Belgium: Israeli Ambassador talk cancelled because of threats by Hamas

Unusual news: Hamas threatening violence in Belgium

The talk Ms. Tamar Samash, the Israeli Ambassador to Belgium and who is a French-speaker, was scheduled to give at Thuin on Tuesday has been cancelled because of terrorist threats by Hamas and a far left group, the PTB.

The authorities (Socialist Party) declared that they had decided to call off the event for security reasons because public order could not be guaranteed. As a token of good faith and open-mindedness, the mayor indicated that a Palestinian week had been organised in the city ... which one can only assume went off peacefully.

It seems that the authors of the threats have been identified, and that they had already caused trouble in Charleroi during a pro-Hamas demonstration last month.

Carine Beghain, one of the conference organisers, deplored the Mayor's decision to cave in to terrorist threats : "Poor Belgium, where are you heading to !", she exclaimed. And she added "Because threats have been proffered, people cannot express themselves in this country. It's shocking that some people import the conflict here. We invited the Ambassador to find out what her country's position is and, as we always do, there would have been a debate with the audience. This debate has been confiscated !"

Source: article in Sud Presse (in French)

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Photo taken during a pro-Hamas rally in Brussels on 11 January.