Students at Jewish school in Belgium have graduation cancelled "in solidarity with Palestine"

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Curious what Laki has to say about this, considering that he said anti-semitism wasn't a big problem.

I don't think i've said that. Can you link that before?

As far as I know, i think i've said that I disapprove of antisemitism and that I support actions to better support & guarantee the safety of the Jewish minority in Belgium.

Also weird how something like this is something I first read about... on Atlas as opposed to Belgian media. That seems very sus to me, and i'll look for a reliable source, since Twitter or The Times of Israël I don't consider reliable. And apparently all of Atlas already has an opinion on this on something where i'm not even sure if the antisemitism accusation applies as it's not specified why the graduation was cancelled and by who.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Ok, a bit more context since adding nuance isn't really what Atlas excels in, especially when it comes to this conflict.

Have only been able to find two dutch-speaking sources on our main tabloids in the section local news. But anything is being done to frame everyone as antisemitist in hyperbolic fashion. The notion to even suggest this should be an international incident is simply ridicilous and laughable and part of the propaganda war to claim anyone who criticizes Israël is an antisemitist, something I obviously do not agree with (and neither most of Europe).

A few things of note

1. The graduation wasn't cancelled. It's just the location of where the graduation was held rejected the request for graduation to be held there (which was an arts center)
2. The director of the arts center has admitted she has made a mistake, based on wrong assumptions, has apologized and has said that the school is welcome to hold the graduation there after all
3. The school can also still opt to hold their graduation at another place, this is just one place where the graduation could have been held.
4. The appeal was not rejected because of "solidarity with Palestine" but because the board believed there were ties with the Israeli state and affiliated organizations which is something the arts center does not want to cooperate with, something more common in Belgium, in particular arts center or organizations in cities. -> This was a mistake the director said, the mistakes has been acknowledged and apologies have been offered.

Translated:

“We cannot respond to your rental request at this time, because we see links between your organization and present-day Israel.” This was stated in an email from the Antwerp arts center Monty to a Jewish primary and secondary school that wanted to rent a hall for an activity. “We watch the genocide in Gaza with horror, and we also work closely with Palestinian artists who are suffering from the occupation.”

When the school reacted with shock, the management retraced its steps. They apologized for the decision, which "lost all nuance in the heated conflict." The European Jewish Association (EJA), however, speaks of “discrimination and anti-Semitism.” They are asking for the resignation of director Lana Willems and a suspension of Flemish subsidies to the arts center. “It is pure discrimination based on a conflict thousands of miles away against the most innocent of all: Jewish schoolchildren.”

Willems confirms the incident to De Standaard. “We have created a false link between the Jewish school and the Israeli government. When the school reacted with shock, I immediately realized that we had made a mistake,” says Willems. “The conflict is heating up emotions - we also see this at universities. In that heated atmosphere we have lost the nuance. I realize that the email hurt and left wounds in the school – and by extension the Jewish community.”

The school has not yet responded to Willems' apology. “We understand that they are dropping it for a while, but hope that we can find each other again in the future. Monty wants to be an open house: a safe place for people from all communities.”

Title is also misleading, since that's not what happened (both what happened and the reason why).

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Ok, a bit more context since adding nuance isn't really what Atlas excels in, especially when it comes to this conflict.

There's no nuance to anti-Semitism. Period stop.

There is indeed no nuance to anti-Semitism, except for that this is no antisemitism, and that every user on Atlas here suddenly thinks they know better than your local reporter.

The word antisemitism loses meaning when it's thrown to everyone who rightfully criticizes Israeli war crimes, and the art museum (as any other organization) should indeed not have ties with the Israeli state and any affiliated organization. That is common practice and what is basically the way things are done in Belgium, and other countries. It's what the students are also protesting against, to cut ties with Israeli organisations, to stop funding war crimes. This policy has to be strictly enforced, and any organization does this. The fact that the Jewish shool was thought to have ties with the Israeli government is a mistake, but that is not proof of antisemitism.

Throwing words like b****, suggesting she should eb deported to Iran or Lebanon or talking about how this should be an international incident is ridicilous when this isn't even a footnote in Belgian news. This is all part of Israeli propaganda attempts to frame the entire world as antisemitist, and radicalize people like you, which they are doing a good job in giving this thread even exists.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Ok, a bit more context since adding nuance isn't really what Atlas excels in, especially when it comes to this conflict.

