Brussels — Belgium summoned the US ambassador on Tuesday over a social media post in which he accused his country of persecuting anti-Semitic Jewish Belgians, the Belgian foreign minister said.
“Calling Belgium anti-Semitic is not only wrong, it is a dangerous misinformation that undermines the real fight against hate,” Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot said in an X post on Monday. Summoning is a rare move among loyal allies.
“The ambassador accredited to Belgium has a responsibility to respect our institutions, our elected representatives and the independence of our judicial system,” Prevot said. He added, “Personal attacks against a Belgian minister and interference in judicial affairs violate basic diplomatic norms.”
National broadcaster VRT said that Belgian authorities were investigating whether three men in Antwerp were performing circumcisions without approved medical training.
US Ambassador Bill White said in a post on X that this investigation was “unacceptable harassment of the Jewish community here in Antwerp and in Belgium.”
He said that he would visit the three defendants in Antwerp and asked the Belgian Minister of Health to join him.
“You must make a legal provision to allow Jewish religious MOHELS to perform their duties here in Belgium,” he said, using a Hebrew term for a Jewish official trained in Belgium. circumcisiona central doctrine of the faith.
Without it, a Jewish person usually cannot have a Jewish bar mitzvah or wedding or be buried in a Jewish cemetery.
Prevot, the foreign minister, said that “Belgian law allows circumcision when performed by a qualified doctor under strict health and safety standards” and that he would not comment on the ongoing investigation.