“No other nation in the world would accept its people living under threat of rockets and attacks from which they have only seconds to flee,” said Maurice Sosnowski, President of CCOJB, the umbrella organisation of Belgian Jewish organizations, as he spoke Sunday in Brussels at a rally of support for Israel attended by around 1,500 people.
“We protest only for the most important point, to safeguard for the only Jewish nation in the world, the means to defend itself and the security of its citizens,” he insisted, as he said that all of Israel today shares the same reality ad unites in the same opinion, regardless of political affiliation.
The rally was organized by CCOJB, the Forum of Jewish organizations in Antwerp, the Union of Jewish students and the European Jewish Congress.
Slamming critics of Israel’s “disproportionate” response to Gazan rocket attacks on Israeli territory, he said the Jewish community had had enough of people expressing “sympathy for the aggressor and condemnation for the victim”.
Disregarding defence of Palestinian attacks on Israel, he said “it was not as if there was any relation between the Iranian rockets supplied to Hamas and weapons constructed by poor people out of despair”.
Comparing the plight of civilians in Gaza to that of their Israeli neighbours, he said the two situations were not alike, as Israel’s Iron Dome Defence System was installed “to protect its population, without which there would be many more deaths in Israel, whilst in Gaza, rather than choosing to protect its people, installs banks of missiles next to a schools and at its headquarters in a hospital”.
Slamming kneejerk criticism of Israel’s operation he Gaza, Sosnowski asked “who is indignant at (Hamas’) admitted objective is the destruction of Israel and the extermination of the Jews”, as he similarly asked why no one criticised Palestinians in Gaza for “welcoming news of a bus attack in Tel Aviv with cries of joy”.
“For those who blame us, the Jews of Belgium, for our affinity with Israel”, he railed, “we say to them that we are part of the social fabric of the country and that a part of our heart is always in Israel, the centre of Judaism.”
“We don’t hide from it, we will never hide from it. Your presence here today confirms the blood ties are eternal.”
Speaking of a “new reality” facing the Middle East in light of the ongoing civil conflict in Syria and the emerging democracies from last year’s Arab Spring movement across much of the region, he added that “we can’t close our eyes to the rising power of Islamism in neighbouring countries” to Israel.
Sosnowski said a new form of anti-Semitism is emerging in the streets of Belgian cities such as Brussels and Antwerp, which each houses a 18,000-strong Jewish population, citing university campus tensions as particularly worrying in this regard.
Calling on federal and university authorities, he paraphrased recent rhetoric by Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu in demanding “a clear red line” be drawn “between freedom of expression and anti-Semitism, based on the definitions provided by the European Agency for Human Rights”.
Praising the Belgian Jewish community for maintaining constant dialogue with other cultural communities, such as their Christian and Muslim counterparts, he insisted that the Belgian Jewish community united in saying “no to the import of the Middle East conflict to our streets”. “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has no place in Europe,” he continued, adding that “there’s no incitement to hate or war here”.
“We issue a call to life, to peace and for Israel to live in security,” to rousing applause from the vocal crowd, whose numbers were twice those expected in advance of the event.
Attendees responded to his address with a unison of “Am Yisrael Chai” (“Long live the Israeli people”).
Francis Renneboog, President of the Belgian Evangelist Coalition for Israel then told the crowd the crowd, on behalf of his organization: “We are here to give you our support and to tell you that you are not alone,” to rapturous applause from attendees.
“We are on your side,” he asserted. “We are together, we are part of the same family, the ties are real and we want to express them”.
We want the Belgian Jews, Israeli Jews and Jews across the world to know we are with you”.
“I agree completely with the other speakers, that the free world, which still exists, has the necessity to recognise the right of all democratic states and especially Israel today, the legitimate right of self-defence,” he added.
“How can you think that a country will admit, tolerate and accept outside incursions into their country?”
Invoking the Holocaust, he said:” I don’t want past lessons, for which our fathers and grandfathers paid tough lessons, I don’t want democracy to be under threat from a new form of fascism”.
“We are under threat from new form of fascism, it must be said,” he cautioned.
“Aside from the Jewish people, all of humanity is under a new threat,” he concluded, as the crowd gave way to a chorus of the Israeli and Belgian national anthems Hatikva and Brabanconne.
On Saturday, around 200 people demonstrated in Brussels in support of Gaza population. The Belgian-Palestinian Association, which organized the rally, called for a halt of military cooperation with Israel.
Earlier this week, anti-Israel demonstrators have been heard chanting “Hamas, Hamas, all Jews to the gas” during a protest march in Antwerp against a performance of the Israel Defense Forces Orchestra in this city.