For additional context, tensions are already high surrounding the US ambassador after he directly insulted multiple Belgian politicians and also attempted to interfere with local criminal judicial proceedings.
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.
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 religious significance and health benefits. Greenblatt also said that if the ban passed, the ADL would report on any celebration by antisemites and other extremists, asserting that this would deter tourism and harm Iceland's economy
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.
Yes - on HN sometimes users use a "throwaway" account when they're commenting on a topic which is particularly charged. I'm surprised this isn't something you're familiar with!
I chose to use a throwaway because this topic in particular frequently invites accusations of ill-motivation, sort of like the one you were reaching for.
I'm not an expert, but the above is brazen disinformation indended to confuse the issue:
Circumcision is an absolutely fundamental rite of Judaism. Banning it would be much more serious even than banning yarmulkes or Bar Mitzvahs (or crucifixes); it would be something approximately like banning baptism or the Eucharist for Christians. There are stories of oppressors through the millennia banning circumcision, and Jewish people resisting.
Every Jewish male is circumcised, as far as I know. I've never heard of someone complaining about it. The idea that it has something to do with Zionism is absurd; it looks like a broad-based attack using every Jewish-related word.
Prejudice rarely volunteers itself by saying 'I hate ____'; it doesn't say, 'I hate Jews so lets persecute them'. It aims for cruelty - another consequence of hate - and finds pernicious reasons. And for those reasons it persecutes: Jewish people, immigrants, Black people, Muslim people, etc. - such as banning religious practices. Because of the reasons, reasonable bystanders might let it pass or even participate, unaware of the context or that they are being used by liars. That's the aim of any disinformation - like the comment above - to make enough people passive (or paralyzed).
Circumcision is fine I guess. What’s weird is when it’s not done in a proper setting (hospital) but in a ritual and by some person who is not a medically licensed. Another thing that we should all have a problem with is the non consenting age of 0. Ultimately, at least hire a doctor and do it in sanitary conditions.
"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.
From what I remember from an interview with the rabbi in question, the "oral suction" was not involved in this case. But because these procedures are being performed illocitly, it is hard to know what's going on or how sanitary it is.
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.
The American ambassador to Canada is also a complete clown. It’s pretty obvious he has an audience of one and absolutely loves the flavour of boot black.
The US ambassador to France is a convicted felon, father of Jared Kushner.
From Wikipedia:
«In February 2026, French authorities restricted Kushner’s direct access to government ministers after he failed to attend a summons from Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, sending a senior embassy official in his place. The French foreign ministry cited an "apparent failure to grasp the basic requirements of the ambassadorial mission".»
It reads like a low-level mafia guy from New Jersey. The only thing missing from the story was faking his death.
Example:
> [Charles] Kushner hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, arranging to record a sexual encounter between the two and send the tape to his sister.
The US ambassador to Iceland made an inappropriate comment about Iceland being the 52nd state and was summoned by Icelandic President to explain. A poor joke, apparently.
One almost wonders if the US admin is actively trying to get one of its ambassadors declared persona non grata.
I suspect that the implication in context was that the 51st state would be Greenland. Which doesn't really help make this less of a diplomatic faux pas.
I think it makes a huge amount of difference exactly because of what you stated. A pardon absolves one of the sin as if it didn't happen, legally. It however does not wipe the knowledge from people's mind as if it were the gadget from Men In Black. So, adding the <pardon> bit just adds to the depravity
> A pardon absolves one of the sin as if it didn't happen, legally.
This is incorrect. A pardon is not an expungement. The conviction remains a usable historical fact and could still be referenced in later legal procedings.
Exact ramifications vary between innocence-based pardons, rehabilitiation-based pardons, and pure discretionary clemency.
In fact, part of accepting a pardon is accepting guilt. That can particularly be consequential if there is a civil case associated with the criminal charges. For example, if I'm charged with drunk driving and I run into someone's house, by accepting a pardon I have to admit that I'm guilty of drunk driving which the home owner can then use in their civil suit to extra money for the damage I caused.
This is part of the reason why people will sometimes not accept a pardon.
Speaking of Jared Kushner, what has happened to our nation that this grifter twit is fronting one of the most strategically consequential negotiations on behalf of this nation? Is there any precedent in our history for what is going on these days?
That's what they want you to think. See the gent sitting down next to your elected VP? That is a "prince", a scion of an Arab FAMILY. The grifter twit standing over them? Another "prince", this time of a Jewish FAMILY.
They have goals; they have policy preferences, I assure you. Trillions of dollars are involved.
Let's just call a spade a spade: this is the emergence of Oligarchy International, sold to us as "a time of confusion because of media chaos".
> The American ambassador to Canada is also a complete clown
Since we are talking about American ambassadors, Mike Huckabee, American ambassador to Israel, doesn't seem like to work for America, it feels like he is an ambassador for Israel
I can understand most of what our conservative party does but I do not understand their obsession with Israel. I feel the nation should be supported and deserves to exist, but that they're doing a lot of inhumane things right now and saying that in the USA right now gets you called an antisemite incredibly fast.
> I feel the nation should be supported and deserves to exist
this is to say, you believe that israel should be supported in what it does, and that the inhumane stuff deserves to happen.
you arent in conflict with the conservative party.
if you said the same about nazi germany - that the nation should be supported and deserves to exist, that would be a very explicit support for the genocide.
