Belgium 2003-4

 

Despite a considerable decrease in antisemitic incidents in 2003, the number of violent anti-Jewish acts was still substantial compared to the pre-intifada period. Antisemitic incidents appear to correlate clearly with the general anti-Israel atmosphere. Following an antisemitic incident at an Israel vs. Belgium soccer match in January 2004 involving Belgian Hamas supporters, the government was forced to acknowledge the reality of the new antisemitism.

 

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 Organisations Juives de Belgique (Coordinating Committee of Jewish Organizations in Belgium – CCOJB) in Brussels is the community’s roof organization. As the seat of the European Union and of NATO, Brussels attracts a large variety of Jewish groups and institutions seeking to advocate European Jewish or Israeli interests.

 

POLITICAL PARTIES AND EXTRA-PARLIAMENTARY GROUPS

Immigrant and Islamist Parties

The Arab European League (AEL), an immigrant protest movement whose declared aim is to introduce Islamic law into Europe by democratic means, was created in Antwerp in 2000. Its leader Dyab Abou Jahjah, a Lebanese-born Muslim, has aroused controversy due to his opposition to integration and to his demand to recognize Arabic as Belgium's fourth official language, after French, Dutch and German. Formally set up to combat racism and exclusion, the AEL is better known for its anti-Zionist militancy (see ASW 2002/3). Nevertheless, the Maoist PTB/PVDA (Parti du Travail de Belgique) agreed to share a common list, Resist, with the AEL in the May federal 2003 elections, which won 10,059 votes.

Two Islamist parties ran in the Brussels constituency in the June 2004 regional elections, PJM (Parti des Jeunes Musulmans, an offshoot of the PCP): and the PCP (Parti Citoyenneté et Prospérité). The PCP obtained only 3.281 votes and the PJM 4.214. Despite this apparent failure, 15 of the 72 French-speaking members of the new Brussels parliament are of North African origin and two of Turkish origin. In contrast, only one out of 17 Flemish MPs is of Arab origin. The majority of the Belgian North African population chose to vote for francophone lists.

 

Political Parties of the Extreme Right

Since its success in the 1991 legislative elections, the Vlaams Blok (VB), which has been part of the far right surge in Europe in recent years, along with France's NF and belgium's FPÖ, has moderated its tone considerably on matters related to the Jews and to the Holocaust (see ASW 2001/2); nevertheless, it still retains ties with small neo-fascist and antisemitic groups. For instance, in an article in Dietsland-Europa (Jan. 2003), VB activist Oswald Kielemoes from Ghent accused British Jews of trying to wipe out “genuine” Britons by intermarriage. VB heads Filip Dewinter and Frank Vanhecke attempted to minimize the impact of the article, which also called for “throwing off the Jewish yoke,” because they want the VB to establish good relations with the Flemish Jewish community. The VB took disciplinary action against Kielemoes.

In the last few years Dewinter has demonstrated solidarity with the Jewish community and with Israel, especially since the creation of the AEL. This tactic was designed to attract part of the Antwerp Jewish vote during the campaign for the May 2003 federal elections. Although the results of the election demonstrated that the vast majority of Antwerp Jewry was not convinced that the VB had undergone a fundamental change and did not vote for it, the VB increased its strength in the Flemish electorate (+3.2 percent) and confirmed its status as the leading political party in Antwerp Province, with 25 percent of the vote (and in the city itself, approximately 33 percent). Despite its electoral success, a political cordon sanitaire by the mainstream parties in Belgium against alliances with non-democratic parties has prevented the VB from attaining national power.

            Since its establishment in Brussels in 1985, the francophone Front national belge (FNB) has attracted the leaders of political groups and circles known for their endorsement of antisemitism and Holocaust denial, such as Fraternité sacerdotale Saint-Pie X, Belgique et Chrétienté (see below), and Cercle Copernic (a cultural group belonging to the neo-Nazi stream of the New Right). A number of ‘independent’ publications with antisemitic content, such as the Walloon Altaïr, have expressed support for the Front’s political struggle. In the May 2003 elections, the FNB made progress almost everywhere in Wallonia and Brussels, even winning 10 percent of the vote in some areas and gaining a seat in the federal Senate. Following the June 2004 regional elections the FNB became the second major party in Charleroi (18.9 percent) after the Socialist Party, but remains only the fifth largest within the Wallonia region (8 percent). Thus, the FNB confirmed its standing in the francophone political landscape.

