Antisemitic incidents rise in Belgium since Gaza conflict

BRUSSELS — Belgium has seen a rise in the number of anti-Semitic acts and messages recorded since the start of Israel's offensive against Hamas in Gaza, said Belgium's anti-discrimination agency Unia on Thursday.

Between Oct. 7 — when Hamas attacked Israeli communities near Gaza, triggering Israel's war against it — and Dec. 7, Unia registered 91 reported incidents related to the conflict.

That exceeded the 57 recorded for the whole of 2022, Unia noted.

"We can therefore speak of a net increase in notifications about anti-Semitic incidents since Octo 7, 2023," the report said.

In 66 of the notifications "there was clearly a reference to Jewish origins" of the person experiencing the incident, or of the Jewish community, the Unia report said. 

The reports included eight notifications that referred to Palestinian or Arab origins, or were of anti-Islamic character, it added.

Most of the reports logged had to do with hate speech in messages, and the majority of those received online targetted groups or communities rather than individuals, Unia said.

Nine notifications concerned hate acts, such as blows, graffiti, and vandalism, said the agency. It is in touch with police and prosecutors in some of the cases, it added.

In November, an investigation was opened into the vandalism of a Jewish cemetery in Marcinelle, a district of the southern city of Charleroi, where 85 graves were desecrated and objects including bronze Stars of David were stolen.

The Unia report said that "even though most of the incidents did not break the law, they de facto create a hostile atmosphere, particularly towards Jews in Belgium."

On Nov. 1, Reuters reported on the uptick of antisemitic violence globally as the war in Gaza inflamed attitudes towards Israel and Judaism.

The report quoted political scientist Nonna Mayer, a member of France's CNCDH, an independent human rights commission, who said that among those committing antisemitic acts, opinions regarding the conflict could vary, but that "Jew is for them equal to Israel, equal to killing Palestinian children."

The US editor of the London Review of Books, Adam Shatz, expressed concern in an article published in the leading European literary magazine in November, writing: "The censoring of Palestinian voices for the sake of Jewish security, far from protecting Jews, will inevitably intensify Jewish insecurity."