Belgium 2005

 

After a considerable increase in 2004, the year 2005 witnessed a slight decrease in antisemitic manifestations. Offensive references to the Holocaust made by groups of North African descent and native Belgians are not uncommon, especially in Flanders but also in French-speaking parts of Belgium. Siegfried Verbeke, co-founder of the Vrij Historische Onderzook, was fined and sentenced to prison for Holocaust denying activities.

 

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 NATO, Brussels attracts Jewish organizations and institutions seeking to advocate European Jewish or Israeli interests. In Antwerp most Jewish children attend religious schools, whereas the more secular Brussels, location of the Centre Communautaire Laïc Juif, has two lay Jewish schools and a religious one. Radio Judaica, the first European Jewish radio station, was set up in Brussels.

 

POLITICAL PARTIES AND EXTRA-PARLIAMENTARY GROUPS

Immigrant and Islamist Parties

Belgium hosts a large number of Muslim communities. In fact, 20 percent of Brussels’ citizens originate in Muslim countries. The majority are naturalized Belgians or are Belgian by birth; thus, for instance, some 17 percent of regional MPs from Brussels have Arab-Muslim roots, mostly in Morocco. All were elected on democratic lists, the majority (90 percent) as candidates of the Francophone Socialist Party (PS). In fact, since Belgians of North African origin are French speakers due to their French colonial history, most vote for francophone lists.

In addition, some undemocratic extremist organizations are active on the political scene. These include two Islamist parties, the Parti Citoyenneté et Prospérité (PCP) and the Parti des Jeunes Musulmans (PJM, an offshoot of the PCP) (see ASW 2004).

The anti-Zionist Arab European League (AEL), an immigrant protest movement aspiring 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 ‘dezionize’ Antwerp (see ASW 2003/4),

 

Extreme Right Political Parties

Despite its demonstrations of solidarity with the Jewish community and with Israel since the creation of the AEL, and its more moderate tone in relation to the Holocaust and the Jews in general , the Vlaams Beland (VB; formerly Vlaams Blok – see ASW 2004), headed by Filip Dewinter, still retains ties with small neo-fascist and antisemitic groups, such as Voorpost and Were Di (see ASW 2004). Besides being the leading political party in the city of Antwerp, having gained 35 percent of the overall vote in the 2004 elections, the VB is also the main Flemish political party in the Brussels regional parliament, winnning 6 of the 11 seats held by Flemings. The Vlaams Belang enjoyed the electoral support of one Flemish voter in four – and in its Antwerp bastion, one in three – in regional and European elections in 2004. In the local elections due to take place in 2006, a new feature was to be the direct election of mayors by the entire voting public. The consequences of this vote in Antwerp in particular were expected to be significant, especially with parliamentary elections scheduled for 2007 at the latest.

Despite its electoral success, the party is ostracized by all other political organizations. A cordon sanitaire imposed by Belgium’s mainstream parties is aimed at preventing the VB from becoming a governing party on a federal, regional or local level.

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. 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). Nevertheless, the FNB confirmed its standing in the francophone political landscape.

The FNB – run by Daniel Férret, who has declared himself life president – is subject to frequent threats of breakaways. Thus in May 2005, the only two FNB representatives in the Senate opted to change their faction’s name from National Front to National Force. The purpose of this action, initiated by Michael Delacroix, formerly Ferret’s right-hand man, was to revamp the party so as to turn it into a political arm that would be as effective in the French-speaking areas as the VB is in Flanders. His ‘Right and Modernity’ circle already had its own media, comprising a theoretical quarterly (A Droite), a current affairs bulletin (FN-Sénat-News), two Internet sites, and even a ‘research service’. Unlike its Flemish counterparts, the French-speaking right has never put antisemitism on hold, as demonstrated by postings on the forum of the Tonnelier.be Internet site, where the Jewish Internationale is fiercely denounced. Its ‘administrator’, Georges-Pierre Tonnelier, has included in his ‘political priorities’ the abrogation of Belgium's anti-racist (1981) and Holocaust denial (1995) laws.