> you put it right here:
> > I feel the nation should be supported and deserves to exist
> this is to say, you believe that Israel should be supported in what it does, and that the inhumane stuff deserves to happen.
Except you purposefully cut off where I said they're doing inhumane things that are not defense. I DO support their right to exist, but not their tactics. They're slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent people for every terrorist they get.
> you arent in conflict with the conservative party.
I assure you, I am. In most ways.
> if you said the same about nazi germany - that the nation should be supported and deserves to exist, that would be a very explicit support for the genocide.
Does Germany have a right to exist? Yes. Did Germany have a right to exist in 1918 and in 1939? Yes. Did it have the right to start two major wars and slaughter tens of millions? No.
You CAN support someone's right to exist without also supporting EVERYTHING they might ever do. That's a ridiculously extreme statement.
> the government is doing the things you want it to
Again, no, it's not. You ignored half of what I said and then decided supporting existence equals supporting genocide.
I regret this reply already, this was not a serious attempt at a conversation on your part.
It we rule out the possibilit thet they have "something on them", which I rule only because it kills discussion I would guess that the reason is simple tribalism.
The opposing side hates them, so naturally, because we are all semi-developed monkeys, you need to support them. No matter what.
I just can't imagine at this point that Trump supporters or his cronies would care about literally any kompromat that might exist. Basically anyone who's payed any attention knows the dude's a pedophile, and he himself said that he could shoot someone in time square, with it televized, and he wouldn't lose supporters.
This kind of antagonism comes from the top. China mostly toned it down recently because it is ideology-driven counter-productive, we will see how long it takes the US to do the same.
The former Trump US ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, claimed there were “no go zones” in the Netherlands where politicians and cars were being set on fire. He called it “fake news” of course, then denied having ever called it fake news, and then eventually claimed it was a mix-up of countries.
There exist neighborhoods and roads in all average sized cities in the Netherlands, where if you are a white native dutchman, you definitely should avoid at night unless you want to be robbed or stabbed by one or more people of MENA origin. That's just the reality we live in.
Ambassadors to developed nations are typically political appointees, so yeah, they tend to suck. (Versus ambassadors to other nations, which tend to have worked their way up in the Foreign Service).
Trump's approval rating is in the 30s and has been for a while. He won a plurality not a majority of the votes in 2024. An even larger number of eligible voters didn't vote.
Also Congress was meant to be the democratic representation of the people. Technically, the president is elected by the states.
What is weird in all of this is why is the US obsessed with israel so much exactly! Was it a random choice; did they had a random number generator pick it? Why are they not going to such lengths for other random countries in the opposite side of the world for example? And if an official's number one priority is not the people that pay him and have granted him his power, should he be in that position?
The US is turning into a planetary joke and it's sad to see.
The same reliable voting block that thinks the current president is basically the second coming despite the fact he is an obvious nihilist. They are obsessed with Israel for similarly delusional reasons. I have few things in agreement with Tucker Carlson. But the way he made Mike Huckabee or Ted Cruz squirm on basic questions about Israel was delightful. These people are motivated by little more than blind faith which resembles a cult to any thinking person. Couple this with American anti-democratic compromises (connecticut compromise which allows sparsely populated, evangelical states to get outsize representation) and you have your answer. These small states are also easier to control. AIPAC actually doesn't spend that much money. It turns out to buy a Senator in the middle of nowhere is pretty cheap, and a great ROI. A Senator from Arkansas has the same voting power as a Senator from New York. Of course, for the time being New York is also bought and paid for. That may be changing. Part of the reason primaries in NYC have gotten so much attention in the last month is because of what it portends for a potential primary against Chuck Schumer. While he is not an evangelical, he is a beneficiary of AIPAC.
Since he's not an evangelical and is capable of critical thought he did call for new elections in Israel in a somewhat notable speech in 2024. It was notable as a public criticism of Netanyahu even if it was pretty mild. People of Chuck Schumer's generation who are not evangelicals still have a bias towards Israel because of post WWII guilt. America essentially inherited the power, but also the responsibility of the terminated British empire in WWII's wake. Unlike young progressive Jews who are perfectly capable of recognizing two things can be true - a state can both be Jewish and genocidal - older Americans have a bias to buying into the fiction that Israel is some uniquely vulnerable nation that needs protecting because they have parents that were around to know America largely sat on its hands during the genocide against the Jews in WWII. Americans did not want to get involved until after Pearl Harbor, and even then, anti-semitism was not exactly out of the American mainstream. And there was a time where in the Middle East, Israel was not the obvious regional superpower that it is today. So the American intelligentsia was also largely behind Israel, even if for very different reasons than evangelicals.
But even these Chuck Schumer types have basically been forced to come to terms with the fact that the current Israeli leadership is extremely far right, and frankly, pretty much as nuts (if not more) as people like Mike Huckabee. That's why again, the real answer is the evangelicals. As with Trump, they don't care if a president or a nation careens off course. They believe they are doing what their invisible friend wants. You can't really argue with that type of crazy.
People think AIPAC is some all powerful unique lobbying group, in fact they're not even in the top 10 major lobbyists. Did you know SpaceX gave 5x as much as AIPAC in 2024? AIPAC was also outspent by Coinbase, by Ripple, and several other companies[0]. And this "18th largest lobbyist" position is after a post-october-7 surge in spending. Pre-october-7 (2022) they were ranked forty sixth in terms of spending.
