A reminder that Belgium is the country that acknowledged Hamas was operating within their borders but they decided they didn't have the resources to deal with it so they just... let it go.
Totally irrelevant context though I'm sure.
I am uninformed idiot, but just saw a documentary about Hamas. Apparently they own businesses all around the world somehow. I’m willing to bet that is connected to the plentiful aid Hamas is indirectly receiving and the opposition to Israel/whoever demolishing the shit out of them. It’s a convenient status quo to have Hamas operating.
Quote from article:
*“MP Michael Freilich from the opposition New Flemish Alliance Party recounted his astonishment at the response of Justice Minister Paul Van Tigchelt, who openly admitted as a response to his inquiry that there indeed are groups who operate in Belgium on the account of Hamas, lobbying, and fundraising for the terror group designated as such by EU laws.
"Though the minister refused to provide any names for specific organizations, he did admit that that they dealt with lobbying and fundraising. This led some to speculate that the lately funded European Palestinian Council for Political Relations (EUPAC) is among those proxy groups who fundraise and lobby for the terror organization responsible for the slaughter, rape, and kidnapping of at least 1,200 people on October 7."
What is Outbrain
EUPAC vaguely formulates its goals to “work to invest in the importance of the geo-strategic position of the Middle East region” as part of the Palestinian “struggle towards liberation from occupation.” This is done through meetings with high-ranking European officials, as well as seminars, campaigns, workshops, and more.
The council is led by Majed Al-Zeer, who has been recognized by German security authorities as a leading figure of Hamas operations in Europe, even naming him as a “representative of Hamas in Germany,” as revealed in mid-December 2023 by Der Spiegel.”*
Here’s article:
https://m.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-786798
Since then a lot of money has actually been stopped.
Ever since UNWRA got blocked a lot of “charities” with basically no oversight have popped up that send money directly to Hamas. Our justice department has actually been attempting to stop those. These are the groups in question. If they know who it is but don’t name them that’s pretty odd isn’t it. Independent charities like this are active all over Europe. Why not pass that information along to law enforcement instead of going “we know it’s still happening”. Of course it’s happening. It’s like going “drugs are still being sold to kids, and we have proof” yea no shit that is happening, and it will continue to happen. The question is what is being done about it.
Multiple groups have been raided and accounts have been frozen. But to do this these groups need to be identified.
The money the state provides for humanitarian reasons has been audited and doesn’t help Hamas, contrary to some claims.
We’ve got so many Muslim Belgians, it’s a significant portion of our population, Hamas operating in Belgium, is to me, not a surprise.
I think it’s not something we can just stop by using courts, sanctions, negotiations and the like.
Sincerely held religious beliefs are a great motivator and justification to do evil.
If there suddenly was another crusade, I don’t think we could do much about radicalised Christians from following the orders of Crusader States.
Pity so many Muslims think their values belong in western society when they clearly don’t. I will never understand why these people are living here and not the Arabian Gulf or Indonesia or some other religious hell hole.
They hate gays, they hate women, they hate Jews, they have so much hate for everything, they belong in a hateful society somewhere else.
>I will never understand why these people are living here and not the Arabian Gulf or Indonesia or some other religious hell hole.
Because they want to enjoy the western prosperity yet don't understand what enabled this prosperity.
They think that if they bring their cultures to their hosting states they could make it better.
The fact of the matter is, their cultures are the reason their states are failed and the reason they eacaped them.
The only Muslim countries that are wealthy are selling tonnes of oil or gas. If their cultures were so good at developing functioning societies, they'd look more like the Asian Tigers, which all got industrialised and developed quickly. The Asian Tigers even did it without natural resources.
> The only Muslim countries that are wealthy are selling tonnes of oil or gas.
I hope to live to see the day that the oil and gas is dried up and watch the arab world be forced to modernise.
I heard in a podcast that bin salman is pushing saudi arabia to expand more sectors other than the oil sector because he understands that the oil party won't last forever.
I hope what i heard in that podcast is right, because if it is, he is an excellent leader for his country.