 

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. Many groups maintain regular contact with the parliamentary representatives of right-wing extremism. In French-speaking circles, the Nation movement, another self-proclaimed alternative to the FNB, represents the radical far right. The movement, established in 1999, and its theoretical review Devenir, maintain close ties to other neo-Nazi groups, in particular through the activities of the Committee of Nationalists against NATO. The principal leader of the movement is Hervé Van Laethem (see Guide des résistanceS à l'extrême droite by Manuel Abramowicz, published by Labor-RésistanceS, 2005). Nation also has ties to the outlawed Unité radicale in France and the NPD in Germany, as well as to the local FNB and VB, and significantly, to radical Islamist elements.

The integrist Belgique et Chrétienté, created in Liège (Wallonia) in 1989, has links to the FNB. The organization might be considered the political wing of 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.” Belgique et Chrétienté leader Alain Escada is also the founder of Polémique-info, a weekly magazine appearing both online and in print, which frequently attacks “restless and anonymous high finance,” a euphemism for the Jews. In August 2005, the movement organized a protest march against homosexual marriages.

In March 2005, the Flemish branch of the international neo-Nazi organization Blood & Honour held a rally in support of Holocaust denier Ernest Zündel, who was deported from Canada to Germany (see Canada).

 

Antisemitic activity

After a notable increase in 2004 to 46 incidents, the year 2005 witnessed a slight decrease in antisemitic manifestations (38, as recorded by the BESC – Bureau Exécutif de Surveillance Communautaire). Although there were no reports of extreme violence (causing potential loss of life), there were 8 cases of physical assault, 4 of vandalism of property, 10 of threats (verbal insults, etc.), 10 of abusive behavior (including graffiti), and 6 of receipt of antisemitic literature (in print or via the web).

 

Violence, Vandalism, Harassment and Insults

The number of violent anti-Jewish acts is still considerable compared to the pre-intifada period, particularly in Antwerp. The presence of a small but visible ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in the Antwerp region, where support for the extreme right is very strong (see above), and where several extremist Arabic organizations incite young Muslims, constitutes an explosive cocktail. For instance, on 30 June 2005, a mother and her young son from the Antwerp Orthodox community were harassed in a streetcar by a gang of youngsters of North African descent, who shouted “Alle Joden moeten dood” (All the Jews must die). Recognizable as Jewish because he was wearing a kippa, her son was kicked in the leg and spat at. According to the mother, the streetcar driver, also of Maghreb descent, not only failed to intervene but apparently laughed when he saw the attack in his rear view mirror. On 13 September, the Flemish public transportation company De Lijn announced that the streetcar driver had been punished. Also in Antwerp, a 79-year-old Orthodox Jewish man walking in the city center on 21 November was attacked by three youngsters of North African descent.

In Brussels during Yom Kippur services in October, a group of North African youngsters near the Clemenceau subway station threw stones at a Jewish guard at the rue de la Clinique synagogue. Police officers intervened in order to pacify the youngsters.

Insulting references to the Holocaust made by groups of both North African descent and native Belgians are not uncommon, particularly in Flanders. For example, in March 20 skull-capped teenagers from the Bnei Akiva religious youth movement and their three counselors were harassed at the Deurne skating rink near Antwerp by two gangs of youngsters, one of North African descent and the other Flemish, who shouted insults such as “Go back to Auschwitz.” On 5 November an Israeli player for Antwerp, Sam Lavan, was insulted by the well-known striker Patrick Goots at a second-division football match between KV Mechelen and Royal Antwerp FC. Goots said: “Apparently they didn’t do a proper job on the Jews in the gas chambers during World War II.”

There were several such incidents in French-speaking Belgium as well. In March, an information session attended by the rector and many faculty members at the Université Libre de Bruxelles was unable to continue as a result of a series of antisemitic insults leveled especially at the president of the main student society, LIBREX, simply because of his Jewish background. In September of the same year, at another institute of higher education (IHECS), a lecturer made overtly antisemitic statements such as “I don’t like the Jews”; “Apparently 6 million Jews, 5 million – a lot, anyway”; or yet again, “Judaism is a ridiculous religion.” All these comments were made in a lecture hall holding 250 people.