Can you name 10 of the groups who spent more than them? How about five? The question worth asking is why are people obsessed with demonizing the AIPAC in particular and singling it out as the one or primary 'evil lobbying group' when there are tens or dozens of groups that spent more. The 2024 AIPAC spending number (50 mil, which is donated by American voters, not foreign money) is 1/8th of the $400 million plan Qatar (a foreign government) gave Trump in 2025.
People focus on AIPAC specifically because they have a problem with Jews. Jews and other Israel supporting Americans are allowed to pool money and lobby just like anyone else. the fact that people think they shouldn't be allowed to play this game, the same one everyone else is playing in US politics, is what should be questioned.
"You can't criticize lobbying unless you can name all the more active lobbyists" is a very strange concept. Have you thought this one all the way through?
AIPAC is just the most well-known and representative entity in a large constellation of a hostile foreign lobby that has somehow avoided accountability under FARA.
Qatar didn't spend 9 figures getting Trump elected, but an Israeli gambling magnate did.
And that the fuzz "disagreed with detaining them". The real experience involves them doubling, tripling down, etc. and threatening to "find a reason". By their logic, they are never and could never be wrong.
If, indeed, the park was rented out for a private affair and the person managing that affair asked that someone be removed from the property, then like any case of trespass, it is within the purview of the police to remove that person.
It doesn't make the US look good, but I don't think it reflects poorly on the behavior of the Belgian police.
Could be but I am not sure belgian law is as trigger-happy with the whole trespassing thing. I wouldn't be surprised that lying to the police about someone being a threat in order to remove them form the private event you have invited them to would be a clear cut case
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.
It's interesting to see a European perspective on this incident. They seem a lot more intent on avoiding political agendas than Americans are.
Usually incidents like this (in the US) come from activists who are very bad at "picking their battles wisely." In this case, I don't think a battle was picked going in, as there was an assumption of a fair dialog, and the way the police acted implies that they (police) were hoodwinked into doing something they normally wouldn't do.
A bigger question is, what is the expected outcome from this reporting? Is it that Brussels shouldn't welcome events like this? Is it that the US needs to elect different leaders?
I hope the journalists in question will lodge a complaint with the Belgian police watchdog, Comité P: https://comitep.be
Belgium has been pretty repressive towards certain journalists for a while now. Our "World Press Freedom Index"-score has gone down a fair bit in recent years, and rightly so. The current prime minister and his friends have a history of litigating against journalists who exposed some questionable deals, so it's all to be expected.
"... 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 similarly be involved in removing people who interfered with the proceedings and didn't leave when asked to. The land owner has given the company exclusive rights to the space for the duration of the event.
Whether ejecting someone from a press event for asking a question you don't like is right or not (I personally think it's not) is irrelevant. At the point they ask you to leave for whatever reason and you don't comply, then it becomes trespass and the police can be asked to remove you.
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.
> We also only have their word for it that that's what they told the cops
This part is about what cops told to them. They cops were told they are active threat, the cops disagreed with that assessment and did not detained them.
There is nothing suspicious about anything here, except your intention to twist what was written in the article into something else.
"If democracy is foolish enough to give us free railway passes and salaries, that is its problem... We are coming neither as friends or neutrals. We come as enemies! As the wolf attacks the sheep, so come we."
Europe (which could mean anything from the UK to Belgium to Hungary to Turkey) never had absolute freedom of speech like the US. But yes, even by the US standards to champion freedom of speech, it is in retreat.
I'm saying this with love, so hear me out: Turkey has nothing to do with what comes to mind when you talk about anything European, except maybe some parts of Istanbul and Izmir.
I was born and raised in Turkey, and I have been living in Germany for nearly two decades, and I have Greeks, Bulgarians and Kurdish in my family too (no. I don't take pills to survive), so I know what I'm talking about.
It's not about inferiority/superiority, it's just a completely, unmistakably different culture, perspective on life, degree of pragmatism, and... everything. Especially when it comes to the topic at hand, freedom of speech. I think the Ottomans have a lasting effect there. The Turkish search for the new sultan never ends. You may say that some tendency in dictatorship exists everywhere, but in Turkey, you'll see authoritarian ambitions in the speeches of even the most supposedly liberal people.
I also have to say, I'm not even talking about religion. Perhaps the most religious groups, Muslim or Christian or Jewish, are the groups with the most similarities actually.
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
2. The freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.
I got the impression that free speech in the US is limited to right to annoy people and harass politicians from distance. Seems to be more restricted than Europe actually since access is tied to private property and its culturally acceptable to remove people from private spaces if you don't like their speech. In this particular case the US embassy appears to have "hacked" their way by claiming that those journalists are a threat but if it was in US they could have been removed and have their free speech in a designated area simply because they don't want them there.
You can give finger to Trump from distance but you can't attend to his press conference to actually ask him stuff if he doesn't like you. That's just slightly different from Turkey where you will be arrested for giving the finger to Erdogan's motorcade(happened a few times, then Turks learned their lessons and in the stats Turkey doesn't arrest as much as Britain).
In contrast, in most of Europe you usually can approach and ask politicians whatever you like.
>I got the impression that free speech in the US is limited to right to annoy people and harass politicians from distance.
