Vincent Van Quickenborne, who was then mayor of the city of Kortrijk, tweeted that “The Jewish lobby is working extra hours.After Aalst, now Washington.” He was referring to a reaction by then-Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz to comments by U.S. Democratic Party Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders about Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Belgium is considered in Jerusalem to be among Israel’s toughest critics in EU over the Palestinian issue.
After a long crisis, Belgian political leaders broke the deadlock this week on forming a new government. A center-left coalition government which was sworn in on Thursday. Alexander De Croo, a Flemish liberal, becomes Prime Minister. He replaces Sophie Wilmès, who had been at the head of a caretaker government.
A French-speaking liberal, Wilmès, who was the first Belgian Jewish Prime Minister and was listed in the 50 most influent Jewish personalities by The Jerusalem Post, becomes Foreign and European affairs minister.
The new government is made up of seven parties spanning the French-Dutch language divide, including liberals, socialists and greens.
But the surprise was clearly the nomination of Vincent Van Quickenborne, another Flemish liberal politician, as the new Justice Minister.
When Belgium made international headlines last year and again in February after an annual carnival parade in the city of Aalst featured scandalous antisemitic floats and costumes, leading to condemnation by Jewish groups who had called for the parade to be banned, Vincent Van Quickenborne, who was then mayor of the city of Kortrijk, tweeted that “The Jewish lobby is working extra hours.After Aalst, now Washington.” He was referring to a reaction by then-Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz to comments by U.S. Democratic Party Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders about Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
A tweet expressing a conspiracy theory widely condemned by Jewish groups who demanded Van Quickenborne to retract his comments. ”It’s undignified for a member of a democratic party to spread the myth of the Jewish lobby. It is also unacceptable to confuse Israel and the Jewish community, and what happens in Washington with what was widely condemned in Aalst. This is simply shameful,” said at the time CCOJB, the umbrella group of Belgian Jewish organizations.
Jewish leaders in the country also point to the fact that the new formed government platform doesn’t contain any mention to the fight against antisemitism, despite the Aalst carnival episode, while making a reference to the Israeli plans to annex parts of the West Bank.
Michael Freilich, a Jewish member of the Belgian parliament from the larges opposition New Flemish Alliance Party (NV-A, mentioned this platform in comments published in the Israeli media. “”The biggest threats to Europe and Belgium are from China and Russia, but those countries are not named in the platform while Israel is,”he said.
The agreed platform speaks of potential sanctions against Israel if it continues with annexation and mentions the possibility of a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, Freilich said. “Those are points that show that the left-leaning parties, who have always been critical of Israel, have the upper hand in this government,” he noted.
Freilich said he was concerned the new government might remove special protection for Jewish institutions against antisemitic attacks. There also is concern it might support banning circumcision, he added. The Flemish and Wallon regions of Belgium have already prohibited the shechita, the Jewish slaughter of animals under the guise of animal welfare.
Belgium is considered in Jerusalem to be among Israel’s toughest critics in EU over the Palestinian issue.
In February, the Belgian ambassador in Tel Aviv was summoned to the foreign ministry for a dressing down over what Israeli officials called “a systematic campaign to demonize the Jewish state” after the country’s embassy to the United Nations invited a pro-Palestinian activist to address the Security Council.
In June, the Belgian parliament passed by an overwhelming majority a resolution urging the government to act to prevent Israel from unilaterally annexing parts of the West Bank and to actively advocate for European-wide punitive measures against Israel f it proceeds with its controversial plan.
Some of the other coalition parties, such as the Socialists and the Greens, have regularly introduced anti-Israel resolutions.
“I am worried about Belgium’s future relations with Israel when I see what parties are included in this government,” said Michael Freilich.
“The left-wing Ecolo (the French-speaking Green party) has an MP in its ranks, Simon Moutquin, who for years headed the Belgian BDS movement that promotes the boycott of Israel. Similarly, the Socialist Party recently proposed a law to recognize a State of Palestine unconditionally,’’ the MP, who is from Antwerp, said.
A positive note however: In 2018, the new Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, who was then Minister of Cooperation and Development decided to break his ministry relations with the Palestinian Authority Education Ministry over its glorification of terrorists and to no longer fund the construction of its schools.
”As long as terrorism is glorified through school names, Belgium cannot continue to cooperate with the Palestinian Ministry of Education and budgets for school building will be suspended,’’ the minister said.