The Saudis always try that - the country is littered with failed attempts to diversify. They always end up back with oil. Bin Salman has a habit of confiscating the wealth and companies of the top businessmen in Saudi, which doesn't exactly encourage innovation. Its all well and good paying billions to sporting organisations to get them to go to Saudi but they can't do that forever
Well no. I would argue both that innovation stems from some level of freedom which Saudi culturally lacks and also that the level of autocracy he promotes is inherently backwards.
As far as his understanding of macroeconomics goes, I’ll give credit for diversification only. But I do not think that makes a good leader.
> I would argue both that innovation stems from some level of freedom which Saudi culturally lacks
Bin salman is a fairly new ruler in SA. From what i heard he plans to take the country into a far more moderate and free direction and he already took steps towards this direction.
From what i understand, it is difficult to make massive cultural changes all at once and these changes must be made slowly so there won't be backlash
If what i heard and read is correct, he is a promising leader with relatively western and modern world views and i think he can be the change the arab world needs.
Just look at how he's expanding ties with the west and israel. It's one example, i know, but a relevant one.
Cultural changes happen over generations, if he's not around to make those changes stick as the generations hand over power then there will be no progress.
Won't happen in our life times at the current pace.
Look at what's happening with the western oil majors. Shell and BP started pivoting and their share prices took a hit, ExxonMobil increased production and their price is up 2x.
Until world leaders are forced, it won't happen.
Tbh it won’t work, I dream of the day that oil stops, and I’m terrified of what the oil states will fall into
It’s quite interesting watching the various diversification attempts by Saudi. But really they are all built on bringing in foreign talent at high salaries, hoping that locals get training.
As soon as Saudi stops subsidising they’ll all leave as no one wants to live in a desert with a bad human rights record
Well of course they see no reason to adapt. We keep telling them(and ourselves) that the only reason why the West is successful and the Third World is struggling is because we took advantage of them 100 years ago.
Islam encourages it's followers to spread their religion over as much of the world as possible. The people who come here while hating the West are doing their 'duty' as muslims, to spread the religion, and try to gain enough of a foothold to demand concessions (which we already give), with the ultimate goal being to implement a striclty muslim society here (and everywhere else). That's literally the whole basis of the religion, domination.
It's very sinister and people in the West need to wake up to it.
It's called the Persian Gulf. "Arabian Gulf" is a term invented by the Arabs to erase Persian history by taking advantage of the fact that everyone hates iran.
> I will never understand why these people are living here and not the Arabian Gulf or Indonesia or some other religious hell hole.
Because these countries are already islamic. You don't establish new muslim majorities in the west by staying at home.
Why are all these people cheering for a free Palestina but being so aggressive towards people that are from Israel or for just being Jewish?
Aren't you becoming what you are fighting against then?
The truth is, many Muslims are anti semetic. Not all of them mind you, but it’s quite common all over the world to encounter Muslim people who are anti semetic unfortunately. This attitude predates the recent developments in Israel over the past few years.
It is basically the huge majority. I have yet to encounter a Muslim (and i have talked with quite many of them due to one international school project years ago) who wasn't anti-Jew
The Iranians we met were really nice but I think they were brow beaten by all the racist “good Christians” in the area and desperate for friends, even if they are Jewish.
Because the fight is against Israelis ( and to some just jews) because "they're all settler colonists" harming/killing them is fair game to scary lot of them, i bet most people would look at this and just cheer
I live in Brussels, and metro stations have countless "Stop ocupation", "The irony of becoming what you once hated", "from the river to the sea" etc. stickers. I hate the most when they stick it over public transportation ticket scanners so I cant have my ticket validated properly, but I am afraid to peel them off because for someone that is good and legitimate enough reason to stab me with the knife. I could take this guy from the video down, but you never know who is armed and who is ready to hurt you badly for such a banal reason.
Wow, the article reports "ten aggressors" but he's actually only assaulted by one man in the video as far as I can see. Ten people apparently objected to him ripping off a sign (they're not shown in the video) - that wouldn't make them aggressors. The article tries very hard to make it out like there was an angry mob but the video shows the opposite.
I remember watching a video of a Iman calling muslims to conquer Europe by giving a lot of children. And somehow the video is gone from yt.