That's a pretty trite way of looking at it. You could see for example how important free speech was to the US' civil rights movement in making sure that people were able to organize to challenge the status quo.
>.. if it was in US they could have been removed and have their free speech in a designated area simply because they don't want them there.
US' citizens generally have a better time in courts challenging such things than Europeans do, however.
>In contrast, in most of Europe you usually can approach and ask politicians whatever you like.
But can you tell them whatever you like without facing repercussion if they don't like what they're hearing? No.
In the US, you can still exercise your right to free speech to inform your fellow citizens about the genocide of Gaza - in Europe, most definitely not so easy. (Some European states, its easier than others ...)
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 who demand some other speech be suppressed and theirs amplified. Remember their attitudes over the Charlie Kirk assassination reactions?
I don't really care about the courts in this, you win in court and never speak again anything new because you don't want to go through all this again.
And who cares if you can tell someone something if you can't engage with them. Are you casting a spell? why would you care someone hears you? In USA they take you to safe distance behind some barriers to tell your thing. Useless stuff.
I don't know why you believe that you can't inform people about the genocide of Gaza in Europe, in fact Europeans are significantly more informed on this and having flotillas and what not.
US free speech seems to be performative. Its even limited to words, they try not to say the N word and do all their racism without that, then they are relieved when they end up saying the N word and claim freedom of speech win. It's weird from European perspective.
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.
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.
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.
Sounds like the Americans lied to get a stronger response than warranted.
Can definitely understand why police would roll aggressively and with limited info if they’re lead to believe there is an active threat at a mass public event.
More and more we see the relationship with authoritarianism (police) and tyranny (those in power) out in the open. We see this with the protests in Germany for Gaza. We see this in Britain with freedom of speech taken away from Palestine supporters. And we see this shamelessly occurring from the Trump world.
I used to balk at those who were too worried at growing government power, but this is a wake up call. Protections have to be in place for the vast majority of people, even if it does allow a few criminals to get away.
I'm a little bit less cynical about it; most police still live with the assumption that all of our allies are trustworthy. If the US says there is a credible threat, they rather exercise caution, and remove the threat.
It's just that the US cannot be trusted anymore, and this will probably be the moment that Belgian police will stop taking US intel as fact.
The power is already curtailed if there's no one to enforce court rulings. An appropriate court says X, the administration just ignores it. How do you get enforcement when law enforcement at every level is willing to answer only to the Executive in Chief?
Well most of the discussions could very easily end up making parallels to nazis since we see similar situations all around us over and over, hence Godwin's law. its generally considered a poor performance though and better arguments are expected.
Palestine is so divisive it should have its own 'law' - both sides are abhorable, both sides are shielded by fanatics who don't want to hear any criticism of their side, despite there being plenty of official evidence with photos, videos, wiki articles and so on.
> The link is police abusing their allowed powers to silence free speech and protest.
If you'd actually read the post you'd know that its about the the US ambassador being an asshole and the Belgian police doing their job (quickly removing a supposed 'active threat' from an event - because that's the only information they had - they later realized their mistake and that the 'active threat' was just a journalist asking inconvenient questions - but at that point the damage was done and the journalist wasn't let back into the event.
Here’s the very problem. The police acting immediately to suppress a supposed threat (even “active” ones, whatever that means) which allows them to silence protest or even inconvenient questions to a public servant…
… and we’re splitting hairs here, but it also allows the police to be manipulated by said public servants to get the protest silenced on their behalf.
The police in this case should have quickly realised the individuals were journalists, posed no real threat (no weapons, explosives, chemicals on their persons) and let them go about their business.
I agree that the police could probably have acted more 'flexible' in the first few seconds before removing the journalist from the event. The other somewhat weird fact is that they showed up in 'cilivian' outfits instead of in uniform.
Yet still the *main* problem is the ambassador lying about that person being an active threat.
E.g. what if that information would have been correct? All hell would break lose if the police wouldn't take such a call serious and the supposed 'threat' would be real and people killed, from that perspective they seemed to have reacted quite civilized and calm.
If the events happened as reported, the ambassador should at the very least be summoned and grilled by the Belgian government.
That has always been and will always be the excuse for these kind of rights violations by the police. "Oh it's just what we were told, sorry".
And yes, it's worth bringing up e.g. Palestine or climate activists being beaten, arrested etc. in this context, because it's where the limits and tolerances for this kind of behavior are being tested.
Police, at least in Germany, always justify their transgressions with arguments like: "well we had to beat up these demonstrators because they were engaging in criminal behavior", the "criminal behavior" being "chanting a slogan they don't like" or "carrying an umbrella" (I kid you not).
TLDR: If we continue to allow law enforcement to justify their actions with "well that's just what I was told", we are in for a very bad time, because, it turns out, anything can be justified this way.
The Streisand Effect is taking effect in here in terms of surpressing a question has lead to many more people finding out about it, as it should be and I just find some layers of irony about America celebrating its freedom while this whole thing happens because of press freedom.
I did some search on freedom250.org and found this interesting piece of TOS: YOU WAIVE AND HOLD HARMLESS THE COMPANY AND ITS AFFILIATES, LICENSEES, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS FROM ANY CLAIMS RESULTING FROM ANY ACTION TAKEN BY THE COMPANY/ANY OF THE FOREGOING PARTIES DURING, OR TAKEN AS A CONSEQUENCE OF, INVESTIGATIONS BY EITHER THE COMPANY/SUCH PARTIES OR LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES.
