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Opinion

Belgium is at the centre of the global Dreyfus trial

The acquittal of a man who wrote that he wanted to ‘stab Jews’ demonstrates the depths to which this country has sunk

March 17, 2025 11:45
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A protester holding a Palestinian flag walks past a graffiti reading "Stop Gaza Holocaust" during a demonstration in Brussels (Photo by SIMON WOHLFAHRT/AFP via Getty Images)
5 min read

Ghent is Belgium’s third-largest city, behind Brussels and Antwerp. The Flemish metropolis is also one of the country’s strongholds of anti-Zionism, as reflected in the academic boycott of Israel adopted by Ghent University in May 2024 and the sports boycott of the Israeli team during the Under-17 European Ultimate Frisbee Championship, held in Ghent last summer.

Last week, the Ghent criminal court reached a new level of disgrace by acquitting columnist Herman Brusselmans who, on August 24, 2024, published an antisemitic diatribe in the weekly Humo, in which he commented on images of Gazan victims of the war triggered by Hamas on October 7 with the words: “I am so angry that I want to stab every Jew I meet in the throat.”

This verdict will go down in Belgian judicial history and has grave implications for the future of Belgium’s 30,000 Jews. How could it be otherwise when the Belgian judiciary legitimises incitement to murder Jews in one of the country’s leading magazines?

Sadly, this is not the first time Belgian justice has failed. Another striking example is the case dismissed by the Liège prosecutor’s office involving a Belgian-Turkish café owner who had posted a sign on his window reading: “Dogs are allowed here, but Jews under no circumstances!”