If the king of Belgium can speak the truth about Gaza, why can't Europe's cowardly politicians?
In a televised address to mark Belgium's national day on 21 July, Philippe said: 'I stand with all those who denounce the grave humanitarian abuses in Gaza, where innocent civilians, trapped in their enclave, are dying of hunger and being killed by bombs.' The monarch said he fully supported the calls of the UN secretary general, António Guterres, to end 'this unbearable crisis'. From the royal palace in Brussels, the king added: 'The current situation has dragged on for far too long. It is a disgrace to humanity.'
After a weekend in which at least 100 people across Gaza were killed as they sought food and water – violence that elicited no formal EU response – the monarch's message stood out. He spoke of a recent meeting with Rami Elhanan and Bassam Aramin – two fathers, one Israeli and one Palestinian, who had each lost a daughter in earlier outbreaks of violence in the Middle East. 'They have put aside any desire for revenge and have chosen to transform their pain into a message of peace,' he said. 'It is always human dignity that is at stake.'
The king's speech resonated beyond Belgium. The Dutch national broadcaster NOS openly questioned why King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands had not made a similar statement.
As a constitutional monarch, Philippe has limited formal powers. His two annual addresses – on Belgium's national day and Christmas Eve – are reviewed by the prime minister before broadcast. But this year's remarks stood in sharp contrast to the federal government and the prime minister, Bart De Wever, a Flemish nationalist. His party, the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), Belgium's largest, includes several outspoken defenders of Israel's military operations in Gaza. De Wever has resisted calls to impose sanctions on Israel. He even questioned whether Belgium would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, as international law would require if the Israeli prime minister were to visit the country.
Transcending domestic politics, Philippe issued a broader call to action: 'Europe must assert its leadership even more strongly. It must stand as a bulwark against – and a worthy alternative to – the brutal power struggles we are witnessing today.'
Given the EU's intolerable silence on Israel's war crimes, human rights violations and the deepening humanitarian catastrophe, it was a relief to hear at least one head of state speak the truth out loud. EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels last week failed to take action against Israel, prompting an accusation of 'cruel and unlawful betrayal' of Palestinians from Amnesty International. Emmanuel Macron's announcement that France would recognise Palestinian statehood in September, while important, remains symbolic in the absence of any economic, financial or diplomatic sanctions.
The king, who was speaking just days after an audience with humanitarian organisations working in Gaza, highlighted the failure to uphold international law. 'For decades, international law was the cornerstone upon which states could rely,' he said. 'Today, that is being openly called into question. But when international law is trampled, the whole world suffers. Unpredictability and violence are then given free rein.'
While praising collective efforts to meet challenges such as the climate crisis, digital transformation and defence cooperation, Philippe urged EU leaders to 'remain true to our values: democracy, justice and the rule of law'. In a political landscape increasingly dominated by realpolitik, here was a voice insisting on the ethical foundations of the European project.
The Belgian king has a consistent record of opposing discrimination and upholding human rights. After a deadly terror attack on the Jewish museum in Brussels in 2014, he made an official visit to the site. In 2015, he invited a large delegation of rabbis and Jewish community leaders to the palace after the dismantling of Islamist terrorist cells in Brussels and Verviers.
His moral stance has deep roots in the Belgian monarchy. His great-grandmother Queen Elisabeth was recognised by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. During the second world war, she used her position as queen mother to intervene on behalf of Jews facing deportation. According to Yad Vashem, 'these interventions by a member of a royal family in Europe on behalf of Jews were unparalleled'.
Since its independence in 1830, Belgium has granted full civil rights to Jews – except during the years of Nazi occupation. Those rights, including freedom of religion, expression and the press, are enshrined in the Belgian constitution.
More recently, in 2022, Philippe undertook his first visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the former Belgian colony that was founded and brutally exploited by his ancestor Léopold II. While visiting DRC, the king expressed his 'deepest regrets' for the suffering inflicted by Belgian colonialism. 'The colonial regime itself was based on exploitation and domination,' he said. It was 'marked by paternalism, discrimination and racism'.