I am not a lawyer but I am unsure if this terms of service applies to the website or anything in general and if the European correspondent can sue freedom250.org or not
> The Streisand Effect is taking effect in here in terms of surpressing a question has lead to many more people finding out about it
The reason why people like this don't care about the Streisand effect is that they are not afraid about a one-time scandal. The value they get out of harassing their victim and potentially having them stop reporting is worth a bad buzz that people will eventually forget.
IANAL either but ToS are not superseding the law. It's not because somebody they claim their action will have no consequence that they do. It's a bit like a kid playing a game shouting "I won!". Sure, you can say that, it doesn't make it true.
Freedom250 is essentially another of Trump's fundraising bodies.
The congressionally created organization that was supposed to run the 250th events was America 250 - it was created in 2016 (IIRC). When Trump was re-elected, he spun up Freedom250, redirected funds to it, and started accepting bribes.
In the book, the Czech police characters frequently complained about the various ways the US ambassador in Prague had too much influence over their investigations, especially of American citizens.
This influence was served as multiple plot devices.
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.
Sad day when this is number one and highly upvoted. I don't know why they can't use AI to identify posters that leave more than 90% of political postings here, and nicely suggest that at least some of the content be technical.
The political postings would be better if they contained at least some technical information, or just go ahead and change the name of the forum to something other than "hackers".
It is, unfortunately, a quite common misunderstanding many have, that value is exclusively created in the private sector and spent in the public. So the private morgue creates value, and the public birth ward spends it. Nail saloons and lawyers create value, teachers and nurses does not (unless they work at a private institution).
I live in Australia and US trends reach us within 5-10 years. As a (legal) immigrant myself I'm not at all anti-immigration, I'm anti-unauthorized-immigration and anti-below-reasonable-wage-immigration.
И да, я родился в совке и вырос в его смердящих останках, не думал, что мне придётся это доказывать какому-то херу из интернета, притом что мне абсолютно насрать, как он оценит моё, основанное на личном опыте, мнение.
Being born somewhere doesn't automatically grant you instant knowledge. For example most people in the mediterranean have no idea about all the history of the roman empire.
What specific point are you trying to make, here? Do you think a news organization should not be acquiring tech tools? Do you think that state-funded journalism matters, in this context, or do you just think those are good bogeyman words?
Come on, be proud of your opinions. Don't hide behind scare quotes and insinuations. Don't be a coward.
The European Correspondent is a legitimate, though young, news organization. I can recommend their newsletter, they write about a nice mix of topics from all across Europe.
So a long article about them being kicked out and all they detail about their own actions is that "we asked him about it"? I'm not sure what "tacitly threatened" means, either.
If they want sympathy, they probably should lay out the details of their actions more clearly. This just reads as some juveniles went to an event, tried to rile up an official (while filming the response in hopes of getting a juicy clip), then were surprised when they were kicked out.
That does seem to be a trend in the stories becoming more about the journalists when the expected no comment response is given as if that was the true intent because of course they are not going to comment to hostile questions. In 2026, this is not news. We know what the administration is doing, so becoming the story is not the story they want it to be. They kept repeating "we were invited" as if that means something. While you can be invited, that invitation can be rescinded. At that point, you can't keep saying "we were invited" as a meaningful response to you being asked to leave regardless of why.
To me, it does feel a bit like some journos looking for clout. Kaitlan Collins is the poster child for this type abuse from Trump even if she's not being manhandled by police.
> Though if this really happened as they say, it reflects very badly on Belgium as well.
Not so sure. If the security at the event said "these people are active threats to security", then its the police's job to remove the threat and then investigate.
However it should now be on those lying about it that made the accusation to prevent their evidence, and if that's not good enough then to revoke their diplomatic credentials.
If the event was a private function as it appeared to be, then removing them is fine, but from the report it sounds like more accusations were made then "these people are no longer allowed at our event", and like the boy who cried wolf, that's where the problem needs to be sorted.
Belgian here with some knowledge of the EU-centric media operating out of Brussels.
They are legit but have a tiny audience, this accident made them instantaneously recognizable.
Good for them, we are all fed up with Politico (Axel Springer) + Euractiv (Mediahuis) duopoly.
P.S. This is just IMO, but De Wever should not have gone to the event, he lost a lot of political capital there. He should have given the ground to Theo Francken and Vansina to do their clown thing and instead he should have traveled 100km to the Florennes airbase to assist at BAFS-2026 that happened at the same time.
Does it matter? Should they have been kicked out of an event they were invited to for asking a reasonable question? Why are you asking about a news organization and not an extremely fragile man-baby who can't take a tough question?
Many blogs will omit key facts. For example you could write "I was booted out for asking a question" when in actual fact you'd broken in with some wire cutters and then proceeded to pour champagne over all the soft furnishings.
A credible reporter for a credible outlet writing a credible article won't, whether that's the Washignton Post, the Daily Telegraph, or Le Monde, or if it's BBC, RTL, Al Jazzera.
So it's always worth asking "is this a credible source". It used to be fairly easy, to be a journalist you had to have significant backing from a significant institution.
