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The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

europeancorrespondent.com

191–200 of 377 posts

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#191
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's considered very anti-semitic in America to be against male genital mutilation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Defamation_League#Circumc... When Iceland tried to ban it, the ADL had some very choice words about the potential consequences. > Greenblatt sent Iceland's Parliament a letter regarding a proposed infant circumcision ban in that country, arguing that the ban should be rejected due to circumcision's r…

That isn't even the point though. The circumcision itself is perfectly legal in Belgium. The legal issue is with the lack of qualifications of the ones performing them in this case.

Certainly. The part I'm trying to draw light towards is American zionists' bizarre attitude towards circumcision and how eager they are to invoke claims of antisemitism when remotely challenged on it.

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#192
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US civil rights movement? Seriously? Different times different people. In the latest free speech crusade a rich guy just changed the kind of speech is allowed on his platform. Online speech is heavily restricted on US platforms, as accounts are shadow banned/rate limited/deleted all the time. What freedom of speech examples do you have that involve living people? Every single one freedom of speech fighter are fascist…

If you're not going to give reliable sources and at least point to a couple specific examples, then your comment means nothing. "in fact Europeans are significantly more informed on this", "US free speech seems to be performative". And then there's the, "Are you casting a spell?". You really think you did something there lol. Sources. Examples. Otherwise, you're just someone who can string together complete sentences…

Europeans are able to talk whatever they like about Gaza, WTF? Go Google Greta Thunberg, go research for the Gaza flotillas, go find the polls on the issue if you want sources.

What you can't do is to demand killing of the Jewish people and I like it stay like that. That's significantly more freedom than US where you can loose your career, government funding, you can get deported or visa denied etc. if you talk about the genocide in Gaza.

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#193
post #181

"The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting" Or reworded: "Belgian police stop our reporting simply because some foreign ambassador asked for it"

yeah this is called 'soft power'

I suspect if the Greek embassy had rented a park for an event, and then told diplomatic police that there was someone there they considered an active threat, much the same thing would have happened.

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a bit of context https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brit_milah#Metzitzah "In three medical papers done in Israel, Canada, and the US, oral suction following circumcision was suggested as a cause in 11 cases of neonatal herpes " lovely.

Nope nope nope. That's enough internet news for today thank you!

Exactly my thought… I just woke up

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#195

We elected a kakistocracy. The sane majority of us are sorry about this and the road back starts this fall. Please report about this at length. This is the risk you all face if you elect a bunch of ultra right wing nut jobs.

> kakistocracy

New vocab word, thanks. The word's been around for a while, so I guess there's some solace in knowing that this isn't the first time. Hopefully this is just a speed-bump to progress, and not a long-term decline.

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#196
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For context: he's accused Belgium of being anti-semitic because a couple of Orthodox Jewish mohels are being prosecuted for practicing illicit medicine (i.e. performing ritual circumcision without a medical license). The investigation started after a complaint was filed by a rabbi, so it's hard to chalk this up to anti-semitisim, but that's modern day US diplomacy for you.

[flagged]

Female circumcision is often more brutal, but I agree with the stance that any mutilation of children is bad.

No matter what you think about circumcision, elective surgeries should simply not be performed on children until they're old enough to make an informed decision about their own body.

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#197
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For context: he's accused Belgium of being anti-semitic because a couple of Orthodox Jewish mohels are being prosecuted for practicing illicit medicine (i.e. performing ritual circumcision without a medical license). The investigation started after a complaint was filed by a rabbi, so it's hard to chalk this up to anti-semitisim, but that's modern day US diplomacy for you.

It's considered very anti-semitic in America to be against male genital mutilation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Defamation_League#Circumc... When Iceland tried to ban it, the ADL had some very choice words about the potential consequences. > Greenblatt sent Iceland's Parliament a letter regarding a proposed infant circumcision ban in that country, arguing that the ban should be rejected due to circumcision's r…

> the ADL would report on any celebration by antisemites and other extremists, asserting that this would deter tourism and harm Iceland's economy

If everything is antisemitism then nothing is antisemitism.

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#198
post #175

"... a foreign government using local police to eject reporters over a single question from a public space turned private at the will of the American government is not a minor diplomatic awkwardness." The fact it's a public space is kind of irrelevant here, if the landowners (the city council, I guess) decide to temporarily allow private use. If some roads had been closed for film production use etc, the police would…

1.) The journalists were invited. 2.) The ambassador told the cops the journalists are an active threat. That was straightforwardly a lie. This was not "trespassing" event at all.

I don't particularly want to argue, but even if they were invited, if they were asked to leave it would still be trespassing.

We also only have their word for it that that's what they told the cops. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, there's no way of telling from what they've have chosen to present us.

Personally, I think it's suspicious that the interviewer was clearly recording their conversation on his phone that's inches from them, but we can't hear either the question or the response from the guy who seems to be asking them to leave them alone, we can only faintly hear the woman saying "no cameras, no cameras". The video then cuts and switches to the interviewer saying "well, no comment", but there are different people in frame, and personally I'd wonder how long they continued following and asking questions, and whether they were in fact asked to leave the event.

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#199
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not going to give reliable sources and at least point to a couple specific examples, then your comment means nothing. "in fact Europeans are significantly more informed on this", "US free speech seems to be performative". And then there's the, "Are you casting a spell?". You really think you did something there lol. Sources. Examples. Otherwise, you're just someone who can string together complete sentences…

Europeans are able to talk whatever they like about Gaza, WTF? Go Google Greta Thunberg, go research for the Gaza flotillas, go find the polls on the issue if you want sources. What you can't do is to demand killing of the Jewish people and I like it stay like that. That's significantly more freedom than US where you can loose your career, government funding, you can get deported or visa denied etc. if you talk about…

I say this in all seriousness: are you that ideologically brainwashed that you think Americans can't talk about Gaza whenever we like? Haha. Bud, stop living vicariously through headlines, touch grass, and understand that the headlines your wonderful algorithm is feeding is not real life....."WTF?"

Your last paragraph is a bit incoherent, so I don't know exactly how to respond, but no, I am not demanding the killing of Jewish people nor the killing of any Palestinian.

I can always tell when someone is off the rails in ideology because the picture they paint is so detached from reality that it doesn't hold under the most minor scrutiny.

That someone is you.

Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting

#200
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europeans are able to talk whatever they like about Gaza, WTF? Go Google Greta Thunberg, go research for the Gaza flotillas, go find the polls on the issue if you want sources. What you can't do is to demand killing of the Jewish people and I like it stay like that. That's significantly more freedom than US where you can loose your career, government funding, you can get deported or visa denied etc. if you talk about…

I say this in all seriousness: are you that ideologically brainwashed that you think Americans can't talk about Gaza whenever we like? Haha. Bud, stop living vicariously through headlines, touch grass, and understand that the headlines your wonderful algorithm is feeding is not real life....."WTF?" Your last paragraph is a bit incoherent, so I don't know exactly how to respond, but no, I am not demanding the killing…

Of course they can talk about Gaza, its just that they may face the wrath of the US government in form of funding cuts like this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/03/trump-admini...

TBF USA is very restrictive on speech, just less direct about it. All platforms are American and we can see that speech is strictly restricted through indirect means. Even here, I had my account rate limited so many times on political topics.

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