“We are going to be the last generation with a significant Jewish population in Belgium,” Joel Rubinfeld, the President of the Belgian League Against Antisemitism (LBCA), told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
The conversation came after it was announced that Belgium would recognize a Palestinian state in line with the French-Saudi initiative, which is designed to preserve the possibility of a two-state solution.
However, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot stipulated that formal recognition will only come once the last hostage has been released and once Hamas no longer exercises any form of governance over Gaza.
“If October 7 didn’t happen, would those politicians recognize Palestine in September 2025? The answer is, of course, not,” Rubinfeld explained.
“For the Jewish people in Belgium, it is an additional drop in the cup of water that was already full.”
“It’s painful that there are so many problems in Belgium, such as immigration, poverty, [and] housing, yet every day it’s just Israel and Gaza,” Raphael Werner, the honorary chairman of the Forum of Jewish Organizations (FJO), told the Post on Tuesday.
“I am very afraid about the future of Jewry in Belgium.”Werner did praise some aspects of Prévot’s announcement. “He put in a lot of conditions, and these conditions are logical,” he said.For example, Prévot said he would be designating as “persona non grata” two extremist Israeli ministers, several violent settlers, and leaders of Hamas in Belgium.He also acknowledged “the trauma suffered by the Israeli people due to the terrorist attacks by Hamas on October 7, 2023,” adding that the formal recognition of a Palestinian state will only be completed via royal decree “once the last hostage has been released and Hamas no longer exercises any form of governance over Palestine.” Prévot also announced new Belgian initiatives to combat antisemitism.The move likely came from a political place, Werner said. The Belgian ruling coalition is made up of five parties: a right-leaning party, a Christian Democratic faction, a center-left-democratic group, a center-right party, and one centrist faction.“The Center-Left has been pushing for Palestine recognition for months, as well as harsher sanctions on Israel,” Werner told the Post.“Prime Minister Bart de Wever from the right party is friendly with the Jewish community of Antwerp and has been blocking it until yesterday, but parties were threatening to leave the government, so he had to agree to something.”Sammy Mahdi of the CD&V (Christian Democratic and Flemish) party, for example, said he would obstruct government dossiers if Belgium failed to toughen its approach regarding Israel.Just seven days ago, De Wever said recognition could only occur if certain conditions are met, telling a press conference, “If the conditions are not met, recognition is pointless and even counterproductive.”Nevertheless, the in-fighting and the fact that “so many of the parties are so anti-Israel” led to today’s announcement, Werner said.
Growing antisemitism within Belgium’s political echelon
He also spoke of the growing antisemitism within Belgium’s political echelon, saying that many parties don’t differentiate between Jews and Hamas and won’t accept meetings with Jewish organizations such as the FJO to discuss antisemitism “because of Gaza.”There have also been highly problematic statements made by politicians in recent weeks, such as Flanders Minister-President Matthias Diependaele’s remark, “I don’t know who the ‘biggest bastard’ in the conflict is: Hamas or Israel.”The worst antisemitism in public bodies is likely the press, Werner told the Post.
“The big problem with the press is when they speak about Israel, they only bring on pro-Palestine speakers,” he said. “Ninety percent of the time, they don’t even invite us.”
Then there is also the judicial system. Werner cited the case of Belgian author Herman Brusselmans, who sparked widespread condemnation after writing in his column about the war in Gaza, “I get so furious that I want to ram a sharp knife through the throat of every Jew I meet.” He also described Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “small, fat, bald Jew” who wanted to “wipe out the entire Arab world.”He was acquitted earlier this year by the Ghent criminal court of charges of Holocaust denial, racism, and incitement to hatred despite outcry from Jewish organizations over his violent antisemitic remarks. The court ruled that his column in Humo magazine last August did not constitute a criminal offense, citing freedom of expression, as reported by VRT NWS.Rubinfeld concurred, “The main problem is not politicians; it’s the media feeding Belgian people every day with anti-Israeli content.”He explained, “This means that normal people, good people, believe Israel is genocidal, a reincarnation of the Third Reich, that Israelis are the new Nazis, and we, the Jews who support Israel, are the collaborators with the Nazis.Rubinfeld explained that before October 7, Belgian Jews felt the situation of antisemitism was getting worse, “but most of the people said they still had a future in our country.”“After October 7, it’s no longer the question of do we have a future in our country; the question is where do we go?“Options are shrinking every day,” Rubinfeld added. “We are living a historical moment, not for Jews but for democracies; Jews are just the canary in the coal mine.”Rubinfeld does feel that Prévot’s announcement will embolden the anti-Zionist crowd, giving them a feeling of legitimacy. His outlook remained pessimistic, as he said, “With all that [has] happened in Belgium since October 7, we [have] already passed the point of no return.”