Do you ask this about all of the alt right slop artists that have been legitimized by the Trump admin? Or only about those who pose adversarial questions to the Trump administration?
"Belgian police willingly comply with U.S. ambassador's request, and Belgian police stopped your reporting"
FTFY
> a foreign ambassador had Belgian police remove us
Belgian police removed us.
FTFY again.
The article is making a good point, especially the hilarious irony of all the private companies, and US being complicit in limiting press freedom. But it also fails to recognize the agency and complicitness of the Belgian authorities as well, and makes them out to be some sort of innocent bystandards -- "Oh look those poor Belgians being bullied by the big bad US!" If they didn't want to remove you, they simply could have not.
Renting a venue for an event usually comes with the right to decide who may attend and who may not. So if the embassy indeed rented the park, then as soon as the ambassador decided the journalists weren't welcome, they were no longer allowed to stay and the Belgian police were correctly doing their duty in making sure they complied and left.
So the article isn't strictly alleging that the ambassador did anything he didn't have the right to do, but uninviting journalists from an event after they ask a question he preferred not to answer and involving the police instead of directly telling them to leave is maybe not the best use of those rights.
> The officers, we later learned, had been told that Samuel was an ”active threat.”
The ambassador does not have the right to lie about someone being an active threat.
> A few days before the event, Samuel had published on his Instagram that ambassador White tacitly threatened an American and Belgian resident after that citizen urged the Zac Brown Band not to perform at the event
No right to threaten either.
> how we had got into the event (that the American embassy invited us to).Eventually, they accepted that we were journalists and that they disagreed with detaining us.
You dont get to invite journalists and then try to get police to detain them either.
The Belgian police got the information that the person would be an 'active threat' which is just absolutely bizarre and explains the somewhat 'hasty' reaction of the police to quickly remove that person from the event before asking further questions. After they realized their mistake they apologized but of course at that point the journalist wasn't allowed back in.
The ambassador essentially swatted the journalist.
Indeed, I find this story quite interesting (and disturbing) from the Belgian point of view.
Suppose the Belgian government declared the ambassador persona non grata, and sent them on the next plane to Washington. Presumably this would raise their popularity with their own voters, although if Trump noticed he'd throw another temper tantrum. What then?
Europe is mighty, independent, strong and decoupling from the US, but also everything bad Europe does is because the big old meanies in the US made them do it against their will
Yes, the Brussels state is in desperate need of funds, so they rent out public parks, including the Cinquantenaire, for private events. Of course, during such events the park is not accessible to the public, and there's private security who can hand over anyone to the Brussels police to be escorted out of the park. You know, like you can do in your apartment too.
So if Bill White, the US ambassador, pays to rent out the park for, I think it was 2 weeks, they can have whoever they want removed from this public park. Including any reporters.
Presumably the ambassador has diplomatic immunity unfortunately. Really a concept we should get rid of in the day of video calls - there's no longer a strong enough need for foreign diplomats to be in a country to justify putting them above the law.
The police didn't do something outside of their legal powers, that's not what the question is. It's rather unusual for any ambassador to use force to kick out invited reporters from a function.
> So if Bill White, the US ambassador, pays to rent out the park for, I think it was 2 weeks, they can have whoever they want removed from this public park. Including any reporters.
That would be by private security not police though. You aren't generally arrested for annoying an event organiser.
Depends on the laws in Belgium (I've no idea what they are)... in the UK for example trespass by itself is not a criminal matter, even if somebody refuses to leave your property... they need to be doing something else.
Just to clarify. The UK police can assist you in ejecting trespassers, whom you have told to leave your house, in order to "prevent a breach of the peace". They won't arrest or charge trespassers unless they have reason to suspect criminal activity.
In this case the Belgian police might have been justified in escorting the journalists off the premises. But I'm not sure what grounds they had to detain and question them.
Aside: why do Americans always talk about trespassing as something that is done to the trespasser? Isn't trespassing the act itself? If I plant myself in your livingroom uninvited, then surely I am trespassing. Why do so many people instead say that I "get trespassed"?
Why "are you trespassed" if you're told to leave? I understand that you might not be engaging in the act of trespassing until you have been made aware that you must leave. But refusing to do so surely then means that you are trespassing not that you "are trespassed?
Trespassing is the act. The trespasser is the subject undertaking the act. The object that is being trespassed upon is surely then the offended location and/or person?
You are meaningfully misquoting here ("doing their job" not "following orders", which has a different ring to it, at least for me).
Also, apparently they do have brains capable of thinking because: "Eventually, they accepted that we were journalists and that they disagreed with detaining us."
For additional context, tensions are already high surrounding the US ambassador after he directly insulted multiple Belgian politicians and also attempted to interfere with local criminal judicial proceedings.
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 religious significance and health benefits. Greenblatt also said that if the ban passed, the ADL would report on any celebration by antisemites and other extremists, asserting that this would deter tourism and harm Iceland's economy
It's scary stuff.
> 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.
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.
You may be overthinking it. Circumcision rates in the US have been as high as 85% historically, and even today are as high as 75% in the Midwest.
A perceived attack on circumcision is an attack on the fundamentalist religion that the Americans currently in power claim to follow.
No comments in 5 years but the American Zionist agenda around circumcision brought you out?
Yes - on HN sometimes users use a "throwaway" account when they're commenting on a topic which is particularly charged. I'm surprised this isn't something you're familiar with!