The fact that Philippe's defence of international law and his remarks on the suffering in Gaza felt like news shows how timid Europe's elected leaders have been. He was saying only what they should have said months ago.
Of course, his remarks won't end the war. But they should remind Europe – and the world – that silence in the face of injustice amounts to complicity. And that in times of political cowardice, a constitutional monarch can still be a moral leader.
David Van Reybrouck is philosopher laureate for the Netherlands and Flanders. His books include Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World, and Congo: The Epic History of a People
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
27 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Countries failing to act on UN climate pledge to triple renewables, thinktank finds
Most global governments have failed to act on the 2023 UN pledge to triple the world's renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade, according to climate analysts. The failure to act means that on current forecasts the world will fall far short of its clean energy goals, leading to a continued reliance on fossil fuels that is incompatible with the target of limiting global heating to below 1.5C. A report by the climate thinktank Ember found that only 22 countries, most within the EU, have increased their renewable energy ambitions since more than 130 signed up to the renewables pact at the UN's Cop28 climate talks in Dubai almost two years ago. This means that the global sum of national renewables targets is now just 2% higher than at Cop28. While this could be enough to double the world's renewable energy capacity from 2022, to reach 7.4 terawatts (TW) by 2030, governments would fall well below the 11TW needed to meet the UN goal of tripling renewables, according to the analysts. 'Tripling global renewables capacity by 2030 is the single biggest action this decade to stay on track for the 1.5C climate pathway,' the report said. 'Yet, despite the landmark Cop28 agreement to reach 11,000GW of renewables by 2030, national targets remain largely unchanged and fall short of what is needed.' The report found that beyond the EU only seven countries have updated their renewable energy goals since the pact was signed, including Mexico and Indonesia, which have watered down their targets. Countries that have failed to act include the US, China and Russia, which are some of the world's largest energy users and together are responsible for almost half of the world's annual carbon emissions. The fate of the world's renewable energy deal may depend on the actions of Beijing, which is expected to finalise its 15th five-year plan for energy later this year, covering the period 2026-30. Washington and Moscow do not have renewable energy targets for 2030, and according to Ember their political leaders are not expected to set any. In India, clean energy targets have also remained unchanged, but the country's ambition to build 500GW of renewables by 2030 is already aligned with the global goal to triple renewable energy capacity, the thinktank added. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion The country that has showed the greatest renewables ambition since Cop28 is Vietnam, which this year pledged to increase its capacity by 86GW by the end of the decade. Australia and Brazil have promised to increase their homegrown renewables by 18GW and 15GW. The UK upgraded its renewable energy plans last year with a pledge to build an extra 7GW of renewable energy by 2030 to reach the Labour government's target to create a virtually carbon-free electricity system. In Korea, renewables are expected to grow by 9GW by 2030.
