Belgium 2007

 

Despite the statistical increase in antisemitic manifestations in 2007, most incidents were connected to the dissemination of press or Internet material. In light of the growing separatist demands of Flanders, the Jewish population in the region, which is mostly francophone and pro-Belgium, fears a split from Belgium.

 

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 (CCLJ), has two lay Jewish schools and a religious one. Radio Judaica, the first European Jewish radio station, is located in Brussels. There are two monthly publications: Regards, published by the CCLJ, and Contact J, issued by the Cercle Ben Gourion. The Center for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism (CECLR/CEOOR), a governmental body, is dedicated to the fight against antisemitism.

 

POLITICAL PARTIES AND EXTRA-PARLIAMENTARY GROUPS

While separatist rhetoric in Belgium originated on the extreme right, it has entered the mainstream in Flanders, the Flemish part of Belgium. All Flemish parties across the political spectrum demand a new Belgian model − some kind of confederation which, in effect, would mean the end of Belgium − and reject unity between the rich north and the poor south (Wallonia). Flanders has not yet proclaimed its independence because it wants to include Brussels in the new state. However, although encircled by Flanders, Brussels is a separate region (Belgium has three regions: Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels) populated by 90 percent French-speakers. The Jewish population, even in Antwerp (Flanders), is francophone and pro-Belgium and fears a split from Belgium.

 

Immigrant and Islamist Groups

Belgium is home to 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, some 17 percent of Brussels’ regional MPs 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). Because of their French colonial history, most Belgians of North African origin vote for francophone lists.

In addition, a few organizations with undemocratic ideologies are active on the political scene, including two Islamist parties, Parti Citoyenneté et Prospérité (PCP) and Parti des Jeunes Musulmans (PJM, an offshoot of the PCP) (see ASW 2004).

The Arab European League (AEL), an immigrant protest movement aspiring to introduce Islamic law (Shar`ia) 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 “de-zionize” Antwerp (see ASW 2003/4). In the wake of the Prophet Muhammad cartoon affair, the league published cartoons lampooning the Holocaust on its website (see ASW 2006). On March 21, 2007, members and sympathizers demonstrated in Brussels against American imperialism and Zionism and in support of Arab resistance in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon.

 

Extreme Right Political Parties

The Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest − VB) succeeded the Vlaams Blok after the latter was forced to disband in 2004 following a Belgian court’s decision that it was racist and outside the bounds of legal public discourse see (ASW 2004). After toning down some of the Blok’s extremist anti-immigrant and Holocaust denial rhetoric, the VB won significant percentages of the vote in Flanders. Despite its demonstrations of solidarity with the Jewish community since the creation of the AEL and its more moderate tone in relation to the Holocaust and the Jews in general, the VB continues to retain ties with small neo-fascist and antisemitic groups, such as Voorpost, Were Di and the Vlaamse Militanten Orde (VMO). 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, with 6 out of the 11 seats held by Flemings. The VB is one of the founders of the Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty (ITS), a racist and antisemitic group formed in the European Parliament in January 2007. Other members include the French Front National and Romania's Greater Romania Party, among others.

Filip Dewinter, one of the leaders of VB and a member of the Belgian parliament, and Frank Vanhecke, VB member of the European parliament, visited the US in February, where they reportedly met with representatives of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and spoke at a forum organized by the conservative Robert A Taft Club in Arlington, Virginia. Dewinter also spoke on the white supremacist "Political Cesspool" Internet radio program. The Virginia forum consisted of an amalgam of supporters of the former conservative Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, proponents of scientific racism, and white supremacists from the Council of Conservative Citizens. Dewinter and Vanhecke attacked multiculturalism (as the “new communism”), bemoaned the falling birth rate among white Europeans and declared their intention to save “the West” from the depredations of immigrants who followed the Islamic faith. Islam was like a cuckoo that laid its eggs in your nest; but the West was not yet dead, they argued, in a reference to Pat Buchanan’s book, The Death of the West (Searchlight Magazine, 2007). The two reportedly met privately with Buchanan, who gave them a copy of his anti-immigrant book, State of Emergency (ADL release, Feb. 26).

In September, Dewinter and the man responsible for party security, Luc Vermeulen, participated in a Flemish neo-Nazi VMO meeting.

Since its establishment in Brussels in 1985, the francophone Front national belge (FN) has attracted the leaders of political groups and circles known for their endorsement of antisemitism and Holocaust denial, such as the 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 FN 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 FN confirmed its standing in the francophone political landscape.