I chose to use a throwaway because this topic in particular frequently invites accusations of ill-motivation, sort of like the one you were reaching for.
I'm not an expert, but the above is brazen disinformation indended to confuse the issue:
Circumcision is an absolutely fundamental rite of Judaism. Banning it would be much more serious even than banning yarmulkes or Bar Mitzvahs (or crucifixes); it would be something approximately like banning baptism or the Eucharist for Christians. There are stories of oppressors through the millennia banning circumcision, and Jewish people resisting.
Every Jewish male is circumcised, as far as I know. I've never heard of someone complaining about it. The idea that it has something to do with Zionism is absurd; it looks like a broad-based attack using every Jewish-related word.
Prejudice rarely volunteers itself by saying 'I hate ____'; it doesn't say, 'I hate Jews so lets persecute them'. It aims for cruelty - another consequence of hate - and finds pernicious reasons. And for those reasons it persecutes: Jewish people, immigrants, Black people, Muslim people, etc. - such as banning religious practices. Because of the reasons, reasonable bystanders might let it pass or even participate, unaware of the context or that they are being used by liars. That's the aim of any disinformation - like the comment above - to make enough people passive (or paralyzed).
It is totally OK for an adult to choose to be circumcised. It is not OK to do that to babies.
Circumcision is fine I guess. What’s weird is when it’s not done in a proper setting (hospital) but in a ritual and by some person who is not a medically licensed. Another thing that we should all have a problem with is the non consenting age of 0. Ultimately, at least hire a doctor and do it in sanitary conditions.
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.
From what I remember from an interview with the rabbi in question, the "oral suction" was not involved in this case. But because these procedures are being performed illocitly, it is hard to know what's going on or how sanitary it is.
Nope nope nope. That's enough internet news for today thank you!
Exactly my thought… I just woke up
A mutiliation of children is bad only on women it seems. This hypocrisy is surely something.
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.
Absolutely. I'm kinda surprised that this is such a revolting idea that I'm getting down voted for that.
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The American ambassador to Canada is also a complete clown. It’s pretty obvious he has an audience of one and absolutely loves the flavour of boot black.
The US ambassador to France is a convicted felon, father of Jared Kushner.
From Wikipedia:
«In February 2026, French authorities restricted Kushner’s direct access to government ministers after he failed to attend a summons from Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, sending a senior embassy official in his place. The French foreign ministry cited an "apparent failure to grasp the basic requirements of the ambassadorial mission".»
I highly recommend that people read about his crimes on Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Kushner#Criminal_convi...
It reads like a low-level mafia guy from New Jersey. The only thing missing from the story was faking his death.
Example:
Epic!The US ambassador to Iceland made an inappropriate comment about Iceland being the 52nd state and was summoned by Icelandic President to explain. A poor joke, apparently.
One almost wonders if the US admin is actively trying to get one of its ambassadors declared persona non grata.
Is 52 a typo or did he really say that? The US has 50 states, so why not 51?
I suspect that the implication in context was that the 51st state would be Greenland. Which doesn't really help make this less of a diplomatic faux pas.
Probably a reference to the "joke" that Canada would soon become the 51st state
Maybe his views are more heterodox and he was counting Puerto Rico as 51st! (sarcasm, in case this isn't clear)
Greenland is the 51 state.
It would seem like that, but that's bonus. It's really about the spoils of crony oligarchy.
The US ambassador to France is a <pardoned> convicted felon, father of Jared Kushner.
A distinction without a difference, he was pardoned by Jared's father in law.
I think it makes a huge amount of difference exactly because of what you stated. A pardon absolves one of the sin as if it didn't happen, legally. It however does not wipe the knowledge from people's mind as if it were the gadget from Men In Black. So, adding the <pardon> bit just adds to the depravity
> A pardon absolves one of the sin as if it didn't happen, legally.
This is incorrect. A pardon is not an expungement. The conviction remains a usable historical fact and could still be referenced in later legal procedings.
Exact ramifications vary between innocence-based pardons, rehabilitiation-based pardons, and pure discretionary clemency.
In fact, part of accepting a pardon is accepting guilt. That can particularly be consequential if there is a civil case associated with the criminal charges. For example, if I'm charged with drunk driving and I run into someone's house, by accepting a pardon I have to admit that I'm guilty of drunk driving which the home owner can then use in their civil suit to extra money for the damage I caused.
This is part of the reason why people will sometimes not accept a pardon.
> part of accepting a pardon is accepting guilt
Is that not a commonly misunderstood myth? You do not have to sign anything admitting guilt.
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C1-3...
different courts have said different things. the more recent courts have said it only removes the punishment
you were still found guilty, so the guilt is still there
IIRC it is why some people defending captain Dreyfus urged him not to accept a pardon
fair enough!
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He was convicted in 2005 during George Bush's presidency. So the previous previous previous group in power?
Nice try.
Instead of being a ding, that might make him a serious candidate for presidency then. He can only go up from here.
Speaking of Jared Kushner, what has happened to our nation that this grifter twit is fronting one of the most strategically consequential negotiations on behalf of this nation? Is there any precedent in our history for what is going on these days?
In US history, pehaps not. In world history, probably.
