(Brussels, January 10, 2024) – The European Jewish Congress strongly condemns the statement made by Belgian Minister of Development Cooperation and Major Cities, Caroline Gennez who compared the actions of the State of Israel in its conflict with Hamas to the horrors committed by the Nazis in an interview with the Flemish news magazine ‘Knack.’
Engaging in Holocaust trivialisation goes against the fundamental values of European democracies and undermines the IHRA working definition against antisemitism, of which Belgium has been a signatory since 2018.
The use of the Holocaust, the systematic and planned slaughter of the Jewish people, resulting in the deaths of six million Jews, as a point of attempted comparison is an outrage and has no place in the discourse of any politician, let alone a minister of a country that is holding the presidency of the Council of the European Union.
