BRUSSELS I On Sunday, the Belgian weekly magazine »Humo« published a column by the Flemish writer Herman Brusselmans that sparked a wave of outrage. In his text, Brusselmans used numerous anti-Semitic clichés and attacked the Jewish community in the most vicious way with bloodthirsty murder fantasies.
He described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a "small, fat, bald Jew" and defamed the Israeli military as a "child-murdering shit army". Particularly shocking was the passage in which Brusselmans wrote that he was so angry that he "would like to ram a sharp knife into the throat of every Jew I meet".
In Belgium, there was little political reaction. Only a few politicians commented on the scandalous statements, which was partly attributed to the holiday season. The editors-in-chief of »Humo« defended the column as satirical and argued that the statements should not be taken literally.
According to »Humo«, Brusselmans is a well-known satirical writer whose texts should be judged according to literary rather than journalistic standards.
Jewish organizations in Belgium reacted with horror. The Transatlantic Institute of the American Jewish Committee called for an investigation by the Belgian police into Brusselmans and the editorial team of »Humo«.
Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, President of the Conference of European Rabbis, described the column as a "call for murder" and called for legal consequences.
The European Jewish Association (EJA) also initiated legal action to combat the spread of such hate messages.
The column also caused outrage at an international level. The Israeli ambassador to Belgium, Idit Rosenzweig-Abu, sharply criticized the comments and pointed out that similar statements against Muslims or other groups would not be tolerated.
She called for a clear demarcation from anti-Semitic comments, even if they were meant to be satirical. Emmanuel Navon, an Israeli diplomat, described the column as a call to violence and also called for a police investigation.
This is not the first time that Herman Brusselmans, the Flemish writer and columnist, has attracted attention with anti-Semitic statements. He has made similar controversial statements in the past. In December 2023, for example, he accused Israel of using the same methods as the Nazis to "annihilate an entire race."
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