In antisemitism row, Belgian PM slams honor for filmmaker Loach

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel has criticized one of the country’s leading universities over its plan to honor British film director Ken Loach, following complaints that it has overlooked his antisemitism.

“No accommodation with antisemitism can be tolerated, whatever its form,” he said in a speech at Brussels Grand Synagogue on Wednesday, marking the 70th anniversary of Israel’s founding. “And that also goes for my own alma mater.”

Michel, 42, studied law at the Free University of Brussels. It has stood by plans to award Loach an honorary doctorate on Thursday after the 81-year-old director of 2016 Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake denied accusations that his longtime support for Palestinians was in any way antisemitic.

The row in Belgium comes as the British Labour Party under left-winger Jeremy Corbyn, for whom Loach has been a vocal supporter, is battling allegations of antisemitism.

The European Jewish Congress has expressed shock at the decision by the Free University of Brussels to grant an honorary doctorate to Loach.

“The decision to honor Ken Loach in this way can only be seen as an endorsement of someone who has played fast and loose with the historical record to the point of trivializing the Holocaust and transferring blame from the perpetrators to the victims,” EJC president Dr. Moshe Kantor said.

The EJC has called on the rector of the Free University of Brussels, Dr. Yvon Englert, to revoke the decision to honor Loach and to commit instead to fighting all forms of antisemitism.

It has been joined by both the Coordinating Committee of Belgian Jewish organizations and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, who have urged the university to reconsider this decision by explaining several times that Loach’s actions are incompatible with his words and with the values that the university seeks to promote.

“Not only has Mr. Loach constantly undermined efforts to combat antisemitism in the UK, he has consciously and repeatedly shown contempt for free speech and democracy,” Kantor said. “From the time he assisted in the production of the play Perdition, which spread the lie that the Zionist movement collaborated with the Nazis in World War II, and right up to last week, when he called for MPs to be purged from the Labour Party for attending a protest against antisemitism.”

“The insidious claim that Jews fabricate their own oppression for personal gain is in itself an antisemitic trope that is sadly prevalent in political discourse today,” he added.