 |
“By acting this way, these associations are taking an active part in importing a regional conflict in the streets of Belgium and are feeding anti-Semitism," the Israeli embassy in Brussels says.
|
|
|
BRUSSELS (EJP)--- Israel’s embassy in Belgium has protested to the Belgian foreign ministry against the organization of a pro-Palestinian demonstration during which pseudo-Israeli soldiers with weapons staged a mock repression of Palestinians.
The gathering was organized last Saturday by a group called "Just Peace in the Middle East" in the streets of Nivelles, a city south of Brussels.
By staging such an event, organisers wanted to illustrate what their leaflets called the "expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 when Israel was created.”
"This demonstration, which trivializes and simplifies the Mideast situation, and during which the organizers didn’t not hesitate to manipulate the public, presented a negative and untrue image of Israel," the Israeli embassy deplored Wednesday in a statement.
"Under cover of criticism and free expression, certain associations and certain political representatives make every effort since several years to spread shameful and intolerable confusion," the embassy said.
"By acting this way, these associations are taking an active part in importing a regional conflict in the streets of Belgium and are feeding anti-Semitism."
The embassy called on the Belgian authorities "for more vigilance in the face of such outbursts which are inciting to hatred."
Images of the street demonstration, which were aired through internet by the CCOJB, the umbrella group of Belgian Jewish organizations, sparked the ire within the Jewish community.
During the same gathering, former Belgian Defense Minister and Socialist city councilor André Fahaut reportedly compared Israel to a Nazi state and Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians to the fate of the Jews during World War II.
He later denied having made such anti-Jewish comments.
An Ecologist MP, Thérèse Snoy, denounced "pressure from certain Jewish groups" on the city's authorities to ban the demonstration.
Related story