In most cases victims of antisemitism lodged complaints to the police and/or to the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism (CECLR/CEOOR), a governmental body dedicated to the fight against antisemitism. In March, for instance, the center condemned the report of an arrest published by the main Belgian press agency (Belga), on the grounds that it made comments likely to fan antisemitism: “The Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism regrets that in its account of the arrest yesterday in Antwerp of an individual who works as a diamond merchant and is suspected of financial fraud, the Belga agency saw fit to state that in addition to having Dutch nationality, this individual was of Jewish origin. This addition provides no further information of any relevance to understanding the event, but once again stigmatizes all individuals of Jewish ancestry by making a link between Jews, money and fraud.”

 

Propaganda

Much Belgian antisemitism is based on traditional anti-Judaism that exists across the national spectrum: Flemish and francophone, Catholic and traditional left. The second intifada revived old stereotypes of the Jews and even of Judaism.

Classic revolutionary or social antisemitism in which Israel, supported by the main capitalist power the US, is perceived as one of the evils of the world, and the Arabs as the main victims of capitalism, 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. This 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 (see ASW 2003/4).

The Belgian site of the alternative Internet press agency Indymedia Belgium publishes antisemitic cartoons of the controversial Brazilian caricaturist Carlos Latuff, and is the most radically anti-Zionist among the European Indymedia sites.

 

Attitudes to the holocaust and the nazi era

On 27 January, the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, the European Parliament adopted a resolution in which it paid homage to all Nazi victims. It also declared that a durable peace in Europe must be based on the memory of the history of the continent, and that it rejects and condemns revisionist ideas and Holocaust denial. This resolution, which was adopted by 617 votes in favor and none against, nevertheless received 10 abstentions, including those of the three Vlaams Belang representatives: Frank Vanhecke (who happened to be president of the parliament), Koenraad Dillen (an admirer of the Belgian SS general Léon Degrelle, and the son and protégé of the founder-president and author of the first Dutch translation of a revisionist book), and Philip Claeys (formerly head of the VBJ, the party’s youth wing).

Despite 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, the country’s election agenda is such that the Belgian political scene is in no hurry to come to grips with the problematics of memory. Fear of an increase in strength of the Vlaams Belang may explain why the Belgian political world is not yet entirely prepared to examine itself in the mirror of history and to do the real work of introspection. It undoubtedly also explains why, in January 2005, the prime minister failed, once again, to make his mark in history during commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

On 17 February, the Belgian authorities’ collusion in the antisemitic crackdown and deportation of Belgium’s Jews to the Auschwitz extermination camp was finally mentioned officially. Philippe Moureaux, mayor of Brussel’s Molenbeek-Saint-Jean district and also president of the Brussels Federation of the Socialist Party, conveyed his apologies and those of his administration to his Jewish fellow citizens for the crimes committed by municipal officials when implementing the antisemitic policy imposed by the Nazis during the last war. This was the first time that a politician of his stature had officially recognized the responsibility of Belgian officials in the process that led to the murder of half of Belgium’s Jewish community. It must be borne in mind that to date, Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt has limited himself to conveying his emotion as a father when visiting the Auschwitz camp, refusing to speak out as head of state and to acknowledge that the registration of Belgium’s Jews by Belgian officials was a crime that must be recognized and denounced.

 

Responses to antisemitism and racism

In Belgium, the Middle East conflict has become a domestic political issue. The majority of political parties support the Palestinian cause in order to gain the vote of the large Arab-Muslim community. However, following violently antisemitic demonstrations at an Israeli-Belgian soccer match in Hasselt, the government was forced to acknowledge the reality of ‘Arab’/’Muslim’ antisemitism (see ASW 2004).

 

Legal Action

In March 2005, Siegfried Verbeke was sentenced by the Antwerp Court of Appeal to a year in prison and a fine of 2,500 euros on the basis of the anti-revisionist and anti-racist laws. The CECLR/CEOOR, a private party in the legal action, was awarded damages of one euro. Siegfried Verbeke was prosecuted for his Holocaust denying activities. Together with his brother, Herbert, he ran the VHO, an organization whose sole purpose is to circulate pamphlets and works by the principal Belgian and foreign Holocaust deniers. The VHO also runs a revisionist Internet site. The Antwerp Court of Appeal observed that it was struck by the complete indifference shown by the guilty party toward the immense suffering generated by the crimes against humanity committed by the Nazi dictatorship, and which he attempted to deny or minimize in a pseudo-scientific fashion in order to make Nazism acceptable.