Over twelve thousand pro-Palestinian protesters thronged the streets of Brussels Sunday afternoon as Belgium’s Islamic community and left-wing groups marched against the EU’s perceived double standards towards the ongoing Gaza crisis.
Shouts of “Allahu Akbar” were heard outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels as protestors gathered at 2 p.m. at the Schumann roundabout to call for a ceasefire and the initiation of sanctions against the Israeli state.
The event was organised by the Belgian-Palestinian Association with attendees primarily from the city’s large Muslim population of Moroccan and Turkish origin. Transgender activists from socialist groupings could be seen distributing pro-Palestinian material to the largely Muslim crowd at Schuman roundabout as protestors climbed up scaffolding and traffic lights to erect Palestinian flags in front of the EU headquarters.
While multiple pro-Palestinian demonstrations across Western Europe have been marred by extremist rhetoric and symbolism there were no incidents at the event except for small verbal disputes between organisers and attendees at the start of the march around the flying of flags belonging to political parties.
Despite organisers claiming 40,000 attendees, this figure was subsequently revised down to 12,000 by Belgian authorities. A variety of human rights groups and Palestinian advocates took to the stage to decry Israel and the EU’s handling of the crisis.
Specific ire was kept for Commission President Ursula von der Leyen who was referred to as a “warmonger” in a variety of speeches in French, Flemish, and Arabic. While no MEPs spoke on stage at the rally, Belgian MP Darya Safai criticised certain chants at the rally as supporting the destruction of Israel.
The EU’s response to the war in Gaza has been lambasted for inconsistency as various officials rebelled against a pro-Israel policy line spearheaded by von der Leyen.
Sunday’s Brussels protest was part of a weekend of wider protests by Palestinian solidarity groups with the French left accused of running cover for pro-Hamas militants as demonstrations reached Paris. By far the largest and most disturbing demonstrations were held in London Sunday as an estimated 100,000 rallied against recent Israel actions in Gaza. Police pressure led to the cancellation of a pro-Israel rally in a Jewish area of North London following a spike in antisemitic hate crimes.
European foreign ministers are meeting in Luxembourg today with fears of an Islamist backlash in Europe in response to Israel’s counteroffensive reaching the top of the agenda. Only last week, the European capital was struck by an Islamist terror attack with the killing of two Swedish tourists by a failed Tunisian asylum seeker.
