Brussels minister’s tolerance adviser resigns after calling Israel Islamic State’s twin
http://www.timesofisrael.com/belgian-official-resigns-after-calling-israel-islamic-states-twin/
Staffer likened Israelis to Nazis, called for slaughter of activists who seek to prevent ritual killings of animals
A Belgian Muslim official who compared Israel to Nazi Germany and the Islamic State is no longer employed as a minister’s adviser on tolerance.
He works for a minister in the government of one of the three autonomous regions that make up the federal kingdom of Belgium.
Bart de Wever, the mayor of Antwerp, which is the capital of Belgium’s Flemish Region, in July told the Joods Actueel Jewish monthly he finds Kobo’s appointment “troubling” also because Kobo, according to de Wever, recently published a tweet about the shooting of police officers in the United States in which he wrote “a shot for a shot.”
De Wever said it means Kobo justifies the shootings as retribution for perceived police brutality, especially against blacks.
Joel Rubinfeld, the president of the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, said Kobo’s statements make him unfit to advise on tolerance and especially on anti-Semitism.
“He can’t be both fireman and fire starter,” Rubinfeld told La Capitale.
Rubinfeld noted that Israel is connected to the phenomenon often called “new anti-Semitism,” in which anti-Israel sentiment becomes a veil for anti-Semitism. In France, Belgium and the Netherlands, most anti-Semitic assaults are by people with a Muslim background, watchdogs in those countries have said.
Echoing the position of French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, Rubinfeld said “anti-Zionism is but modern anti-Semitism, where hatred for the Jewish state substitutes hatred of the Jew.”
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