{"id":2264,"date":"2026-02-17T13:25:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T13:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/2264\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T13:25:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T13:25:25","slug":"belgium-summons-u-s-ambassador-over-tweet-accusing-kingdom-of-antisemitism-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/2264\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgium summons U.S. ambassador over tweet accusing kingdom of antisemitism"},"content":{"rendered":"

BRUSSELS (AP) \u2014 Belgium summoned the U.S. ambassador on Tuesday over a social media post where he accused the country of antisemitic prosecution of Jewish Belgians, the kingdom\u2019s foreign minister said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLabeling Belgium as antisemitic is not just wrong, it\u2019s dangerous disinformation that undermines the real fight against hatred,\u201d said Belgian foreign minister Maxime Pr\u00e9vot in a post on X on Monday. The summons is a rare move between staunch allies.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn ambassador accredited to Belgium has a responsibility to respect our institutions, our elected representatives, and the independence of our judicial system,\u201d Pr\u00e9vot said. \u201cPersonal attacks against a Belgian minister and interference in judicial matters violate basic diplomatic norms.\u201d<\/p>\n

National broadcaster VRT said Belgian authorities are investigating whether three men in Antwerp were performing circumcisions without certified medical training.<\/p>\n

U.S. Ambassador Bill White said on a post on X that this investigation was \u201cunacceptable harassment of the Jewish community here in Antwerp and in Belgium.<\/p>\n

He said he would visit the three accused men in Antwerp and asked Belgium\u2019s minister of health to join him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must make a legal provision to allow Jewish religious MOHELS to perform their duties here in Belgium,\u201d he said, using a Hebrew term for a Jewish officiant trained in circumcision<\/a>, a central tenet of the faith.<\/p>\n

Without it, a Jewish person typically can\u2019t have a bar mitzvah, a Jewish wedding or be buried in a Jewish cemetery.<\/p>\n

Pr\u00e9vot, the foreign minister, said that \u201cBelgian law permits ritual circumcision when performed by a qualified physician under strict health and safety standards\u201d and that he would not comment on an ongoing investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRUSSELS (AP) \u2014 Belgium summoned the U.S. ambassador on Tuesday over a social media post where he accused…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[236,19,7,672,1922,1898,264,2005,2007,2008,192,2006,1916,1606,87,676,142],"class_list":{"0":"post-2264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-belgium","8":"tag-antisemitism","9":"tag-antwerp","10":"tag-belgium","11":"tag-belgium-government","12":"tag-bill-white","13":"tag-circumcision","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-maxime-prvot","16":"tag-mens-health","17":"tag-misinformation","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-race-and-ethnicity","20":"tag-religion","21":"tag-send-to-apple-news","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-government","24":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264","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=2264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}