A Belgian publisher has apologized but refuses to take down a column that has been accused of inciting antisemitic hatred. In the column, a writer lamented the humanitarian suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and said it made him want to \u201cram a sharp knife through the throat of every Jew I meet,\u201d and later defended his words as being protected under free speech. <\/p>\n
Herman Brusselmans, who is known for being controversial, recently wrote a column for Humo, a weekly Dutch-language magazine which, according to its publisher\u202fDPG Media Group, \u201cprovides in-depth background pieces to the news of the day\u201d while doubling as a guide to arts and culture. <\/p>\n
In his column on Sunday, headlined: \u201cThe Middle East will explode, a Third World War is coming,\u201d Brusselmans described the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a \u201cshort, fat, bald Jew\u201d who \u201cfor whatever reason wants to ensure that the entire Arab world is wiped out.\u201d <\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cFor every Hamas or Hezbollah fighter killed by that sh*tty Israeli army, hundreds of innocent civilians are killed, and we can\u2019t help but keep repeating that many of those are children, and that we here in the so-called safe West cannot imagine that the same fate would befall our children.\u201d <\/p>\n
Brusselmans added: \u201cI see an image of a crying, screaming Palestinian boy, completely madly calling for his mother lying under the rubble, and I imagine that boy is my own son Roman, and the mother is my own friend Lena, and I become so angry that I want to ram a sharp knife through the throat of every Jew I meet.\u201d <\/p>\n
The comments have sparked outrage both within and outside the Jewish community. <\/p>\n
The Brussels-based European Jewish Association (EJA) said it was \u201cnothing short of an incitement to murder.\u201d <\/p>\n
In a statement on the\u202fEJA\u2019s website,\u202fits founder and chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin said: \u201cWe know this is a shock-jock journalist, who pushes the boundaries. But publicly expressing his desire to stab the throat of any Jew he comes across is psychopathic. Given his popularity and infamy, it is also an invitation for others to do likewise. It is completely and utterly out of all bounds. It [is] nothing short of incitement to murder.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cJews feel the atmosphere is as it was in the 1940s,\u201d he said. \u201cNow again Jews are asking themselves: has the time come to run away from Europe when we see this kind of article? <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s clear incitement and part of a very worrying trend in Belgium and all over Europe, of expression of hatred against Jews,\u201d Margolin continued. <\/p>\n
Others beyond the Jewish community have also reacted with horror. Assita Kanko, a Belgian Member of the European Parliament (MEP),\u202fsaid on X\u202fon Tuesday that she was \u201ccompletely flabbergasted and sad\u201d after reading the article. <\/p>\n
Describing it as \u201cpure and open anti-Semitism,\u201d she added: \u201cThis is not about freedom of speech or satire, it\u2019s a call to violence. It\u2019s a call to murder. Why is\u202f@Humo\u202feven publishing something like that?\u201d <\/p>\n
Reports of incidents of antisemitism have sharply risen since October. <\/p>\n
On October 7, Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 250 people hostage, according to Israeli authorities. Israel\u2019s military response in Gaza has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians and injured more than 90,000, the ministry of health in the strip says. <\/p>\n
Yohan Benizri, president of the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Organizations in Belgium (CCOJB), the leading representative body of Belgian Jews, compared the article to Nazi propaganda. <\/p>\n
What has made matters worse, said Benizri, is the response from Humo and Brusselmans to the backlash. <\/p>\n
When asked about the reaction to his column by Flemish newspaper\u202fNieuwsblad, Brusselmans said: \u201cIncitement to violence? In my column I do a thought exercise about how I would react if it were my loved ones who were affected. In the conditional tense. That sentence about the sharp knife is purely figurative, to emphasize the message. And that falls under the right to freedom of expression.\u201d <\/p>\n
He added in a separate statement that the magazine is \u201cbored with the matter\u201d and does not intend to remove the article. <\/p>\n
\u201cI understand that people who are not sufficiently familiar with HUMO or Herman Brusselmans\u2019 style and are confronted with this quote without context are shocked,\u201d Vanderaspoilden said. \u201cIt was obviously never the intention to offend the Jewish community. If this has happened, we would like to apologize for it. Anyone who knows HUMO a little knows that it is certainly not an anti-Semitic magazine.\u201d <\/p>\n
Rick Honings, a professor specializing in Dutch literature at Leiden University in the Netherlands, published a monograph about Brusselmans in 2018 in which he examined his life, work and image. <\/p>\n
He described him as a \u201cshock author,\u201d adding: \u201cBrusselmans has been making politically incorrect jokes his entire writing career (since the 1980s), mostly about racist issues, but they are also often jokes about women.\u201d <\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cAt the same time, it is mostly meant as satire. In doing so, he manages to draw attention to himself time and again. It is not the first time that he makes jokes about Jews and the Holocaust, but his current comically intended comment goes pretty far even for Brusselmans.\u201d <\/p>\n
Research carried out by the\u202fInstitute for Jewish Policy Research\u202fin 2022 said that almost half of Jews in Belgium reported that they had experienced antisemitic harassment over the previous 12 months, while around a third said they had experienced antisemitic discrimination over the same period. <\/p>\n
In recent years, controversy has erupted over a carnival in Belgium which featured antisemitic imagery on one of its floats. The Aalst Carnival was removed from UNESCO\u2019s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list in 2019 after officials\u202ffound\u202fthe \u201crecurrence of racist and antisemitic representations\u201d to be incompatible with its principles. <\/p>\n
In 2014, four people were killed when a gunman opened fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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