 

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, they maintain regular contact with the parliamentary representatives of right-wing extremism. In French-speaking circles, the Nation movement represents the radical far right. Its principal leader Hervé Van Laethem was associated in the past with the small neo-Nazi and antisemitic group l’Assaut, which had contacts with foreign and local neo-Nazi groups (see ASW 2002/3). Nation continues to be associated with extreme right-wing organizations in Europe, such as the outlawed Unité radicale in France and the NPD in Germany, as well as with the FNB and VB. Significantly, it also has links with radical Islamist elements. In February 2003, Van Laethem accompanied a group of radical Muslims to Iraq, organized by the extremist Parti des Musulmans de France (PMF), which is reportedly close to the Hizballah (see ASW 2002/3). Similarly, the treasurer of Nation and editor of the monthly Nation-info, Antonio Coelho Pinto Ferreira, marched under the banner of Hizballah in one of the major demonstrations against the war in Iraq, held in February 2003. A month earlier, the Brussels Chamber of Justice had announced it would try five Nation leaders, including Hervé Van Laethem and Antonio Coelho Pinto Ferreira, for violating the anti-racism law.

In April 2004, Belgique et Chrétienté, an integrist organization connected to the Fraternité Saint-Pie X and the FNB, organized a private preview of Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ. Among the 1,200 invitees were members of the ultra-conservative Catholic congregation Opus Dei. Belgique et Chrétienté, created in Liège (Wallonia) in 1989, could be considered the political wing of the Fraternité Saint-Pie X. The latter is a dissident (and excommunicated) branch of the Catholic Church, whose declared mission is to fight against “anti-Belgian and anti-Christian racism.” In 1995, Belgique et Chrétienté leader Alain Escada supported the creation of the Front Nouveau de Belgique, which split from Daniel Féret’s FNB, but later returned to the FNB. Escada was also the founder of Polémique-info, a weekly magazine which frequently attacked “restless and anonymous high finance,” a euphemism for the Jews. In December 2003, Bruno Gollnisch, European deputy and number two man in the French FN was invited to Belgium by Belgique et Chrétienté. He spoke against the EU, which he described as an anti-Christian Freemason institution. In May 2004, the group invited the controversial, newly designated Cardinal Joos (see below) as a lecturer.

 

Antisemitic activity

The second intifada changed the face of antisemitism in Belgium. The fact that mainly Jewish, and not Israeli, people and property were targeted reveals that some Belgians chose to express their support for the Palestinians by attacking Jews. Moreover, the incidents appear to correlate clearly with the general anti-Israel atmosphere in Belgium, fomented in particular by unbalanced media and political commentary on the conflict.

 

Violence, Vandalism, Harassment and Insults

The year 2003 witnessed a considerable decline in antisemitic incidents (29, as recorded by the BESC – Bureau Exécutif de Surveillance Communautaire) compared to 2002 (51 incidents), when the highest number of incidents since World War II was recorded (29 in 2001). In 2003 there were 9 cases of physical assault, 6 incidents of damage and desecration to property, 6 cases of abusive behavior, 6 mail and phone threats and 2 reports of receipt of antisemitic literature.

Despite this decrease, the number of violent anti-Jewish acts was still substantial compared to the pre-intifada period, and were particularly serious. For example, in June 2003 an attempt to blow up a synagogue in Charleroi was foiled at the last minute, saving potentially tens of victims, just as a man was igniting gasoline he had poured near a vehicle loaded with gas canisters. In March 2003 eight students from the Maimonides School were attacked and insulted by young North Africans in a metro station. On 24 June 2003, during its campaign for a boycott of Israeli fruits and vegetables, Oxfam Belgium produced a poster representing a bleeding ‘Israeli’ orange, which could be construed as suggested the medieval blood libel. The poster was removed following protests by the Simon Wiesenthal Center; Oxfam International issued an apology.