The FN – run by Daniel Féret, who has declared himself life president – has been subject to continuous breakaway threats (see ASW 2005). 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 website, where the “Jewish Internationale” is fiercely denounced. Its operator, Georges-Pierre Tonnelier, includes in his “political priorities” abrogation of the Belgian anti-racist (1981) and Holocaust denial laws (1995). Both Tonnelier and Féret were convicted in 2006 of racism and inciting hatred (see ASW 2006).

In March, a Belgian committee of support for Jean Marie Le Pen, leader of the French National Front and candidate in the 2007 French presidential election, was formed in Charleroi (Wallonia). It was led by Droite et Modernité, which is linked to a dissident wing of the National Front opposed to Daniel Feret, and consists of Belgian Senate member Michael Delacroix, Charles Pire and Jean-Pierre Borbouse, both MPs in the Wallonian regional parliament, Georges-Pierre Tonnelier, Ghislain Dubois founder of Belgique & Chrétienté and Patrick Sessler, a former neo-Nazi and VB activist. Droite et Modernité calls for a “nationalist” alliance in Brussels of the FN and the Vlaams Belang. On the dissident FN website, leader Michael Delacroix says (in French): “I do not detest Karl Marx, I hate him. He represents the morbid paroxysm of Judeo-Cartesianism [of Descartes], which is pushing for the negation of humankind and which caused the deaths of tens of millions of people due to the cult of the sponginess of the mind” [Je ne déteste pas Karl Marx: je le hais. Il est le paroxysme morbide d'un judéo-cartésianisme qui se complet dans la négation de la nature humaine et a coûté à l'Europe quelques dizaines de millions de morts par le culte de la facilité spongieuse de l'esprit] (http://www.fn.be/michel-delacroix.html).

 

Extreme Right Extra-parliamentary Groups

Among extra-parliamentary groups of the Belgian far right, antisemitism is less of a taboo than among parliamentary rightists, and many such groups maintain regular contact with parliamentary representatives of right-wing extremism. In francophone circles, the Nation movement, a self-proclaimed alternative to the FN, represents the radical far right. The movement, established in 1999, with its theoretical review Devenir, maintains close ties to other neo-Nazi groups, in particular through the activities of the Committee of Nationalists against NATO led, among others, by Hervé Van Laethem (see ASW 2006). 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, such as the French Parti des musulmans de France, whose virulently anti-Zionist position, communitarian demands and Arab nationalism attract the radical fringe of the European extreme right.

The integrist Belgique et Chrétienté (B&C), created in Liège (Wallonia) in 1989, has links to the FNB and is a recognized lobby in the European parliament. The organization could be considered the political wing of the Catholic fundamentalist Fraternité Saint-Pie X. The latter is a dissident (and excommunicated) branch of the Catholic Church, whose declared mission is to fight “anti-Belgian and anti-Christian racism.” B&C leader Alain Escada is also 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 2007, B&C lost a case they brought against the Belgian anti-fascist group RésistanceS. The B&C sued in 2004 after two members of ResistanceS – Nadia Geerts and David Lefébure – published articles on the B&C and on Polémique info denouncing them as a “nest of fascists.”

In Flanders, almost 700 skinheads attended the Ian Stuart Donaldson [deceased leader of the British neo-Nazi skinhead band Skrewdriver] memorial hate rock fest in Belgium on October 27, a disappointing turn-out for Blood & Honour − Vlaanderen (B&H-VL) organizers who had hoped to attract at least 2,000 to the event. While it is unclear whether the poor attendance was due to internal problems in the banned German wing of the organization, the event, which, as in 2006, took place in the remote village of Wolfsdonk, near Aarschot, in the province of Vlaams-Brabant (Flemish Brabant), was widely covered in the Belgian national media. Security was organized by British B&H members, who threatened a national TV team which sought to interview the locals. The program included notorious hate bands such as Whitelaw, Propaganda, Eternal Pride Avalon and the Flemish band Kill Baby Kill, led by the neo-Nazi skinhead Dieter Samoy, who served a prison sentence for a vicious racist attack on a black man and his white friend in Bruges in May 2006. The moderate nationalist party Spirit, which was part of the pre-2007 Belgian federal government, has announced that it will reintroduce its demand that the federal parliament outlaw neo-Nazi activities on Belgian soil and ban groups such as B&H, which are illegal elsewhere in Europe.

