IDF Soldiers, Psychopathic Baby-Killers — Same Thing

If you follow the GoV news feed, you’ll remember a report from last Saturday about a young man who went on a rampage in a day care center in the Flemish town of Dendermonde, killing three people and wounding a number of others, all but one of them infants.

Now comes the news that a Flemish politician has made an ass of himself comparing the appalling events in Dendermonde with the deaths of children during the recent Israeli offensive in Gaza.

A psychopath in Flanders seeks out a nursery with the intent of killing infants.

The Israeli military, after taking extraordinary care to avoid civilian casualties, causes the deaths of some children in Gaza — who are used as human shields by the terrorists of Hamas.

Same thing, right?

If you’re an anti-Semite, it’s the natural equation to make. And Bert Anciaux, the Flemish Minister for Culture, Youth and Sport, seems to fit the profile.

So what’s Mr. Anciaux’s political affiliation?

Let’s see… A Fleming who hates Jews, who retails an updated version of the blood libel… He must be a member of Vlaams Belang, right?

Wrong! He’s a Socialist! Just like 99% of his fellow anti-Semites, he’s a member in good standing of the progressive Left.

What a surprise!

Here’s the news story from Haaretz:
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Belgium Slams Minister Statement Likening Gaza Op to Nursery Massacre

The Belgian foreign ministry distanced itself Monday from statements by a Flemish minister who likened Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip to a recent deadly attack on a nursery near Brussels, allegedly perpetrated by a deranged assailant.

The affair drew unusually harsh words from Israel’s embassy in Brussels, which called the comparison “reckless, absurd and offensive.”

[…]

“[The attack] shocks all of us,” Minister for Culture, Youth and Sport in the Flemish Government Bert Anciaux wrote in Dutch in his official website on the day of the attack. “I must also think of the hundreds of dead children in the Gaza Strip, who were also knowingly killed by an aggressor who got away. Here, too, death and violence have struck.”

The Belgian ambassador to Israel tried, in her mealy-mouthed way, to distance her government from the idiocy of Bert Anciaux. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to denounce his foolishness for the malevolence that it so obviously is:

In her reaction to a query on the matter, Belgium’s ambassador to Israel, Bénédicte Frankinet, said: “The Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs has voiced strong concern about the civilian casualties, including many children, resulting from Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, as well as for the victims of the rocket attacks by Hamas.

She added: “Any comparison with other tragic events does not reflect in anyway the position expressed by the Minister [of Foreign Affairs] or by the Belgian Government.”

Israel, needless to say, takes exception to Mr. Anciaux’s comparison:

A spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in Brussels issued an unusually harsh statement in condemnation of the comparison, accusing Anciaux of “demonizing Israel,” and of “importing” the Middle East conflict into the streets of Belgian towns.

“In light of the violence we have seen directed at Jews during the recent conflagration, and the acrimonious statements in demonstrations against Israel, politicians need to show restraint when speaking about the Middle East conflict,” embassy media liaison Laurent Reichman told Haaretz.

“This redundant statement can only be seen as a reckless deed,” the embassy said. “Comparing the Middle East reality with the actions of a lone, deranged individual is absurd and offensive both to the families of the Dendermonde victims and to the Jewish state.”

This kind of rhetoric — while the “New Belgians” riot and threaten Jewish neighborhoods and chant “death to the Jews!” — is nothing less than inflammatory.


Hat tip: TV.