A junior police officer in Belgium is facing dismissal after saying he would kill “each and every Jew” during a debate on Facebook this past Friday.
“The word Jew itself is dirty. If I were in Israel, frankly, I would do to the Jews what they do with the Palestinians — slaughter each and every one of them,” wrote the officer, who was only referred to as Mohamed N. in Belgian media.
The debate quickly spiraled as the officer ignored requests from others in the discussion to tone down his statements, according to a report in Belgian paper Le Soir.
The officer was going by the pseudonym Bebeto Gladiateur.
“If this is true, this gentleman will see the door. There is no question about it,” Le Soir quoted Molenbeek Mayor Françoise Schepmans as saying. “The guardians of the peace assume a role of mediation in the community. They are the image of communal authority. His words shocked me… I cannot tolerate such an attitude of a communal agent.”
Belgian reports indicated that the officer was going to be dismissed by the police and that the dismissal process had already started.
“It will be done according to procedure,” Schepmans said.
“There are two things particularly questionable about this case,” said Joël Rubinfeld, president of the Belgian League against Anti-Semitism (LBCA). “Firstly, [there is] the fact that a ‘guardian of the peace’ would publicly speak something that is so antithetical to the values he is supposed to embody, promote and defend. Secondly, there is the anti-Semitic speech that I am concerned expresses itself increasingly uninhibitedly in certain circles.”
Rubinfeld has warned in the past that rising anti-Semitism is spurring an exodus from Belgium. Last year, a veteran of the Syrian civil war opened fire at the Brussels Jewish Museum, murdering four people.