Friend of Downeast and regular reader Drazil posed the following question in the previous post’s comments section (which dealt with the transition of the Vlaams Blok to the Vlaams Belang):
Michael, someone on another site I frequent stated that the Vlaams Blok position on the Holocaust is that it did not happen. Can you clarify that for me?
Drazil 12.24.04 - 9:43 pm #
First of all, thank you very much for this question Drazil, since it allows me to shed some light on an argument which can be used to discredit my party.
The Vlaams Blok/Vlaams Belang is very clear on the Holocaust: IT DID HAPPEN. Moreover, leading Vlaams Blok/Vlaams Belang strongmen repeatedly express their support for the Belgian Jewish Community and the State of Israël. As you may or may not know, the Belgian port of Antwerp is also the world’s Diamond Center. This industry is mainly in the hands of the Jewish community in Antwerp, numbering some 20,000. More and more of them are acutely aware of the growing threat of radical Muslim extremists in Belgium and especially in Antwerp, homebase of the radical Muslim organization Arab European League, led by Lebanese firebrand and former Hizballah terrorist Dyab Abu Jahjah, who naturalized to Belgian through a phoney marriage with a girl from Bruges.
Whereas the relations between the Muslim and Jewish communities had been peaceful through the early nineties, the establishment of the AEL in Antwerp from the mid-nneties on soon led to frictions. By April 2002 things had gotten to the point where an attempt to destroy a synagogue with a molotovcocktail was made. The perpetrators were never caught, but the next day young AEL Muslims ventured on Antwerps streets burning Israeli flags and busting Jewish shopwindows in the diamond district. On April 8, 2002, the AEL demonstrated again, only this time round an effigy of Sharon was burnt. Savoury detail: the puppet was clad in the typical dresscode of the Chassidim, the Jewish community’s Ultra Orthodox segment (black robes, black hat, long beard, curls etc…)
Instances like these and others, e.g. the stabbing to near death of the Jewish Yeshida student Noah Schmal last summer by a gang of fifteen Moroccans and the murder on Moshe Yitzhak Na’eh some two months ago, have led to an increasing number of Jews leaning to, and also voting for, the Vlaams Blok/Vlaams Belang, which many have begun to see as the only political force standing between them and an increasingly radicalising Muslim community.
Because a picture tells more than a 1,000 words, as the cliché goes, I provide here a photo depicting Filip Dewinter, VB chairman in Antwerp, shaking hands with the well-known rabbi Pinchas Meyers. In the former you will recognize the man on the poster from yesterday's article. In addition, I can tell you that Dewinter has also held talks with Jewish former town official André Gantman, in which he distanced himself explicitly from each and any form of anti-Semitism.
The VB itself does the same, but I’m giving this example because Dewinter himself is really the face of the VB, not only in Antwerp but also in the rest of the country. Scroll down this site, and you will find plenty of evidence of extensive contacts between the VB and Jews in Antwerp. In addition, I might add that Dewinter has given interviews to Jewish newspaper Maariv supporting Israëls cause, and that Dewinter on March 23rd of this year, upon introducing Israeli author Avi Lipkin, a former spokesman of the Israeli army, to a VB audience, said that Israel is "the vanguard of the West in a feudal Middle East."
He’s not the only one though: Marc Joris, another well-known VB figure from Antwerp co-runs with female Jewish filmmaker Tami Lorjé the site Kristalhelder, a site providing background info on Israël from the point where MSM info on that country STOPS... Such is the vigor with which Mr. Joris, a Holocaust Denier as the PC cabal would want us to believe, has committed himself to the defence of Jews in Belgium, that he is affectionately known among the members of that community as Yachem Joris , meaning "Little Jew Joris".
In stark contrast with this clear token of the VB’s sympathy for the Jewish cause are the acts of two MPs of my erstwhile party, the VLD, which as you may know I left because it did not effectively oppose the introduction of an insane law granting to non-Belgians the right to vote in municipal elections. I’m referring to mssrs. Vincent Van Quickenborne and Jean-Pierre De Decker. Mr. Van Quickenborne, apparently strongly influenced by biased leftist reporting on the plight of Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, visited this area and a.o. shook hands with Hamas leader Sheikh Masharawi and wished him success. Jean-Marie De Decker, accompanying him, compared the Israëli Army conduct in Gaza and on the West Bank with the Endloesung, i.e. the Nazi extermination of Jews in concentration camps. Mr. Van Quickenborne and Mr. De Decker only recently joined the VLD. Well, they came in... and I went out.
Now mind you, I understand where these allegations come from. Mr. Dewinter is friends with Jean-Marie Le Pen, the French rightwing leader, notorious for his remark that the Holocaust, insofar as it actually took place, was but a footnote in history. Personally, I strongly distance myself from a figure like Le Pen, who in my opinion is just a socialist sharing with the Vlaams Blok the anti-immigrant platform.
Another aspect is that, as I said, the origins of the Vlaams Blok are a bit murky, since indeed, when it was formed back in 1977, it counted among its members not few who sypathized with the Flemish Waffen SS-volunteers who fought with the Nazis against Communist Russia. But elaborarting on this thread would lead us way too far. In case anyone is really interested, I will gladly provide some post on the topic. Suffice to say that Flemings, during the greater part of Belgium's existence, were secondrank citizens while the Walloon minority had most if not all of the political and economic power. It is not exaggerated to state that Flemings were the Shiites of Belgium, and Walloons its Sunnis. Throughout history, sad but true, Flemish activists sided twice with the German invaders who promised them greater independence and respect for Flemish heritage. During the last World War, this even culminated in the formation of a Flemish Grenadier Divison on the Waffen SS Roster, the 27th "Langemarck". To its credit I must say that there are no known atrocities committed by this unit nor its predecessors, and that many if not all of the raw recruits were spurred to fight alongside the Germans not only by their Flemish activist leaders, but also by the rabidly anti-communist Flemish Catholic Church. Many a priest exhorted young Flemish boys to go on a crusade against the godless communism. Sadly, the whole undertaking has discredited the heirs of the Flemish Cause to this day.
MFBB