A week before the B&H hatefest, the far right Vlaamse Jongeren Westland (VJW − Flemish Youth Westland) staged a “national demo” in the streets of Bruges. Despite an intense mobilization campaign, no more than 60 to 70 extremists showed up, including many skinheads and a delegation from the Walloon fascist Nation. There were no representatives from either the VB or its satellite Voorpost because relations between the “bourgeois-liberal' VB and the “genuine nationalist radical” VJW are frosty.

 

Antisemitic activity

Despite the statistical increase in antisemitic manifestations in 2007 reported by the francophone BESC and the Flemish Coordinatie Komité van de Joodse Gemeenten van Antwerpen (CKJGA), from 66 in 2006 to 69 in 2007, most incidents were connected to the dissemination of print and Internet materials. There were 2 cases of physical assault, 7 of vandalism of Jewish property, 11 of threats (verbal insults, etc.), 16 of “abusive behavior” (including graffiti), and 33 of receipt of antisemitic literature (in print or via the web). The apparent increase should be attributed to two factors:

• Improved communication between the BESC and the Centre pour l’Egalité des Chances et la Lutte contre le Racisme (Centre for Equal Opportunities and Combating Racism – CECLR/CEOOR). Undoubtedly, however, there is nowhere near complete registration of all antisemitic incidents. Recognizing that Orthodox Jews are actually subjected to far more antisemitic acts than are recorded, the BESC has initiated consciousness-raising activities among Antwerp Jewish organizations; as a result, victims from the Orthodox community have begun lodging complaints. The Antwerp police have also played a role by setting up a “diversity unit” where complaints can be filed anonymously. This makes it easier for members of the Orthodox community to be in touch with the local authorities.
• Greater monitoring by surfers of antisemitic and Holocaust denial material on forums.

 

Violence, Vandalism and Insults

As the BESC notes, the cities most affected were Brussels and Antwerp. The steepest rise was in defamatory incidents (abusive behavior, insults, press and Internet publications − 70 percent of all incidents), continuing the annual trend. In Antwerp a group of Orthodox Jews was pelted with eggs in June, while in Brussels, a 14-year-old boy was assaulted by four youths of North African origin on September 17 and called a “dirty Jew.” The perpetrators of the incidents were youths of various backgrounds – Belgian and East European, as well as Maghrebi and, more recently, Turkish. In the Antwerp region, strong support for the extreme right and incitement of young Muslims by extremist Arab organizations both at home and abroad constitute a potentially explosive cocktail.

Other examples of Belgian antisemitic prejudice were manifested in vandalism of synagogues, especially in Antwerp, and the second desecration (in November) in less than two years of the memorial to Jewish martyrs of Belgium, engraved with the names of over 25,000 Jews deported from the country. This incident, like previous ones, was ignored by the press.

 

Antisemitic Propaganda

Much Belgian antisemitism is based on traditional anti-Judaism that exists across the national spectrum: Flemish and francophone, Catholic and extreme left. As noted previously, the second intifada revived old stereotypes of the Jews, as well as 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. 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 ones such as the Antwerp-based AEL. Among all progressive and leftist circles, the Jew who does not openly disown the State of Israel is considered the enemy of humankind.

Demonization of Israel, a phenomenon which gained currency with the outbreak of the second intifada, has opened the way to antisemitic canards which had been considered shameful since the Holocaust. In March 2007, for example, a special issue of the popular magazine Les Grands mystères de l'histoire (The great mysteries of history), dedicated to secret societies, included an article on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, where the author claimed that “we continue to ignore whether this program was real or imaginary… the truth is that some extremely wealthy Jews control the world…”

Antisemitic activity is increasing on Belgian websites, and especially forums, where moderators allow comments which could be prosecuted on the basis of legislation from 1981 (racism) and 1995 (Holocaust denial). 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. It remains to be seen whether the FCCU (Federal Computer Crime Unit − www.cyberhate.be), a Belgian federal police department set up in 2006 and responsible for tracking criminal activities on the Internet, takes the appropriate steps.

French holocaust denier Vincent Reynouard, sentenced in November 2007 in France to one year imprisonment and to a 10,000 euro fine, for having written end distributed the brochure Holocauste, ce que l'on vous cache (Holocaust what is hidden) fled to Belgium where he sought refuge and appealed the judgment.