The U.S. ambassador to Belgium on Tuesday reportedly threatened a travel ban against a local politician who likened U.S. President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, amid a diplomatic row that started over a police probe in Antwerp tied to Jewish circumcision.
Ambassador Bill White sent a WhatsApp message to Conner Rousseau, chairman of the Flemish Vooruit party, telling him to remove a video that juxtaposed Trump and Hitler and characterizing this as “racist language,” the De Morgen daily reported on Wednesday.
The incident, in which Israel defended White’s position, underlines a unified stance by the United States and the Jewish state vis-à-vis Western allies with critical or even hostile attitudes toward both countries, as well as some individual freedoms.
“The United States will look into this and consider a travel ban on you and the leadership of the Vooruit party, and other measures. We are requesting a correction and apology today, please let me know before 11 o’clock,” De Morgen quoted the text message as saying.
Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, weighed in, writing on X: “Twisting Jewish history and invoking Nazism to libel American law enforcement is unacceptable. Jews will not be pawns in the Trump derangement of these antisemitic socialists.”
Rousseau “must apologize: We stand proudly with ICE and our brave law enforcement who keep us safe,” Kaploun wrote.
Earlier this month, White sent a letter to Belgium’s foreign minister, Maxime Prévot, the De Morgen daily also reported. White demanded that Prévot condemn Rousseau’s video, which he had posted on Instagram on Jan. 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
In the video, Rousseau criticized ICE agents’ deportations of illegal aliens from the U.S. and the agents’ clashes with people trying to disrupt or protest their work. The video featured a title that read: “H**ler or Trump? The difference is diminishing.”
In the letter to Prévot, White called the juxtaposition “absolutely unreasonable and unacceptable,” De Morgen quoted from the text. Belgium’s government should “immediately condemn” Rousseau’s video, White reportedly added.
White’s threat followed an earlier row involving Rousseau around the police investigation that Belgian authorities opened last year against three mohels—Jewish men who perform nonmedical circumcision of boys, or brit milah.
In a post on X Tuesday, White termed the investigation “ridiculous” and “antisemitic,” and called for it to be dropped. White invited Frank Vandenbroucke, the federal minister of social affairs and health, and Rousseau, who heads the party to which Vandenbroucke belongs, to visit the mohels with White next week. White also accused Vandenbroucke of refusing to shake White’s hand and pose for pictures with him due to a supposed anti-American bias on the part of the Belgian left-wing politician.
The X post triggered an acrimonious exchange between White and Prévot, who rejected White’s antisemitism charges and said that White would be summoned for a dressing down for breaching diplomatic norms. In subsequent tweets, White doubled down on his comments, with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar thanking White and reaffirming his allegations on antisemitism, which Sa’ar said was more prevalent in Belgium than in neighboring countries.
Prévot then accused Sa’ar of instrumentalizing antisemitism to settle political scores. “You have taken the real fears of real people and turned them into an argument against Belgium’s foreign policy,” Prévot wrote to Sa’ar.
‘Used as leverage’
Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister for Diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, responded to Prévot with a long post on X claiming that, despite government claims, Belgium has no real point person for tackling antisemitism. He questioned Belgium’s stated commitment to fighting antisemitism, citing how universities plan to honor UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese, who has been accused of antisemitic statements.
Chikli accused Belgium of having weak enforcement, with antisemitic incidents reclassified and major cases seeing no consequences. He cited the example of Herman Brusselmans, a writer who faced no legal punishment for saying that he wants to stab Jewish people.
He also repeated Sa’ar’s earlier allegation that Belgian Jews in Judea and Samaria are the target of racist measures that prevent them from getting their Belgian passports renewed.
“You are right about one thing: you wrote: ‘Jewish Belgians deserve our full protection. They do not deserve to be used as leverage in a dispute about international law.’ Indeed. Then is your government leveraging your very own Jewish citizens residing in Judea and Samaria?” Chikli wrote.
Belgium is one of four E.U. member states that have intervened on behalf of South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel for alleged genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice.
Belgian police searched the homes of several mohels in May. They were accused by a local Jew, Moshe Aryeh Friedman, who has a longstanding dispute with the mainstream community over unhygienic practices, which the mohels have denied. According to Belgian law, all surgical procedures must be performed by a certified surgeon, which most mohels are not. However, authorities have not declared the work of mohels illegal.
Brit milah is the first initiation of a Jewish male into the faith and is widely seen as a fundamental rite.
Belgium is among several European countries that have recently outlawed shechita (the ritual slaughter of animals to make the meat kosher) and its Islamic counterpart, dabhiha or zabiha. These religious slaughter methods, which require animals to be conscious at the time of killing, are criticized by animal-rights advocates as inhumane.
A similar controversy is playing out over the non-medical circumcision of boys. However, unlike slaughter without stunning, this practice has not been banned in any European country. A leader of Belgian Jewry, who spoke to JNS anonymously on Monday, said White’s tweet may have been a signal for Belgian lawmakers to refrain from advancing anti-circumcision legislation.
