There are moments when one can no longer stay silent, moments when outrage overwhelms us to the point of having to speak out to defend the values dear to us. Today, it pains me for my country.
After the incomprehensible ban on the football match between Belgium and Israel, after allowing an individual to proclaim in the Flemish magazine Humo his wish to “stick a sharp knife into the throat of every Jew he meets”, the City of Ghent now sinks into disgrace by preventing children aged 13 to 17 from taking part in a frisbee tournament. Why? Simply because they are Jewish or Israeli.
One can hold every opinion in the world about the conflict in the Middle East. But that is not my point here. What I want to highlight is that this is about Belgium. About our liberal democracy. And in this democracy, children are being denied access to a sporting competition because of left-wing extremists, but above all because of a political class showing unspeakable cowardice.
Ghent, which likes to call itself a city of light, has become a city of disgrace. I have no words strong enough to express my disgust at such injustice. How can we accept that in Belgium, in the 21st century, human beings are treated differently simply because they are Jewish or Israeli? Most alarming of all is that this does not seem to shock anyone.
This press, usually so quick to explain right and wrong to us, seems oddly silent when it comes to Jews. But imagine for a moment replacing the word “Jewish” or “Israeli” with another faith, culture or nationality, and you would have the scandal of the century.
Let us remember: all this has nothing to do with the Middle East. Nothing at all. In Belgium, we do not treat nationals of different countries according to the state of human rights in their country of origin. Quite the opposite, we roll out the red carpet for a whole series of dictatorships and authoritarian regimes, which Israel, incidentally, is not. What we are seeing here is simply that latent antisemitism, which is the first sign of a threat to our democracy.
Today, the threat comes as much from the far right as from the far left, but it lies above all in the selective outrage of this country's self-righteous elites.
The Mouvement Réformateur will not stand idly by. We will include provisions in the government agreements so that such infamies can never happen again. For it is our duty to defend the values that make Belgium what it is, a democracy in which every citizen must be treated with equality and respect, regardless of religion or nationality.
Georges-Louis Bouchez
MR President