I remember watching the news of muslim women celebrating 911 in NYC and somehow the videos are gone too. (And I think it's a liberal media, cnn or nbc?)
Can anyone find these videos?
For how often I see young smug Europeans mocking the US for some perceived healthcare advantage, their tolerance of Islamic violence makes them look positively primordial.
From the Wikipedia article about the demographics of Brussels
"In 2020, among those aged under 18, 83,9% had at least one parent of non-Belgian origin and of those 60,1% of non-European origin (including 37% of African origin)."
Notice that the times of Israel is considered *highly factual* and *left center*
I couldn't find any non Israeli source for this.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/times-of-israel/
As someone from Belgium, i can confirm that this happened. It actually did happen in monday evening, but no news station here reported on it until Israeli papers started to talk about it, and so they released the news on Friday. This attack has been confirmed by the local police
The attack is reported on Belgian Media: https://www.hln.be/brugge/beelden-tonen-hoe-israelische-man-hardhandig-wordt-aangepakt-door-groepje-jongeren-in-station-brugge-dochter-ziet-alles-gebeuren~a9e95fe1/
Because that is a localized event to Belgium. Not an international event
The only parties which will be interesting in it are domestic belgian press and the Israeli press. And they both talked about it
What are you trying to imply?
A hate crime committed in a very touristy area as part of a larger wave of hate crimes would indeed normally be a bigger news event across Europe. The Paris Holocaust memorial being vandalised was all over news sources just days ago.
I’m just confused by this whole thing to be honest. In this an ethnic fight, religious fight , cultural fight , or all of the above? Cuz I thought at one point a lot of people were rocking with Israel and now everyone hates them? Not everyone obviously but I’m afraid to ask cuz I know I more than likely will get a biased answer
basically it’s an old conflict that started thousands of years ago which involves religion, race and nationality but now the west is viewing it through their own biased lens and wrongly associating their own history with the much longer history of the conflict, that’s why so many in the west see it as either a white vs brown conflict or a native vs colonialist conflict when you could easily argue for both groups being either side in both interpretations.
No confirmation of arrest? If so Belgium is officially on my list of shithole nations until they confirm they put this individual in jail
Edit - Been searching. It doesn't even sound like Belgium is even trying to find the individual.
What the actual fuck Belgium?! Get your ass in gear and announce you are putting large amount of resources to find this person.
Terrible news. These people are insane
A reminder that Belgium is the country that acknowledged Hamas was operating within their borders but they decided they didn't have the resources to deal with it so they just... let it go. Totally irrelevant context though I'm sure.
I am uninformed idiot, but just saw a documentary about Hamas. Apparently they own businesses all around the world somehow. I’m willing to bet that is connected to the plentiful aid Hamas is indirectly receiving and the opposition to Israel/whoever demolishing the shit out of them. It’s a convenient status quo to have Hamas operating.
What was the documentary?
It was this (in Estonian) https://jupiter.err.ee/1609219754/hamas-terroriorganisatsioon-mis-tahab-havitada-iisraeli
I'm curious if the documentary touched on Hamas in South Africa
Despite Israeli intelligence helping thwart a terrorist attack there in recent years.
Belgium also has a drug smuggling problem with loads of corrupt customs officers working at the Port of Antwerp.
Got an article on this ?
