Following the River Until It Turns to Blood: Media Pressure, Cowardly Politics, and the Normalization of Antisemitism

Picture: Mathias Diependale, Minister-President Flanders (wikipedia)

For more than a century, The Centrale has asked Belgium’s leaders for a simple Rosh Hashana greeting to the country’s Jewish citizens. A sentence or two of goodwill — nothing more. This year, even that became radioactive. The exchange that followed shows how media pressure now steers politics — how officials drift with the current until, as history warns, the river turns to blood.

Let’s be blunt. The present incentive structure rewards performative caution and punishes moral clarity. On Israel, too much of the public discourse has become an assembly line of euphemism; Hamas is too often anything but what it is. In that climate, even a New Year greeting to a Jewish magazine is treated like plutonium. Instead of leadership, we get choreography.

Belgium is a regionalised state; for readers abroad, that matters. In Flanders, the Minister‑President holds a role constitutionally on par with a Prime Minister. This summer we extended our routine invitation for a brief Rosh Hashana message. What we received — twice — deserves to be read closely.

Exhibit A: Say Nothing, Call It “Sensitivity”

From: Cabinet of Matthias Diependaele — Minister‑President of the Government of Flanders and Flemish Minister of Economy, Innovation and Industry; Foreign Affairs; Digitalisation; and Facilities Management.

“Thank you very much for your kind request and for drawing attention to the special edition on the occasion of the Jewish New Year. We already wish you every success with the publication and appreciate your efforts to shape this initiative.

After internal deliberation, we regret to inform you that, given the current situation and sensitivities concerning the tensions in the Middle East, we cannot follow up on your request. Anything that bears even the slightest connection to this conflict is being closely monitored and examined under a magnifying glass.

For that reason, we do not deem it opportune to go into this any further. We hope for your understanding of this decision and thank you once again for your engagement.

Kind regards,
Cabinet of Matthias Diependaele”

Read it again. An entire paragraph of posture to convey a single message: we will not greet Jewish citizens because the optics might offend the gatekeepers. This is the vocabulary of drift — “sensitivities”, “magnifying glass”, “not opportune”. We were then told the Minister‑President was on holiday and “unaware,” despite the letter claiming it came “after internal deliberation.” The river curved; the boat swiveled.

Exhibit B: Say Nothing, Rebrand It as Principle

Matthias Diependaele — Minister‑President of the Government of Flanders and Flemish Minister of Economy, Innovation and Industry; Foreign Affairs; Digitalisation; and Facilities Management.

“I was informed that an uproar has arisen because of my refusal to accede to the request below. In light of this, I would like to correct something.

My refusal is not driven by the situation in the Middle East, as was incorrectly presented in the message below from my cabinet. I would like to share my personal motivation.

My refusal is purely based on the principle that, for more than 15 years in my role as a representative of the people, I have not supported religious activities. I have also never accepted invitations for the Muslim ‘Sugar Feast’ (Eid). I have also never taken part in a Te Deum for Catholics. And so on.

By this I am in no way passing judgment on any religion or on the people who practice it. It is, however, my conviction that no religion — including my own — has any role to play in the exercise of my mandate.

I hope I may count on your reciprocal respect for this.

Kind regards,
Matthias Diependaele
Minister‑President of the Government of Flanders and Flemish Minister of Economy, Innovation and Industry; Foreign Affairs; Digitalisation; and Facilities Management.”

From “too sensitive right now” to “timeless principle.” Same destination, new costume. The first letter admits the truth — fear of optics. The second attempts to launder that fear into lofty secularism. The giveaway is the sloppiness: an incomplete sentence and a retrofitted 15‑year “doctrine.” This is choreography masquerading as conscience: drift with the current, then claim you were anchored all along.

A Founder Who Knew the Cost of Drift: Nico Gunzburg

The Centrale was founded in 1920 by Nico Gunzburg, a Jewish jurist who introduced the Flemish language into Belgian courts and became a prominent figure in the Flemish movement after World War I. He believed — radically for his time — that linguistic justice and civic equality strengthen a nation. When the Holocaust came, Gunzburg fled. He later returned to a country that struggled to face the full record of those years.

What would he say now, confronted with a government that finds it “not opportune” to greet Jewish citizens on their New Year? Gunzburg’s life answers for him: civic respect is not a concession from the state; it is a duty. When leaders treat Jewish visibility as a liability, they are not neutral; they are following the current.

Receipts from the Tracks: The Railways That Carried Our People

History is not abstract. During the Nazi occupation, Belgian national railways were paid — at the tariff of four pfennigs per kilometre per Jew — to transport deportees to their deaths. The Centrale has repeatedly brought this matter to public attention. To this day, authorities have refused compensation — not even returning the roughly €50 million (current‑value equivalent) the railways received from the Nazis for those transports.

Silence here is not prudence; it is policy. It signals that the state can benefit from collaboration’s proceeds without transparent reckoning. The same political class that pleads “sensitivities” about a greeting finds no urgency to settle accounts from the trains that left Belgian stations with Belgian guards on Belgian timetables.

The Museums’ Quiet: Nazi‑Looted Jewish Art Still on Belgian Walls

There is also the unresolved question of Nazi‑looted Jewish art still held in Belgian museums — works believed to be worth billions. Provenance research is slow, fragmented, and too often opaque. Families age. Files gather dust. Justice deferred becomes justice denied.

When governments cannot bring themselves to issue a simple greeting without hedging, what hope for complex restitution that demands resources, candour, and courage? Delay is a decision — and it accrues to the benefit of institutions, not to the heirs of theft and murder.

The Cost of Silence — Then and Now

Too many leaders in and around our community still choose discretion as a shield, as if invisibility could substitute for rights. It never has. The 1930s taught us that silence invites the next step. Today’s “not opportune” becomes tomorrow’s “not recommended,” and then “not permitted.” The river of euphemism looks calm until it doesn’t.

Let’s also be precise about language.

• Hamas is a terrorist organization that slaughtered civilians and still holds hostages.
• Hostages must be released — now.
• A Rosh Hashana greeting to Jewish citizens is normal governance, not a sectarian ritual.

None of this requires a focus group. It requires a spine.

What Leadership Looks Like (It Isn’t Hard)

• Issue the greeting — without choreography or caveat. You greet your citizens because they are yours.
• Say the plain words — Hamas is terrorist; hostages home now. Not “both‑sides” platitudes; clear sentences with clear subjects.
• Open the files and finish the work — on the railways’ wartime payments and on the provenance of museum holdings — and publish a timeline to resolution.
• Drop the euphemisms — “sensitivity” is not a policy; it’s a sedative.
• Stand still in the current — media pressure shifts hourly; duty does not.

The Moral of the Two Letters

The Cabinet’s first letter said the quiet part out loud; the Minister‑President’s second tried to stuff it back in the envelope. Both end in the same place: do nothing, say nothing. That may keep you dry for a news cycle. It leaves others — your Jewish citizens — standing alone in a flood.

We know the pattern. We know the cost. And we have the receipts — two official texts, bearing the full title of the highest office in Flanders, explaining first why a greeting to Jews is “not opportune”, and then why it was “never about that” at all. Add to this the unsettled accounts of the railways and the unreturned art, and the through‑line becomes impossible to miss.

It is time to step out of the current — before it turns to blood.