An Imam at the Belgian parliament last week began reciting a verse from the Quran that explicitly calls on Muslims to kill and take Jews captive.
The Quran excerpt is verse 33:26 from the Al-Ahzab Surah (chapter). It translates to, “ And He brought down those from the People of the Book who supported the enemy alliance from their own strongholds, and cast horror into their hearts. You ‘believers’ killed some, and took others captive.”
Within the Quran, Jews are referred to as the “People of the Book.”
The event on Tuesday was not organized by the parliament, but rather at the initiative of Hasan Koyuncu, a member of parliament within the socialist party and vice president of the Francophone Parliament in Brussels, along with the Friends Of Brussels Association.
Performance led to widespread condemnations
MP Theo Francken, critical of the organizer of the event, posted on X, formerly Twitter, "This man invited that imam. He is deputy speaker of parliament. Can he stay that way?"
MP Darya Safai recalled her own detention in Tehran, "With the same chants as here in the Brussels parliament, we woke up every morning in the prison of the ayatollahs, were required to pray in our cell with the same words, and at the same time several Iranians were hanged to set an example to others. I managed to escape that prison alive, unlike many others, and it shocks me even more to hear the same thing here in Belgium, 24 years later, in the heart of Western democracy."
Secretary of State of the Brussels Capital region Nawal Ben Hamou left the event during the incident.
Israel's ambassador to Belgium Idit Rosenzweig commented on X that she is “absolutely horrified” over the incident. “He could have chosen anything else, not a frightening symbolic message to anyone who knows the Quran, straight from the parliament podium... in Brussels’ parliament, a city with 18,000 Jews who are already experiencing increased antisemitism and fear.”
The imam who recited the Surah is Qari Muhammad Ansar Norani.Absolutely horrified to discover that in Brussels Parliament, an invited Muslim preacher chose to recite parts of Surah "Al-Ahzab", a Surah about a battle between Muslims and Jews.This is a Surah that explicitly (verse 26) calls for the KILLING and TAKING CAPTIVE of Jews! In… pic.twitter.com/2jO7maJQrg
— Ambassador Idit Rosenzweig-Abu (@IditAbu) February 16, 2024
The President of the parliament, Rachid Madrane, responded to the incident on X, saying, "Parliament is the temple of nothing other than democracy. I will remind the organizer of this visit and the group leaders of this, and I will propose explicitly integrating respect for neutrality into the [parliament] regulations."
The Federal Deputy at the house of representatives, Ben Achour Malik, stated on X, "A parliament is a place of democracy. The place for a public debate where very different ideas confront each other. The perch of a parliament is not a place from which prayers can be recited, even during a chance visit."
“Belgium along with France lead the most pro-Hamas and anti-Israel line in all of Europe, and it’s no wonder that with them radical Islam is rampant,” Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli told The Jerusalem Post. “Turning their back on Israel has been clarified as a difficult strategic mistake.”
Chikli added that he hopes that the pro-Hamas government would be changed in the future for one that champions western values.
Between October 7 and December 7, Belgium’s anti-discrimination agency, UNIA, registered 91 reported incidents related to the conflict, far exceeding the 57 recorded for all of 2022. Of the 91 incidents, 66 were antisemitic in nature, and eight were anti-Islamic or anti-Arab.
Belgium’s 29,000 Jews are primarily based in Brussels and Antwerp, according to the World Jewish Congress.