The Israeli Ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg has been heavily criticized by some Belgian politicians for her remark on a photo montage in De Morgen linked to the Israel-Hamas war.
As previously reported, a photo montage last month in the Dutch-language newspaper showed released Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners under the headline "Israeli or Palestinian, it’s still someone’s parent or child." Ambassador Idit Rosenzweig-Abu reacted on X (former Twitter), saying that "Marc Dutroux was also someone’s child".
Dutroux was a notorious serial killer and child molester who abducted and killed girls until he was caught and sentenced to life in prison.
Following the criticism, Rosenzweig-Abu deleted the tweet but it was obvious that she had touched a nerve in Belgium.
Since then, the Israel-Hamas war continues with no end in sight and a deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with calls from Belgium and other countries for an immediate cease fire to allow for the release of the hostages and the supply of more humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Calls to apologize
Speaking to The Brussels Times, Rosenzweig-Abu said that she regrets her remark but does not wish to comment further. “I shouldn’t have used the name Dutroux and I have apologised repeatedly."
"My point was that everyone is ‘someone’s son’ as stated in the De Morgen headline. But that doesn’t mean that we should put them on the same level as innocent people, as was done by De Morgen when it published a photo of someone wearing a Hamas flag and headband next to a 4-year-old girl with a teddy bear.”
The ambassador said that this is not an acceptable comparison. “I have apologized many times but did De Morgen apologize for its manipulative and unacceptable choice?”
Most troubling, she argues, is that the controversy continued although she quickly changed the name to Salah Abdelslam, the terrorist who was sentenced to life in prison in 2022. The difference between him and the person in the photo montage wrapped in Hamas’s flag is a matter of means and opportunity but they share the same ideology, she says.
Some politicians called for her resignation. “I’m astonished that more political attention was given to a tweet, as misfortunate as it might have been, than to the fact that for months now thousands of people are marching in the streets in Brussels shouting ‘We are the people of Mohammed Deif (Hamas military leader)’ or ‘Million Shahids (Martyrs) will march on Jerusalem’."
Extremism knows no borders
Rosenzweig-Abu says she is very concerned about the rise in antisemitism in Belgium as well as the terror threat level. According to OCAM (the Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis), the general threat level in Belgium is serious (3 on a scale from one 1 to 4) since October.
The latest antisemitic incident was the desecration of a Jewish cemetery outside Brussels. Graffiti showing swastikas and Stars of David were found painted in and around the cemetery in Kraainem, Flemish Brabant, on Tuesday.
“A threat of violence towards any part of Belgian society should not be accepted, it doesn’t matter what rationale is used to justify it. On 7th October people were shocked and frightened about the massacre of families and children by Hamas, which reminded them about the Holocaust, but no-one threatened anyone in Belgium.”
The Belgian government calls for a permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war to save civilian lives. Ambassador Rosenzweig-Abu thinks that there is an inherent contradiction between agreeing that Hamas is a terrorist organisation which carried out a murderous attack on Israel and calling for an immediate permanent ceasefire.
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“If there would be a permanent ceasefire now – leaving Hamas with its leadership and remaining military capacity intact in Gaza and still holding more than 130 hostages – it would be a complete victory for Hamas.”
She is convinced that a triumphant jihadist organisation would become extremely popular and would easily crush the unpopular Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. She says that Hamas forces would recover quickly with the help of Iran and serve as an example for every jihadist movement around the world.
The Ambassador represents the Israeli government which has declared that the war against Hamas will continue until victory. Achieving Israel’s two goals, dismantling Hamas and rescuing the hostages, seems more difficult, if not impossible, as the war drags on with no political horizon and the international legitimacy and support for Israel is eroding because of the humanitarian situation and destruction in Gaza.
M. Apelblat
The Brussels Times