There's no nuance to anti-Semitism. Period stop.

There is indeed no nuance to anti-Semitism, except for that this is no antisemitism, and that every user on Atlas here suddenly thinks they know better than your local reporter.

The word antisemitism loses meaning when it's thrown to everyone who rightfully criticizes Israeli war crimes, and the art museum (as any other organization) should indeed not have ties with the Israeli state and any affiliated organization. That is common practice and what is basically the way things are done in Belgium, and other countries.

Only 37% of Belgians strongly support an arms embargo on Israel, let's not pretend their are no Zionists in your country.

Anyway, the reason I think it's antisemitism is the case here is not because it's boycotting Israel (I literally support Right of Return and an independent Palestinian state on 1947 borders, for the record) rather, the issue we have here is that there's no way a Christian school would be banned for "support of Israel" off of the same evidence.

That doesn't exactly mean that 63% of Belgium don't support sanctions versus Israël or approve of what Israël does.

And obviously Belgium has a lot of zionists, we gave after all 12 points to Israël on Eurovision. Most of these vote for far right parties or N-VA. But that's not really relevant of this issue.

You're right that a christian school would not be banned out of support for Israël, given I don't think there are any christian schools who do so in Belgium, and given all of these are government-owned in Belgium. The ones that aren't are non-catholic schools (which are basically atheist, muslim or jewish schools).

[LAKISYLVANIA]

“Banning a Jewish grade school from using a facility for their graduation because they’re Jews isn’t anti-Semitism” is an interesting position, certainly.

Apparently the new excuse is that it's not because they're Jewish but because it was assumed with no evidence whatsoever besides that they're Jewish that they were directly connected to the Israeli government and that's not anti-Semitism.

You don't know how the board made that decision. I was not part of the board, you are not either. No-one here is.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

This is the problem with the progression of the pro-Palestinian cause. You start out with a strong sense of justice provoked by the settlers’ behavior in the West Bank and the obvious injustice there, then you see pictures of grandmothers holding their ancient brass keys, etc. and it is clearly a moral decision. Several steps later you’re condoning punishing Jewish grade schools in the diaspora because “maybe they are connected with Israel” and having to make excuses or denials about Hamas and hostage taking and sexual assault and the shameless atrocities of October 7, atrocities that would be cited to “cancel Israel” if it ever did anything like it. At the end of your journey, you’re protesting a memorial to the victims of the Nova massacre and shouting “go back to Poland” to the Mizrahi refugees who fled to Israel from ethnic cleansing in Arab states, and the connections to the original moral revulsion on behalf of the Palestinians themselves of the West Bank and Gaza is almost completely attenuated. A tragedy.

I am constantly told that the vast, vast majority of the Jewish diaspora has a deep, heartfelt connection with Israel and are ardent Zionists. I am also told by these same people that questioning whether or not a diaspora Jewish organization, school etc has a deep, heartfelt connection to Israel is antisemitic and uses the dual loyalty trope. If Zionism is so widespread and engrained in the worldwide Jewish community, then assuming the school has a deep, heartfelt connection with Israel is a safe bet, no?

Eta I don't personally believe this. But to your average reasonably apolitical person, this is how it looks.

Are you seriously saying that a reasonably apolitical person thinks cancelling the graduation is fine?

The graduation isn't even cancelled.

It's like a clinic refusing service to someone who wants to do an abortion because of religious reasons, than the debate is whether: the clinic has the right for freedom of opinion and to accept or reject services to whoever they want OR whether they should always provide services to anyone. In which case other places can be considered.

And we're talking about a private business, not a government-owned business, a bar is also able to expel someone if they don't like them (that'll rarely happen because it's a loss of income for them and generally not good business).

I'm not defending the decision, i obviously agree it's wrong, but the graduation itself isn't cancelled, it's not like Antwerp has only 1 arts center or 1 venue where the graduation can take place.... . And that's my point, they'll be able to hold their graduation, don't worry about that.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

This is the problem with the progression of the pro-Palestinian cause. You start out with a strong sense of justice provoked by the settlers’ behavior in the West Bank and the obvious injustice there, then you see pictures of grandmothers holding their ancient brass keys, etc. and it is clearly a moral decision. Several steps later you’re condoning punishing Jewish grade schools in the diaspora because “maybe they are connected with Israel” and having to make excuses or denials about Hamas and hostage taking and sexual assault and the shameless atrocities of October 7, atrocities that would be cited to “cancel Israel” if it ever did anything like it. At the end of your journey, you’re protesting a memorial to the victims of the Nova massacre and shouting “go back to Poland” to the Mizrahi refugees who fled to Israel from ethnic cleansing in Arab states, and the connections to the original moral revulsion on behalf of the Palestinians themselves of the West Bank and Gaza is almost completely attenuated. A tragedy.

