlaanderen. In February 2001, Roeland Raes (vice-president of VB since its establishment in 1978) defended Holocaust deniers to a Dutch TV station.

Vrij historisch onderzoek (VHO, known in French as Recherche libre historique) is the only organization remaining in Belgium professing Holocaust denial as its raison d’être. This antisemitic splinter group, which came into being in 1984 in Antwerp and calls for a return to Nazism, was broken up by the Belgian legal authorities in February 2002, following a number of legal proceedings (including a complaint by CECLR).

This legal situation has not, however, prevented its leaders from continuing their activities under other names. Today, the original VHO Internet site is run by Castle Hill Publishers (an English revisionist network), with the support of the North American CODOH. In April 2002, the French antisemitic magazine Rivarol advertised the establishment of “Vision historique objectif,” whose initials – by chance, as it were – happen to be VHO. The head of this new Belgian organization is the French Holocaust denier Vincent Reynouard, who has been living in Brussels since 2000. The previous month, he had taken part in a “revisionist congress” in Flanders, organized with the backing of Blood & Honour – Vlaanderen. Speakers at this meeting, organized for a limited audience, included Bert Eriksson, who occupied a leading position in Flemish neo-Nazism in the 1970s and 1980s, and VHO co-founder Siegfried Verbeke.

 

Racist Activities

Concomitantly with the rise in antisemitism in Belgium, racism, largely against immigrants from Arab/Muslim countries (primarily Moroccans), has also increased. Forms of legal discrimination, such as excess police checks and inappropriate administrative procedures, as well as illegal discrimination (in job hiring, letting an apartment, entry to places of entertainment) and other racist acts are the daily experience of thousands of these immigrants in Belgium.

The platforms of the far right parties openly advocate an “ethnic separation” policy. In the wake of 11 September, a new anti-Islamic wave became evident. The VB, like the francophone far right (Front national and Front nouveau de Belgique), took advantage of this atmosphere to launch campaigns against the Arab/Muslim communities, including violent acts such as a machine gun attack on a mosque.

 

responses to racism and antisemitism

As soon as events indicated the emergence of a new upsurge of antisemitic violence, a number of initiatives were immediately taken. The representative body of Muslims in Belgium and its Jewish counterpart, the Consistoire israélite de Belgique, issued a joint appeal condemning violence and antisemitism. In the wake of the anti-American attacks of 11 September, CECLR issued an “Appeal for Mutual Respect,” signed by the chairpersons of the democratic political parties. Following the series of violent antisemitic acts culminating in the 1 April 2002 attack on the rue de la Clinique synagogue in Anderlecht (Brussels), the federal Belgian government, under Minister for Equal Opportunity Laurette Onkelinx, convened representatives from all walks of life to take part in a common front against racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia. CECLR was responsible for monitoring implementation of the front’s “action plan,” and in September 2002 launched an Internet site outlining details of this plan. Anti-Arab/Muslim remarks made by some members of the Jewish community were severely criticized by other members. In May 2002, CECLR asked the Conseil supérieur de l’audio-visuel (CSA – Audio-Visual Board) to obtain recordings of a number of broadcasts made on Radio Judaïca, Belgium’s only Jewish community radio station, following several complaints of (mainly Jewish) listeners concerning racial and Islamophobic excesses.