Spectator
36 minutes ago
- Spectator
What the media doesn't tell us about Gaza
Sir Keir Starmer's apparent justification for threatening to recognise a Palestinian state by September is pictures. 'I think people are revolted at what they are seeing on their screen,' he said on Monday. On Tuesday, he spoke of 'starving babies, children too weak to stand, images that will stay with us for a lifetime'. Pictures, however grim, seem a weak basis for a massive constitutional change. Sir Keir is also assuming that the pictures in question are 'true'. Yet pictures, precisely because of their emotional impact, often undergo less editorial scrutiny than words and are frequently reproduced by other media unchecked. At the weekend, the New York Times put an eloquent picture of an emaciated little boy in his mother's arms on its front page headlined, 'Gazans are dying of starvation'. Similar coverage appeared in many British publications. According to research by David Collier, a pro-Israel journalist, the boy was not starving and a healthy-looking boy, probably his brother, had been cropped from the published versions, which were first put out by a state-run Turkish agency. Young Mohammed suffers from cerebral palsy and hypoxemia, Collier reports. Obviously, his chronic plight is made worse by the Gaza war. His mother, it seems, consented to the pictures to draw attention to his suffering, but she did not conceal the medical facts which explain his condition. Either deliberately, or lazily, the world's media omitted those facts, as the New York Times has now half admitted. Most of my trade are averse to any awkward story which challenges our dominant Middle Eastern narrative. The delivery of most food in Gaza is controlled by Hamas, Unrwa and similar agencies. They want to maintain this duopoly against newcomers like the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and to blame Israel. This collusion is their business model. No doubt Israel is partially at fault, but this Hamas/UN combination are unreliable witnesses. A recent internal BBC editorial email, revealed in The Spectator by Jonathan Sacerdoti, directs its journalists to say that the GHF system 'doesn't work'. The sender never asks his journalists to find out why, yet what he calls 'the body count from the killings of Palestinians' could well have to do with Hamas's struggle to maintain their stranglehold. He adds that the opinion of 'the world's important NGOs suggests that [Israel] is failing on that responsibility'. Of course it does! Those NGOs always blame Israel. They never directly say that Hamas massacred 1,195 Israelis and others on 7 October 2023, or that they murder, rob and control the Gazan people. The depressing truth is that the main players have an interest in not telling us what is happening in Gaza. Among them must be counted most of the media. In this connection, I was surprised to see William Hague, in his Times column, describing Tom Fletcher, the UN head of humanitarian affairs, as 'not a person who exaggerates'. In May, Mr Fletcher said that 'There are 14,000 babies [in Gaza] who will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them,' an exaggeration so Trumpian that he later had to apologise. Now he says that the next few days are 'make or break' for Gaza because one in three people has not eaten for three days in a row. Mr Fletcher 'will have good evidence for that', writes Lord Hague. How can one know? Recently, I found myself in one of Horatio's Gardens. Horatio Chapple was a brave and much-loved boy who was killed by a polar bear on his school's Arctic expedition. Both his parents are doctors. The gardens laid out and planted in his memory are specifically in NHS hospitals dealing with spinal injuries. There are now eight of them, spread across the kingdom. I was visiting a friend in the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital near Oswestry. Already endangered by two earlier neck-breaks, he had fallen backwards off a gate and sustained a broken disc and vertebra, and more. Part of the hell of such an injury is having to lie still for many weeks without even being able to raise one's head, staring at the same bit of hospital ceiling. To the extent that the British climate permits, Horatio's Garden (the charity's name) addresses this problem. French windows open on to it and we easily wheeled bed and friend into it. The garden is divided into several 'rooms' created by hedges, and there are borders of flowers and plants that can be touched as your bed or wheelchair passes. 'Above us only sky', as the Lennon song says, but better than that, because also house martins, swifts etc and the sun, which my friend worships. It was a joy to watch him photosynthesise. This particular hospital has a pre-history as a TB sanatorium, where fresh air was regarded as vital. It is lovely to see that principle reapplied for different reasons. I felt how much it mattered that such gardens exist: nature becoming the best nurse. I hope that at the funeral of the late, great Tom Lehrer, they play what he called his 'survival hymn', 'We'll all go together' (1959), which envisages the collective funeral of the human race caused by nuclear Armageddon: 'Universal bereavement,/ An inspiring achievement,/ Yes, we all will go together when we go.' Not all his words will be acceptable, I fear, to any congregation from 21st-century Harvard, where he worked. The song ends: 'And we will all go together when we go./ Ev'ry hottentot and ev'ry eskimo./ When the air becomes uranious,/ And we will all go simultaneous… Yes we all will go together when we go.' Nowadays those two ethnicities are rebranded Khoekhoe and Inuit. Lehrer could have found an ingenious rhyme to handle the problem. A numerical change would also be required. Lehrer sings: 'We will all bake together when we bake./ There'll be nobody present at the wake./ With complete participation/ In that grand incineration,/ Nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak.' Today, make that 8.2 billion.
Spectator
36 minutes ago
- Spectator
Portrait of the week: Recognition for Palestine, victory for the Lionesses and no name for Corbyn's party
Home Britain will recognise Palestinian statehood in September, Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, announced, 'unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, reaches a ceasefire, makes clear there will be no annexation in the West Bank, and commits to a long-term peace process that delivers a two-state solution'. He had convened a cabinet meeting to discuss Gaza, although parliament was in recess, a few days after a meeting by telephone with Germany and France. President Emmanuel Macron had said that France would recognise a Palestinian state in September. Some 255 MPs, 147 of them Labour, had signed a letter to Sir Keir calling for the recognition. Jeremy Corbyn launched a party without a name; the name of the sign-up website was Your Party, but Zarah Sultana, also an independent MP, said on X: 'It's not called Your Party!' Sir Keir had presented President Donald Trump of America with a peace plan for Gaza when he came to visit his golf courses in Scotland. 'You've got to stop this horrible invasion that is happening to Europe,' he said. At his Turnberry course he met Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, who agreed to 15 per cent tariffs on EU goods entering America; the euro fell. Mr Trump mentioned that wind power 'is a con job' and 'ruins the landscape'. During a meeting at Chequers with Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister, Sir Keir signed a trade agreement announced in May, making it easier for India to export gems and frozen prawns to Britain and for Britain to export whisky and biscuits. Resident doctors – the new name for junior doctors – belonging to the British Medical Association union went on strike for five days. A man in Tamworth with kidney cancer said: 'Resident doctors do not care that delaying operations like mine is very likely a death sentence.' British vehicle manufacturing declined by 11.9 per cent for the first six months of the year compared with the first six months of last year. After Nigel Farage said that the Online Safety Act was a threat to free speech, Peter Kyle, the Science Secretary, accused him of being on the same side as 'people like Jimmy Savile'. Two former City traders, Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, had their convictions for manipulating Libor and Euribor interest rates quashed by the Supreme Court. The number of migrants arriving in England in small boats in the seven days to 28 July was 855. Tommy Robinson left the country after an incident at St Pancras station. Charles Brett, the countertenor, died aged 83. Amelia Freedman, who founded the Nash Ensemble in 1964, died aged 84. Dame Cleo Laine, the jazz singer, died aged 97. England won the women's European Championships, beating Spain on penalties. Abroad Israel announced daily ten-hour tactical pauses in military activity to allow food distribution, with designated secure routes in place from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. for UN and charity deliveries to avert mass starvation. Israeli and US negotiators left Gaza ceasefire talks in Doha, Qatar; America accused Hamas of not 'acting in good faith'. Mr Macron and his wife Brigitte filed a defamation lawsuit in Delaware against an American commentator, Candace Owens, for 'outlandish, defamatory and far-fetched fictions'; she claims that Mrs Macron was born male. After drug violence, Nîmes joined Béziers and Limoges in imposing curfews on children. Tom Lehrer, the US satirical singer-songwriter, died aged 97. Russia continued to attack Ukraine with hundreds of drones and missiles. Donald Trump said he would reduce an earlier 50-day deadline to end the war to 'about ten or 12 days', saying of President Vladimir Putin: 'I thought he'd want to end this thing quickly, but every time I think it's going to end, he kills people.' Thailand attacked Cambodia with F-16 fighter jets and 40,000 people were evacuated from border villages; after five days, the two countries began a ceasefire. Two million people were evacuated in Japan after an earthquake in Pacific Russia set off a tsunami. Four people, one a policeman, were shot dead in Park Avenue, New York, by a gunman who also shot himself dead. At least 35 worshippers at the Blessed Anuarite Nengapeta Catholic church in the town of Komanda in the Democratic Republic of Congo were killed by men of the Allied Democratic Forces, which is affiliated to Isis. The President of Nigeria promised the women's national football team, victorious in the Women's Africa Cup of Nations, a bounty worth £75,000 each. CSH