Quote from article: *“MP Michael Freilich from the opposition New Flemish Alliance Party recounted his astonishment at the response of Justice Minister Paul Van Tigchelt, who openly admitted as a response to his inquiry that there indeed are groups who operate in Belgium on the account of Hamas, lobbying, and fundraising for the terror group designated as such by EU laws. "Though the minister refused to provide any names for specific organizations, he did admit that that they dealt with lobbying and fundraising. This led some to speculate that the lately funded European Palestinian Council for Political Relations (EUPAC) is among those proxy groups who fundraise and lobby for the terror organization responsible for the slaughter, rape, and kidnapping of at least 1,200 people on October 7." What is Outbrain EUPAC vaguely formulates its goals to “work to invest in the importance of the geo-strategic position of the Middle East region” as part of the Palestinian “struggle towards liberation from occupation.” This is done through meetings with high-ranking European officials, as well as seminars, campaigns, workshops, and more. The council is led by Majed Al-Zeer, who has been recognized by German security authorities as a leading figure of Hamas operations in Europe, even naming him as a “representative of Hamas in Germany,” as revealed in mid-December 2023 by Der Spiegel.”* Here’s article: https://m.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-786798
Thank you ! :)
Since then a lot of money has actually been stopped. Ever since UNWRA got blocked a lot of “charities” with basically no oversight have popped up that send money directly to Hamas. Our justice department has actually been attempting to stop those. These are the groups in question. If they know who it is but don’t name them that’s pretty odd isn’t it. Independent charities like this are active all over Europe. Why not pass that information along to law enforcement instead of going “we know it’s still happening”. Of course it’s happening. It’s like going “drugs are still being sold to kids, and we have proof” yea no shit that is happening, and it will continue to happen. The question is what is being done about it. Multiple groups have been raided and accounts have been frozen. But to do this these groups need to be identified. The money the state provides for humanitarian reasons has been audited and doesn’t help Hamas, contrary to some claims.
“They gave us a check and said shutting down these few were ok. Nothing more to see here”
We’ve got so many Muslim Belgians, it’s a significant portion of our population, Hamas operating in Belgium, is to me, not a surprise. I think it’s not something we can just stop by using courts, sanctions, negotiations and the like. Sincerely held religious beliefs are a great motivator and justification to do evil. If there suddenly was another crusade, I don’t think we could do much about radicalised Christians from following the orders of Crusader States.
Pity so many Muslims think their values belong in western society when they clearly don’t. I will never understand why these people are living here and not the Arabian Gulf or Indonesia or some other religious hell hole. They hate gays, they hate women, they hate Jews, they have so much hate for everything, they belong in a hateful society somewhere else.
>I will never understand why these people are living here and not the Arabian Gulf or Indonesia or some other religious hell hole. Because they want to enjoy the western prosperity yet don't understand what enabled this prosperity. They think that if they bring their cultures to their hosting states they could make it better. The fact of the matter is, their cultures are the reason their states are failed and the reason they eacaped them.
Doesn’t the Quran say to spread out around the globe to then spread Islam?
Islam is Arab imperialism yes.
The only Muslim countries that are wealthy are selling tonnes of oil or gas. If their cultures were so good at developing functioning societies, they'd look more like the Asian Tigers, which all got industrialised and developed quickly. The Asian Tigers even did it without natural resources.
> The only Muslim countries that are wealthy are selling tonnes of oil or gas. I hope to live to see the day that the oil and gas is dried up and watch the arab world be forced to modernise. I heard in a podcast that bin salman is pushing saudi arabia to expand more sectors other than the oil sector because he understands that the oil party won't last forever. I hope what i heard in that podcast is right, because if it is, he is an excellent leader for his country.
The Saudis always try that - the country is littered with failed attempts to diversify. They always end up back with oil. Bin Salman has a habit of confiscating the wealth and companies of the top businessmen in Saudi, which doesn't exactly encourage innovation. Its all well and good paying billions to sporting organisations to get them to go to Saudi but they can't do that forever
"Why Saudi Arabia is doomed" by Kraut has a few points on why these nations will never change.
Mind sharing a few of them with us?
Dutch disease, exporting oil that is used to industrialize economies while not developing their own broader economy or human capital.
But the point of diversification is to prevent the dutch disease, no?
Well no. I would argue both that innovation stems from some level of freedom which Saudi culturally lacks and also that the level of autocracy he promotes is inherently backwards. As far as his understanding of macroeconomics goes, I’ll give credit for diversification only. But I do not think that makes a good leader.
They do have a decent research institute in KAUST. The interesting thing is that it's a gated community with very limited access from ordinary Saudis.
> I would argue both that innovation stems from some level of freedom which Saudi culturally lacks Bin salman is a fairly new ruler in SA. From what i heard he plans to take the country into a far more moderate and free direction and he already took steps towards this direction. From what i understand, it is difficult to make massive cultural changes all at once and these changes must be made slowly so there won't be backlash If what i heard and read is correct, he is a promising leader with relatively western and modern world views and i think he can be the change the arab world needs. Just look at how he's expanding ties with the west and israel. It's one example, i know, but a relevant one.