Twenty-eight antisemitic incidents had already been reported by September 2004: 9 of physical assault, 5 of damage and desecration to property, 13 of abusive behavior, one in the category of mail/phone threats. Six of the 9 physical assaults were directed against members of the Orthodox community in Antwerp. In most cases the aggressors appeared to be of North African origin. In January 2004, a father and his two sons were attacked by three young men as they made their way to a synagogue in Brussels. They were insulted (”Dirty Jews,” “I am Muslim – Death to the Jews; we have to fight them”). One of the boys was beaten up. In April, a similar attack occurred near a synagogue in Antwerp. In February 2004, the reform synagogue at Beit Hillel was vandalized with antisemitic inscriptions such as “No to a synagogue”; “F… the Jews.” In most cases of violence the victims lodged complaints to the police.

In January 2004 during an Israel vs. Belgium indoor soccer match in Hasselt, several dozen demonstrators, probably connected to the AEL, shouted “Death to the Jews” and “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the Gas” in Flemish. Some spectators were painted in Hamas colors and carried Hamas, Jihad and Hizballah banners (see also below).

On 1 April 2004, e-mail threats signed by Hamas were sent to the office of the prime minister of Belgium and to several newspapers, saying they would attack Jews, Jewish shops and buses in Antwerp. Hamas claimed they were avenging the Palestinians. Police were investigating, but attaching little importance to the threats. The daily Gazet van Antwerpen said the e-mail contained the name Abdakarim el Majjati, suspected of participation in several terrorist attacks, including the Madrid train bombing.

           

Propaganda

Much Belgian antisemitism is based on traditional anti-Judaism that exists across the national spectrum: Flemish and francophone, Catholic and traditional left, and even among liberals. The second intifada revived old stereotypes of the Jews and even of Judaism. For instance, in January 2004, the newly designated Cardinal Gustav Joos explained to a popular Flemish magazine that “a sex maniac like Bill Clinton was elected thanks to Big Capital and the Jews,” while in several interviews a union leader characterized two businessmen of Jewish origin wanting to take over an airline company, as “the rabbis of bankruptcy.” The day after his assassination, Shaykh Ahmad Yasin was represented in a popular Flemish daily (Nieuwsblad) in a Christ-like position in his wheelchair. Under the cartoon was the caption: “Spiritual leader murdered.”

The judeophobic anti-Zionism of the extreme left, representing anti-capitalism, has unconsciously revived the 19th century classic age of revolutionary or social antisemitism. Supported by the main capitalist power the US, Israel is perceived as one of the evils of the world, and the Arabs are portrayed as the main victims of capitalism. Therefore, if some Arabs metamorphosed into fanatics, it is due solely to their natural resentment against the West and, particularly against Israel. This approach may be found in the publications of almost all leftist ideological trends and groups, such as the neo-Christian humanitarian movements, a large proportion of neo-anti-imperialists and other anti-globalization groups, as well as among the traditional left. It explains the very strong link between some radical leftist movements such as the Marxist-Leninist PTB/PVDA (Parti du Travail de Belgique) and radical Muslim groups such as the Antwerp-based AEL. For the traditional left, though, opposition to Israel is more tactical than ideological. For instance, the francophone Socialist Party (PS) chose to co-opt to the Senate the president of the Belgo-Palestinian association – a fanatical anti-Zionist and former head of Oxfam Belgium, known for his virulent opposition to Israel – in order to appeal to the large Muslim community of Brussels. It should be noted that six out of nine municipal councilors (66 percent) of the Socialist faction of the Brussels council are of Muslim origin. Another reflection of successful North African integration in Brussels is the fact that over 15 percent of members of the Region of Brussels Council (which includes the Brussels Council) are of North African origin. This demographic trend explains in part the attitude of the government, which did nothing to calm the anti-Sharon hysteria during the controversy over trying Sharon in Belgium as a war criminal. On the contrary, as long as the Universal Competence Law concerned only Sharon and some minor African dictators, it did not trouble the liberals, either francophone or Flemish (see ASW 2002/3).

