In Belgium, police allegedly detained and beat two Israelis attending a music festival—for their IDF service in a war that started with a massacre of Israelis at a music festival. Though harassment of Israeli tourists abroad has been not only common but in some cases incorporated into local law, this appears to be the first claim of an abusive interrogation of uncharged Israelis by agents of a Western state.
According to the Jewish Chronicle, “The pair were released after questioning and are believed to have already left the country.”
The pretense for the arrest appears to be nonspecific—that is, these particular Israelis weren’t considered suspect beyond the fact that they, like most Israeli adults, did their mandated national service.
The organization connected to the detainment is a very important part of this story. As I wrote in January, the Hind Rajab Foundation is not actually a human-rights group. Its founder and leader is a former Hezbollah member and military trainee. He fooled Belgian authorities into giving him asylum, where he founded a hate group that was behind anti-Semitic riots in Europe.
Hind Rajab, then, is an outgrowth of Middle Eastern terrorist groups’ strategy of seeding homegrown anti-Semitic extremism in Europe. After the Jewish tourists’ arrest and alleged beating, Hind Rajab celebrated: “The suspects were identified and arrested with a clear show of force at the Tomorrowland festival in Boom.”
Such thuggish talk is perfectly in character for a group that essentially acts as a modern version of 20th century European street fascists.
But in the great spirit of “ISIS in place,” anti-Semites seeking to draw up lists of Jews to harass don’t need to be personally trained by Hezbollah or be located in places so familiar with Nazi tactics. Activists in Canada have created a website (which I obviously won’t link here) seeking to list the names, ages, locations and other personal information of any Canadian Jews who have served with the IDF.
But the site goes a step further, indicating where such “Jew lists” are headed. Visitors to the site are told that Canadians ought to know who these Jews are and “the networks they’re a part of that may have influenced their decision to join the military.”
In other words, the names and locations of their parents, employers and the Jewish schools, Jewish youth groups and Jewish university groups they attended or participated in. Since Oct. 7, 2023, anti-Semites have opened fire on Canadian Jewish schools several times. Other Jewish establishments have been firebombed, stoned and vandalized.
The point of the list—again, as stated by the site itself—is to serve as a database of Jewish soldiers, families, institutions and “social networks.” It does not claim to accuse any individual soldier of a crime, because no crime has been committed. Instead, it’s an extrajudicial database of Jews and their families and any reason they should be considered suspicious or harmful by their fellow Canadians. There is a long historical tradition of such lists, which have always had a single purpose—and it’s not “humanitarian.”
But Canadian domestic extremists obviously are hoping that a legal element will develop. Last month, Canada’s national police force clarified that it has “initiated a structural investigation in connection with” the Israel-Hamas conflict, which is not the same as a criminal investigation. “Should a perpetrator of core international crimes—such as genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity—with the appropriate nexus to Canada be identified, the RCMP will initiate a separate criminal investigation,” it said in a statement. “To date, the RCMP has not initiated any related criminal investigations.”
Again, working with groups like Hind Rajab at all, in any capacity, should be a mark of shame for Belgium or any other country. Meanwhile, the Canadian police appear to be entirely asleep at the wheel. And Western society sleepwalks toward catastrophe.