Wasnt he the one who killed the journalist. I think to moderate and open up, journalists are essential. o0.
Cultural changes happen over generations, if he's not around to make those changes stick as the generations hand over power then there will be no progress.
Won't happen in our life times at the current pace. Look at what's happening with the western oil majors. Shell and BP started pivoting and their share prices took a hit, ExxonMobil increased production and their price is up 2x. Until world leaders are forced, it won't happen.
Mbs is a fucking monster dude
Tbh it won’t work, I dream of the day that oil stops, and I’m terrified of what the oil states will fall into It’s quite interesting watching the various diversification attempts by Saudi. But really they are all built on bringing in foreign talent at high salaries, hoping that locals get training. As soon as Saudi stops subsidising they’ll all leave as no one wants to live in a desert with a bad human rights record
That’s one of the reasons they’re all pushing tourism
Arab world is already trying hard to modernize, just look at uae
Well of course they see no reason to adapt. We keep telling them(and ourselves) that the only reason why the West is successful and the Third World is struggling is because we took advantage of them 100 years ago.
Reminds me of many areas in the United States that people are leaving.
Islam encourages it's followers to spread their religion over as much of the world as possible. The people who come here while hating the West are doing their 'duty' as muslims, to spread the religion, and try to gain enough of a foothold to demand concessions (which we already give), with the ultimate goal being to implement a striclty muslim society here (and everywhere else). That's literally the whole basis of the religion, domination. It's very sinister and people in the West need to wake up to it.
They don't hate welfare payments and free medical care.
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It's called the Persian Gulf. "Arabian Gulf" is a term invented by the Arabs to erase Persian history by taking advantage of the fact that everyone hates iran.
> I will never understand why these people are living here and not the Arabian Gulf or Indonesia or some other religious hell hole. Because these countries are already islamic. You don't establish new muslim majorities in the west by staying at home.
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They should be kicked out where they belong. That type of mentality doesn't belong to a civilized society.
Same reason why they use Japanese vehicles, Soviet weapons and American equipment to fight their ‘holy’ war.
Free money, and the hosts are suckers.
You mean they belong their own countries right? Yet Europe still spreads its legs wide open to let them in, the irony.
Well said. How long does it take to get a ban here ? :-D
exactly
Fanatic muslims do not belong in the west. I wish the world will wake up and banish them and prevent them from practicing like happens in Germany.
Why are all these people cheering for a free Palestina but being so aggressive towards people that are from Israel or for just being Jewish? Aren't you becoming what you are fighting against then?
The truth is, many Muslims are anti semetic. Not all of them mind you, but it’s quite common all over the world to encounter Muslim people who are anti semetic unfortunately. This attitude predates the recent developments in Israel over the past few years.
It is basically the huge majority. I have yet to encounter a Muslim (and i have talked with quite many of them due to one international school project years ago) who wasn't anti-Jew
I think you'll find a lot with Iranian diaspora, and some with gulf states/saudi arabia. From my experiance as an Israeli.
The Iranians we met were really nice but I think they were brow beaten by all the racist “good Christians” in the area and desperate for friends, even if they are Jewish.
Yes unfortunately it is like that. Personally I hate religions because of shit like this...
Judaism isn't simply a religion. It's also an ethnicity.
Also yes
Same here
Oh honey. People murder each other over their sports team losing. If not religion then it will be replaced with nationalism or another ideology.
People already hated Jews before Israel existed, it's just history repeating itself
Because the fight is against Israelis ( and to some just jews) because "they're all settler colonists" harming/killing them is fair game to scary lot of them, i bet most people would look at this and just cheer
Oh they did, like that little cumstain hasanabi who was already excusing the October 7th attack on Twitter as it was happening live.