I am constantly told that the vast, vast majority of the Jewish diaspora has a deep, heartfelt connection with Israel and are ardent Zionists. I am also told by these same people that questioning whether or not a diaspora Jewish organization, school etc has a deep, heartfelt connection to Israel is antisemitic and uses the dual loyalty trope. If Zionism is so widespread and engrained in the worldwide Jewish community, then assuming the school has a deep, heartfelt connection with Israel is a safe bet, no?

Eta I don't personally believe this. But to your average reasonably apolitical person, this is how it looks.

I mean, sure, people doing this will rationalize it by blaming the victims.

I could argue that civilian casualties in Gaza are ok because those civilians have a deep, heartfelt attachment to Hamas and see all Israelis as evil to be eradicated, but I don’t, because I’m not a f’ing ghoul.

I don't think a cancelled graduation is comparable to dead civilians or am I not understanding you?

This!

[LAKISYLVANIA]

This is the problem with the progression of the pro-Palestinian cause. You start out with a strong sense of justice provoked by the settlers’ behavior in the West Bank and the obvious injustice there, then you see pictures of grandmothers holding their ancient brass keys, etc. and it is clearly a moral decision. Several steps later you’re condoning punishing Jewish grade schools in the diaspora because “maybe they are connected with Israel” and having to make excuses or denials about Hamas and hostage taking and sexual assault and the shameless atrocities of October 7, atrocities that would be cited to “cancel Israel” if it ever did anything like it. At the end of your journey, you’re protesting a memorial to the victims of the Nova massacre and shouting “go back to Poland” to the Mizrahi refugees who fled to Israel from ethnic cleansing in Arab states, and the connections to the original moral revulsion on behalf of the Palestinians themselves of the West Bank and Gaza is almost completely attenuated. A tragedy.

It's also cherrypicking.

It's like claiming the problem with climate activism is they vandalize Stonehenge and vandalize famous artworks, therefore the whole movement is not credible and not on the right side of history, and we should just continue what we're doing, and pollute the planet. Because the activists are radicals that are not able to protest in a normal way...

[LAKISYLVANIA]

This is the problem with the progression of the pro-Palestinian cause. You start out with a strong sense of justice provoked by the settlers’ behavior in the West Bank and the obvious injustice there, then you see pictures of grandmothers holding their ancient brass keys, etc. and it is clearly a moral decision. Several steps later you’re condoning punishing Jewish grade schools in the diaspora because “maybe they are connected with Israel” and having to make excuses or denials about Hamas and hostage taking and sexual assault and the shameless atrocities of October 7, atrocities that would be cited to “cancel Israel” if it ever did anything like it. At the end of your journey, you’re protesting a memorial to the victims of the Nova massacre and shouting “go back to Poland” to the Mizrahi refugees who fled to Israel from ethnic cleansing in Arab states, and the connections to the original moral revulsion on behalf of the Palestinians themselves of the West Bank and Gaza is almost completely attenuated. A tragedy.

I am constantly told that the vast, vast majority of the Jewish diaspora has a deep, heartfelt connection with Israel and are ardent Zionists. I am also told by these same people that questioning whether or not a diaspora Jewish organization, school etc has a deep, heartfelt connection to Israel is antisemitic and uses the dual loyalty trope. If Zionism is so widespread and engrained in the worldwide Jewish community, then assuming the school has a deep, heartfelt connection with Israel is a safe bet, no?

Eta I don't personally believe this. But to your average reasonably apolitical person, this is how it looks.

I mean, sure, people doing this will rationalize it by blaming the victims.

I could argue that civilian casualties in Gaza are ok because those civilians have a deep, heartfelt attachment to Hamas and see all Israelis as evil to be eradicated, but I don’t, because I’m not a f’ing ghoul.

I don't think you can argue that. That's justification of genocide.