![\"U.S.](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/im-07469548_1771403466142_1771403491233.jpg\" "\\"U.S.")
U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Bill White<\/p>\nBRUSSELS\u2014Belgium\u2019s foreign minister summoned the U.S. envoy over comments Ambassador Bill White made regarding the country\u2019s treatment of Jews, marking at least the third dispute in recent months between an American ambassador and the country of his posting.<\/p>\n
U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Bill White<\/p>\n
The U.S. ambassadors to France and Poland have also gotten into disputes with the countries in which they are stationed, drawing rebukes from Paris and Warsaw<\/a>.<\/p>\n White, who took up his post in November, over the weekend criticized Belgium for its approach to Jewish ritual circumcision and linked it to a rise in antisemitism in the country during an interview on Newsmax. On Monday, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Pr\u00e9vot publicly rejected White\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n \u201cAny suggestion that Belgium is antisemitic is false, offensive, and unacceptable,\u201d Pr\u00e9vot said Monday on X. \u201cBelgium condemns antisemitism with the greatest firmness. The fight against antisemitism, and all forms of hatred and discrimination, is an absolute priority for our country.\u201d<\/p>\n Antisemitism has increased across Europe<\/a> over recent years, particularly since the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 sparked a crushing response by Israel that has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who don\u2019t say how many were combatants.<\/p>\n White, in his Newsmax interview, raised the case of an investigation in Antwerp into circumcisions by a small number of mohels, Jewish specialists who perform circumcisions. Prosecutors said last spring that they had searched three houses as part of an investigation into the practice by people without medical training.<\/p>\n In Belgium, circumcision is legal \u201cwhen performed by a qualified physician under strict health and safety standards,\u201d Pr\u00e9vot wrote on X.<\/p>\n White wrote on X<\/a> on Monday that Belgium \u201cMUST DROP THE RIDICULOUS AND ANTI-SEMITIC \u2018PROSECUTION\u2019 NOW OF THE 3 JEWISH RELIGIOUS FIGURES (MOHELS) IN ANTWERP!\u201d He also said that Belgium\u2019s health minister, whom he called \u201cvery rude\u201d, should change the law to allow mohels to perform circumcisions.<\/p>\n He called the prosecution \u201cunacceptable harassment of the Jewish community here in Antwerp and in Belgium.\u201d<\/p>\n White\u2019s accusation of Belgian antisemitism is notable because during his nomination process last year, Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) said he opposed White for the role of ambassador because he \u201crepeatedly amplified posts of a convicted Belgian white nationalist influencer and Holocaust denier,\u201d Dries Van Langenhove.<\/p>\n Van Langenhove, a Belgian far-right leader, was convicted in 2024 of inciting violence and denying that the Holocaust occurred. White retweeted a post of Van Langenhove\u2019s before he was sent to prison.<\/p>\n Under questioning from Kaine about the link, White said during his hearing<\/a> that \u201cwhen my team told me about some of the various things that he may have been involved with or not\u2014and I am not sure of all of the things he has been involved with or not\u2014the tweet was removed.\u201d<\/p>\n White said on X Monday that \u201cAnti Semitism is UNACCEPTABLE in any form & it must be rooted out of our society.\u201d<\/p>\n Write to Daniel Michaels at Dan.Michaels@wsj.com<\/a> and Kim Mackrael at kim.mackrael@wsj.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRUSSELS\u2014Belgium\u2019s foreign minister summoned the U.S. envoy over comments Ambassador Bill White made regarding the country\u2019s treatment of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[236,7,2129,1961,2130,2131],"class_list":{"0":"post-2401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-belgium","8":"tag-antisemitism","9":"tag-belgium","10":"tag-jewish-circumcision","11":"tag-maxime-prevot","12":"tag-u-s-ambassador","13":"tag-us-envoy-belgium"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2401","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=2401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}