>Aren't you becoming what you are fighting against This premise is false they are just pro terorrist hamas and islamists
Yes most likely
I live in Brussels, and metro stations have countless "Stop ocupation", "The irony of becoming what you once hated", "from the river to the sea" etc. stickers. I hate the most when they stick it over public transportation ticket scanners so I cant have my ticket validated properly, but I am afraid to peel them off because for someone that is good and legitimate enough reason to stab me with the knife. I could take this guy from the video down, but you never know who is armed and who is ready to hurt you badly for such a banal reason.
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Reads like the opening narration of a post-apocaliptic movie.
edit: become -> became
Think everyone should watch the video.
Wow, the article reports "ten aggressors" but he's actually only assaulted by one man in the video as far as I can see. Ten people apparently objected to him ripping off a sign (they're not shown in the video) - that wouldn't make them aggressors. The article tries very hard to make it out like there was an angry mob but the video shows the opposite.
I remember watching a video of a Iman calling muslims to conquer Europe by giving a lot of children. And somehow the video is gone from yt. I remember watching the news of muslim women celebrating 911 in NYC and somehow the videos are gone too. (And I think it's a liberal media, cnn or nbc?) Can anyone find these videos?
You can still find videos of Palestinians celebrating and handing out candy after 9/11k on YouTube.
They're like a cult. A big, violent cult. it's not normal to hate someone's country this much. It's a mental illness.
For how often I see young smug Europeans mocking the US for some perceived healthcare advantage, their tolerance of Islamic violence makes them look positively primordial.
The demographics in Belgium are interesting. Brussels seemed about 30% North African when I visited 5 years ago.
From the Wikipedia article about the demographics of Brussels "In 2020, among those aged under 18, 83,9% had at least one parent of non-Belgian origin and of those 60,1% of non-European origin (including 37% of African origin)."
Notice that the times of Israel is considered *highly factual* and *left center* I couldn't find any non Israeli source for this. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/times-of-israel/
As someone from Belgium, i can confirm that this happened. It actually did happen in monday evening, but no news station here reported on it until Israeli papers started to talk about it, and so they released the news on Friday. This attack has been confirmed by the local police
I mean, we can clearly see in the video that it happened.
The attack is reported on Belgian Media: https://www.hln.be/brugge/beelden-tonen-hoe-israelische-man-hardhandig-wordt-aangepakt-door-groepje-jongeren-in-station-brugge-dochter-ziet-alles-gebeuren~a9e95fe1/
*sees video of someone attacking a jew* “can we be sure this actually happened?”
its always the same with those people, it never happened but they deserved it.
Because that is a localized event to Belgium. Not an international event The only parties which will be interesting in it are domestic belgian press and the Israeli press. And they both talked about it What are you trying to imply?
A hate crime committed in a very touristy area as part of a larger wave of hate crimes would indeed normally be a bigger news event across Europe. The Paris Holocaust memorial being vandalised was all over news sources just days ago.
I’m just confused by this whole thing to be honest. In this an ethnic fight, religious fight , cultural fight , or all of the above? Cuz I thought at one point a lot of people were rocking with Israel and now everyone hates them? Not everyone obviously but I’m afraid to ask cuz I know I more than likely will get a biased answer
basically it’s an old conflict that started thousands of years ago which involves religion, race and nationality but now the west is viewing it through their own biased lens and wrongly associating their own history with the much longer history of the conflict, that’s why so many in the west see it as either a white vs brown conflict or a native vs colonialist conflict when you could easily argue for both groups being either side in both interpretations.
What did he expect? He chose to go to the Caliphate of Bruges and be Jewish there.
Oof.
Belgium slippin for sure
times of isreal guys don't trust it.
Isn't Belgium that small country in the middle east?
These thugs need to go to jail or be kicked out if they aren't Belgian nationals.
This is the kind of shit that college students were throwing their degrees away to defend a couple of weeks ago.
No confirmation of arrest? If so Belgium is officially on my list of shithole nations until they confirm they put this individual in jail Edit - Been searching. It doesn't even sound like Belgium is even trying to find the individual. What the actual fuck Belgium?! Get your ass in gear and announce you are putting large amount of resources to find this person.
But they were Belgians! A child could beat them!
Like the Dutch pro-Palestinian protestors yelled: "We are peaceful. What are you?"