Belgian lawmaker slammed for saying Zionists bankrolled Holocaust
The president of Belgium’s parliament condemned the actions of a lawmaker who said Zionists were responsible for the Holocaust and performed the quasi-Nazi quenelle gesture in parliament.
«I would like to reinforce my condemnation of these hateful acts,» Andre Flahaut said on Jan. 23 in reference to the actions of Laurent Louis, who on Jan. 16 said in parliament, «The Holocaust was set up and financed by the pioneers of Zionism.»
The Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, a new watchdog, pledged during its inaugural event to focus much of its activities on Louis, an independent member of the lower house of Belgium’s Federal Parliament.
«We do not wish to offer Laurent a podium,» Isaac Franco, the league’s vice president, said during the Jan. 27 event in Brussels. «But upon consulting the tens of thousands of visitors to his website, we see he represents a threat that needs to be confronted.»
The league’s president, Joel Rubinfeld, told JTA that Louis has a history of making anti-Semitic and revisionist statements on the Holocaust. Louis said recently that Israel was guilty of Nazi crimes against Palestinians. Last year he posed for pictures outside parliament while standing on an Israeli flag.