 

Attitudes to the holocaust and the nazi era

The subject of collaboration with the Nazis is still taboo in Belgium. Following the revelations, published in 2000, by historian Lieven Saerens regarding the role of the municipal police in the deportation of Jews from Antwerp during World War II, Thierry Rozenblum, son of a Holocaust survivor, caused a minor scandal within Wallonian circles when he denounced in the French Revue d’Histoire de la Shoah (Centre de Documentation Juive contemporaine), in February 2004, the passive collaboration of the mayor of Liège in the destruction of his city’s Jewry.

In April 2003 the Belgian parliament passed a law allowing historians access to archives in order to investigate the complicity of Belgian officials with the Nazis in the extermination of the Jews. The archives, which opened in January 2004, will enable investigation of claims that local/municipal authorities and police collaborated with the Nazis in preparing lists and rounding up Jews for deportation and in enforcing the wearing of the Yellow Star. Jewish groups would also like to see the role of the Catholic Church investigated. Of 30,544 Jews deported from Belgium between 1942 and 1944 (out of a total of 65, 700), only 1,524 survived.

 

Responses to antisemitism and racism

Public Action

In Belgium, the Middle East conflict has become a domestic political issue. The majority of political parties have decided to support the Palestinian cause in order to gain the support and vote of the large Arab-Muslim community (which in Brussels comprises 17 percent of the population). Nevertheless, the year 2004 could be considered a turning point. After the Hasselt incident (see above), the government, after four years of relative silence, was forced to acknowledge the reality of ‘Arab’/’Muslim’ antisemitism. Social Integration Minister Maria Arena called for legal action and the Center for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism (CECLR/CEOOR) issued a condemnatory press release in February and urged scientific research on judeophobia.

            Until the Hasselt incident, there was a reluctance on the part of government and public agencies to confront antisemitism, since it emanated mostly from Muslim groups. For example, until then the Anti-Fascist Front (FAF) had systematically refused to deal with the problem, considering it exaggerated, if not suspect. According to the FAF, highlighting antisemitism only weakened the fight against fascism, reinforced communitarian isolation, or worse, could be construed as supporting Sharon’s policy in the Middle East. Following heavy pressure, notably from the CCLJ, a leftist, secular Jewish center linked to Peace Now, the FAF finally agreed to integrate a slogan against antisemitism in its 24 April anti-racist demonstration.

On 18 February 2004, the EU sponsored a seminar in Brussels on the resurgence of antisemitism. It was addressed by German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, European Jewish Congress President Cobi Benatoff, President Edgar Bronfman, Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs Nathan Sharansky and 1986 Nobel Peace prize winner Elie Wiesel. European Commission President Romano Prodi declared that racism, xenophobia and antisemitism were a clear violation of all that the EU stood for and that antisemitic acts must be severely punished and the rights of minorities safeguarded.

 

Legal Action

In September 2003, Siegfried and Herbert Verbeke were given a one year suspended sentence and ordered to pay a 2,500 EUR fine by an Antwerp magistrate's court for contravention of the law against Holocaust denial (23 March 1995) and the anti-racism law (30 July 1981). More significantly, their political rights were suspended for a period of 10 years. They were both prosecuted for their activities in Vrij Historische Onderzoek (VHO), a publishing house and website which disseminates Holocaust denial propaganda. The court stated that freedom of expression could be subject to certain restrictions.

On 2 December 2003, leading far right activist Hubert Defourny was sentenced to 5 months imprisonment plus a fine of 990 EUR for racist crimes. Hubert Defourny has been active for over 10 years in far right groups, first in AGIR and then in Bloc Wallon, a francophone clone of the VB.

On 21 April, the Court of Appeal in Ghent ruled that the Vlaams Blok was a racist party proposing political solutions that were not in line with European and international human rights treaties. The court fined three non-profit organizations for collaborating with the VB. According to the court, the VB was racist because it proposed policies that left immigrants only two options: “to assimilate or to return home.” The court ruled that the VB regularly portrayed foreigners as “criminals who take bread from the mouths of Flemish workers” and found it guilty of “permanent incitement to segregation and racism.” The verdict cannot lead to an immediate ban on the VB because the Belgian constitution does not permit a party to be banned. But the court slap – which party leader Dewinter immediately denounced as “political murder” – risks depriving his party of substantial income for propaganda. The Ghent ruling was the third ruling in this case which was initiated in 2000 by the Center for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism.