The European Nightmare: Hamas Puts Down Roots, and Belgian Leaders Yawn

Belgium has in the past been the object of French derision. Baudelaire, who moved to Belgium in later life, found the country so depressing that he wrote “Pauvre Belgique!,” an attack on the Belgians for their small-mindedness, their humorlessness, their petty bourgeois mental makeup. He wrote that “All Belgians without exception have an empty skull.” ”A Belgian is a hell unto himself.” “A people who whistle and laugh loudly without reason, a sign of cretinism.”

A harsh judgement, but perhaps today not to be dismissed, as we contemplate how Belgium has allowed itself to become a European center for Hamas and its supporters. In the Islamization of Europe, Belgium is running ahead of the pack. More on Belgium today, and the Muslim terrorists in its midst, can be found here: “‘They Are Against the Principles of the Country They Live In’: The Islamization of Europe,” by Robert Williams, Gatestone Institute, August 25, 2026:

At the heart of the European Union, Belgium exemplifies better than perhaps any other Western European country the extent to which political elites seem to almost relish the degree to which Europe is being Islamized.

In July 2026, Israel’s Channel 12 News aired a report warning that Hamas terrorists, including high-ranking members of the organization’s Al-Qassam Brigades, now live in Antwerp — some of whom, according to local Gazans opposed to Hamas, are receiving Belgian citizenship.

“Little Gaza,” as the neighborhood in northern Antwerp is called in the report, has a large population of Gazans from Khan Younis, a major Hamas stronghold. Hamas-linked residents there traffic in illegal narcotics, run shops and restaurants, and send the proceeds to Hamas in Gaza, according to the interviewed Gazans, who only dared speak anonymously out of fear of revenge from local Hamas supporters.

“You feel as if you are visiting Palestine”, one Arab said. The local baker, who sells only Gazan specialties, agreed that walking on that street was like “walking in Khan Younis.”…

“They send money to Hamas and support them,” said another local Gazan. He mentioned fundraisers for the children of Gaza as one way to drive donations….

And some of the money sent to Hamas from Belgium comes from the welfare benefits that the Belgian government distributes to Palestinian Arabs on the dole. Belgian taxpayers are, unbeknownst to themselves, financially supporting Hamas, which is not only a declared enemy of Israel, but as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, is an enemy of all non-Muslims.

Belgian politicians, however, do not appear particularly bothered by this increasing political, cultural and demographic threat. After the report was issued, Belgian federal MP Sam van Rooy, who also serves as a representative in the Antwerp City Council for the Vlaams Belang party, requested a city council emergency session, but could not find enough votes to get one….

Vlaams Belang is the anti-Muslim immigrant party in Belgium, routinely and wrongly described as “far-right.” It is also a strong supporter of Israel, with its leader, Tom Van Grieken, declaring that Israel’s fight against Islamic terrorism is a “fight for the whole world” as part of a “permanent struggle” against what he calls “radical Islam.”

A Hamas terrorist from Khan Yunis, Mohannad al-Khatib, who participated in the October 7, 2023 massacre but calls himself as a freelance journalist, was able freely to enter Belgium to claim asylum there. Belgian authorities were only alerted to his terrorist background because the Antwerp-based Jewish Information and Documentation Center (JID) compiled information about him appearing in footage inside or near Israeli territory during the Hamas invasion.

Al-Khatib was a Hamas terrorist when he lived in Gaza. He has been exposed as taking part in the planning of a terrorist attack in Europe on the second anniversary of the October 7, 2023 atrocity. He is able to travel throughout Schengenland, and is thus a menace not just to people in Belgium, but to all those Europeans who live in that vast area. Yet for reasons unknown, he has been allowed to remain in Belgium. Why? Are the Belgian authorities so indifferent to the safety of their citizens? Could it be that they think Al-Khatib is a threat “only to Jews,” and so they don’t give a damn? Other Europeans, and especially those who lead the National Rally in France, the Fratelli d’Italia in Italy, the Reform Party in the UK, and the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, should demand that the Belgian government shut down the Hamas support system, beginning by deporting Al-Khatib, and also explaining why, until now, he has not been deported.

Go ahead, Belgium. Come to your senses. Be a good neighbor to the people of Europe as they face the greatest threat — Islamization — to their existence. And prove Baudelaire’s anathematizing wrong.