Israel reprimands Belgium for inviting terror-related NGO to UNSC
“The Belgians cannot expect us to stay quiet when they are taking advantage of being temporary presidents of the UNSC to hurt Israel,” said a Foreign Ministry official.
By LAHAV HARKOVThe United Nations Security Council meets about the situation in Venezuela in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., January 26, 2019(photo credit: REUTERS/CARLO ALLEGRI)
The Foreign Ministry summoned Belgium’s deputy ambassador for the second time in a week on Tuesday, to protest his country’s invitation to an anti-Israel NGO with ties to the PFLP terrorist group to address the UN Security Council.Anna Azari, head of the European Section of the Foreign Ministry, reprimanded Deputy Ambassador Pascal Buffin and called on Brussels to rescind the invitation to DCI-Palestine and stop taking anti-Israel steps in the UNSC.Azari also expressed surprise that Israel’s ambassador to Belgium, Emmanuel Nahshon, was reprimanded by Belgium’s foreign ministry because of news reports about Israel’s criticism of Belgium.“The Belgians cannot expect us to stay quiet when they are taking advantage of being temporary presidents of the UNSC to hurt Israel,” she said.DCI-Palestine calls itself an organization defending the human rights of Palestinian children. It alleges that Israel is committing war crimes and supports the BDS movement. It shares several leading figures with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terrorist group in the US, EU, Canada and Israel, to the extent that Citibank and the Arab Bank have stopped providing banking services to the NGO.Brad Parker, senior adviser for policy and advocacy at the NGO, is the driving force behind pro-BDS legislation introduced in the US by Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum, the think tank NGO Monitor reported. Last January, in his capacity as an adjunct professor at the CUNY Law School’s Human Rights and Gender Justice Clinic, Parker filed an anti-Israel submission to the UN, replete with false statements and whitewashing of terrorist groups like Hamas. CUNY subsequently launched an investigation into the law school’s partnership with DCI-P.Azari also criticized the Belgian government’s “negligence” in handling a carnival in the Belgian town of Aalst, during which antisemitic floats were displayed in a parade. The next date of the carnival is set for the day before the UNSC meeting.She said Israel expects Belgium’s leadership to “clearly condemn the antisemitic event.”The Aalst carnival lost its place on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in late 2019, after the Belgian city’s mayor refused to remove antisemitic imagery from the parade.Last year, one of its floats featured oversized figures of Jews in hassidic garb, with rats on their shoulders, holding money. In 2013, JTA reported, carnival revelers in Nazi uniforms held canisters labeled “Zyklon B” while walking with other participants dressed as concentration camp prisoners.
