{"id":14312,"date":"2026-05-06T11:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T11:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/14312\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T11:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T11:16:08","slug":"us-israel-slam-belgium-in-clash-over-alleged-illegal-circumcisions-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/14312\/","title":{"rendered":"US, Israel slam Belgium in clash over alleged illegal circumcisions \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. ambassador\u2019s comments echo <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/gidonsaar\/status\/2051912484219478337\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">remarks on X<\/a> earlier Wednesday from Israel\u2019s Foreign Affairs Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar, who described the situation as \u201ca scarlet letter on Belgian society.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The U.S.-Israeli fury comes after the Antwerp prosecutor confirmed it recommended two mohalim be prosecuted following investigations into alleged illegal circumcisions, which must be carried out by a medical professional according to Belgian law.<\/p>\n<p>Belgium\u2019s foreign affairs minister immediately hit back at the criticism.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI urge you to exercise greater restraint and to view your role in its proper context,\u201d Maxime Pr\u00e9vot <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/prevotmaxime\/status\/2051953464507240851\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">wrote on X<\/a>, responding to White. \u201cIt is inappropriate to publicly criticize a country and tarnish its image simply because you disagree with judicial proceedings. I have already told you this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The minister added it was \u201cdefamatory\u201d to represent the legal proceedings as a push to undermine religious freedom, noting that they had been initiated by \u201crepresentatives of the Jewish community themselves.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>He also <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/prevotmaxime\/status\/2051952134535454816?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">invited Sa\u2019ar to a meeting<\/a> \u201cto put an end to any misinterpretations\u201d on the matter, \u201csince you yourself recently urged against conducting diplomacy via Twitter.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. ambassador\u2019s comments echo remarks on X earlier Wednesday from Israel\u2019s Foreign Affairs Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar, who&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1586,7,3165,1916,352,393,87],"class_list":{"0":"post-14312","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-belgium","8":"tag-belgian-politics","9":"tag-belgium","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-religion","12":"tag-transatlantic-relations","13":"tag-u-s-politics","14":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116527352125468187","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}