How secure are Jews in Belgium after recent court decision relating to “sharp knife” threat?
By David E. Kaplan
Following this week’s outrageous Belgian court acquittal of hate speech by the country’s novelist, poet, playwright and columnist Herman Brusselmans, chairman of the European Jewish Association, Rabbi Menachem Margolin WARNED in his condemnation of the ruling:
“It legitimizes calls for the murder of Jews without legal consequences.”
The violent verbiage that the case revolved around was Brusselmans’ penning that he wants to:
“…shove a sharp knife into the throat of every Jew.”
One can hardly take issue with the European Jewish Association chairman’s warning considering that only last year, in July 2024, the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) found in a survey that:
- 97% of Jews in Belgium claimed to have encountered anti-Semitism in their daily lives
- 70% of them hid their identity in public due to lack of safety from rampant antisemitism
- 68% of Jews in Belgium have encountered online anti-Semitism. This is higher than the EU average of 61%
- 40% of Jews claimed to have avoided Jewish events due to feelings of insecurity
- 54% of Jews in Belgium claimed to have avoided certain locations for fear of being attacked
With this frightful scenario for the Jews in a country that saw of its 66,000 Jews in May 1940, around 28,000 murdered during the Holocaust, the Belgian court, not only against Brusselmans dropped charges, it for the Jewish community dropped a bombshell. That “bombshell” is the frightening realization that Jews are not welcome, and their continued stay in Belgium is:
“At your own risk”
Who will protect them? Not the courts!
The case against Brusselmans was that In August 2024, the Belgian novelist published a controversial column in the Dutch-language magazine Humo in relation to the rising tension from the Gaza war , where he threatened:
“I want to ram a sharp knife through the throat of every Jew I meet.”
Note that Brusselmans does not specify any specific Jews that he might have quarrel with but “every” Jew he meets, in other words those within knife-reach. Brusselmans’ column was rightly condemned by the head of the Brussels office of B’nai B’rith International as a “blatant incitement to violence against Jews, in one of Belgium’s largest magazines.”
The concern was justified when only a month later, in September 2024, Belgium’s federal equality agency reported a 1,000% increase in antisemitic incidents in the two months following the outbreak in October 2023 of the Israel-Hamas War when compared to similar periods in previous years. In the wake of these staggering statistics, the issue of education came into play when the International Movement for Peace and Coexistence (IMPAC) raised concerns of bias with regard to how the Palestinian-Israel conflict is presented in Belgian schools.
Condescendingly, the court acknowledged that “certain members of the Jewish community may have been offended by some sentences in a few columns.”
“Some sentences” and “may have” offended!!!! The words of the judge are as dangerous and most certainly as despicable as the words of the accused.
We are talking about words that amounted to a threat to murder Jews in a manner very popular by Palestinian terrorists – the knife! There was in recent history a period of intense violence against Israelis that was referred to as “The Knife Intifada”. Today, knife attacks are again in Israel on the rise. Nevertheless, the court found the words by Brusselmans that he wants to “…shove a sharp knife into the throat of every Jew” mere “…expressions of opinion,” that are “protected by the right to freedom of expression”.
The court further held that:
“The texts also do not show that the defendant wanted to incite hatred and violence against members of the Jewish community…He only wanted to present an opinion piece or a value judgment in his well-known writing style.”
Defying any other explanation other than a judiciary tainted by antisemitism – hardly an unexpected trait in European history – Michel Kotek, the chairman of the Jewish Information and Documentation Centre, called the ruling “a disgrace to the Belgian judiciary.” In this same interview with the European Jewish Press (EJP), European Jewish Association chairman, Rabbi Margolin accurately warned that
“By issuing such a verdict, the Belgian judiciary sends a dangerous message: incitement to murder and hatred can be reinterpreted, excused, and ultimately legitimized — at least when the targets are Jews.”
Brusselmans is now free to continue his vicious verbal attacks against Jews. The “Belgium constitution” is protecting him and now others, so who will protect Belgium’s increasingly vulnerable Jews? This court verdict will amplify the call for antisemites to join the crusade against a terrified community that “70% of them” hide their identity in public. The unprotected Jew has seen this all too often before in Europe – they are, in the single word of Rabbi Margolin, “targets”.
Today’s Israelis are all too familiar with the shrieking and terrifying sound of the ‘AZAKA’ – the siren. It’s a warning to seek immediate protection from incoming missiles. This Belgium court decision is no less a ‘siren’ – a warning to Jews to seek secure shelter in a Europe that is returning to old but nefarious habits.
Herman Brusselmans may be the “most famous writer in the Low Countries” but he is also responsible for bringing his country’s judiciary to one of its lowest point in its history.