>what has happened to our nation
Politics became a social media-based reality show, replacing policy with vibes.
https://nitter.net/pic/orig/media%2FHL_G9ZGbwAAZrvi.jpg
That's what they want you to think. See the gent sitting down next to your elected VP? That is a "prince", a scion of an Arab FAMILY. The grifter twit standing over them? Another "prince", this time of a Jewish FAMILY.
They have goals; they have policy preferences, I assure you. Trillions of dollars are involved.
Let's just call a spade a spade: this is the emergence of Oligarchy International, sold to us as "a time of confusion because of media chaos".
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If true, there must be something seriously, profoundly, wrong in the Beltway.
It somehow seems like a huge number of people are working to throw America down the drain faster.
See also Atlas Shrugged
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Nowhere was Israel mentioned. Please stop with these antisemitic dogwhistle posts in this thread.
Though to be fair, if true, putting Israeli flags on the literal doors is very strange.
e.g. Nobody puts the flag of Turkiye or Spain, actual NATO allies, on their doors.
Kushner is literally a Manchurian Candidate but for the tribe
> The American ambassador to Canada is also a complete clown
Since we are talking about American ambassadors, Mike Huckabee, American ambassador to Israel, doesn't seem like to work for America, it feels like he is an ambassador for Israel
I can understand most of what our conservative party does but I do not understand their obsession with Israel. I feel the nation should be supported and deserves to exist, but that they're doing a lot of inhumane things right now and saying that in the USA right now gets you called an antisemite incredibly fast.
It's because Israel is necessary for hosting the Apocalypse, and they are eager for it to happen so Jesus will return.
I wish that was a joke, but its not, and it's terrifying.
Which is just weird. There is nothing in their holy book like that, they just made it up and now it drives foreign policy.
you put it right here:
> I feel the nation should be supported and deserves to exist
this is to say, you believe that israel should be supported in what it does, and that the inhumane stuff deserves to happen.
you arent in conflict with the conservative party.
if you said the same about nazi germany - that the nation should be supported and deserves to exist, that would be a very explicit support for the genocide.
the government is doing the things you want it to
> you put it right here: > > I feel the nation should be supported and deserves to exist > this is to say, you believe that Israel should be supported in what it does, and that the inhumane stuff deserves to happen.
Except you purposefully cut off where I said they're doing inhumane things that are not defense. I DO support their right to exist, but not their tactics. They're slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent people for every terrorist they get.
> you arent in conflict with the conservative party.
I assure you, I am. In most ways.
> if you said the same about nazi germany - that the nation should be supported and deserves to exist, that would be a very explicit support for the genocide.
Does Germany have a right to exist? Yes. Did Germany have a right to exist in 1918 and in 1939? Yes. Did it have the right to start two major wars and slaughter tens of millions? No.
You CAN support someone's right to exist without also supporting EVERYTHING they might ever do. That's a ridiculously extreme statement.
> the government is doing the things you want it to
Again, no, it's not. You ignored half of what I said and then decided supporting existence equals supporting genocide.
I regret this reply already, this was not a serious attempt at a conversation on your part.
It we rule out the possibilit thet they have "something on them", which I rule only because it kills discussion I would guess that the reason is simple tribalism.
The opposing side hates them, so naturally, because we are all semi-developed monkeys, you need to support them. No matter what.
The most simple explanation I've come up with for Russia and Israel is that they have incriminating kompromat on them.
Probably Epstein files on Trump, some sort of equivalent awfulness for the rest.
I just can't imagine at this point that Trump supporters or his cronies would care about literally any kompromat that might exist. Basically anyone who's payed any attention knows the dude's a pedophile, and he himself said that he could shoot someone in time square, with it televized, and he wouldn't lose supporters.
Whatever the explanation, the Russia - Trump connection goes back to the 1980s.
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You mean Pete "they're burning politicians" Hoekstra?
https://youtu.be/thIRJLsnIxY
What the US is doing is not that different from wolf tiger diplomacy that China was running during the 2010s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_warrior_diplomacy
This kind of antagonism comes from the top. China mostly toned it down recently because it is ideology-driven counter-productive, we will see how long it takes the US to do the same.
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The former Trump US ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, claimed there were “no go zones” in the Netherlands where politicians and cars were being set on fire. He called it “fake news” of course, then denied having ever called it fake news, and then eventually claimed it was a mix-up of countries.
Only the best people!
There exist neighborhoods and roads in all average sized cities in the Netherlands, where if you are a white native dutchman, you definitely should avoid at night unless you want to be robbed or stabbed by one or more people of MENA origin. That's just the reality we live in.
This discussion is a cesspool of hate and prejudice. Where are the mods?
That’s the guy the Americans have stuck us with now.
Top. Men.
BUT HE SAW IT ON FOX NEWS
I am wondering whether there will be any effect to petition e-7124. It seems unlikely, to me.
* https://noscommunes.ca/petitions/fr/Petition/Details?Petitio...
Ambassadors to developed nations are typically political appointees, so yeah, they tend to suck. (Versus ambassadors to other nations, which tend to have worked their way up in the Foreign Service).
The ambassador is a representative of the American President, so that fits.
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people.
I wish I could disagree with you, but I live in Florida.
Trump's approval rating is in the 30s and has been for a while. He won a plurality not a majority of the votes in 2024. An even larger number of eligible voters didn't vote.
Also Congress was meant to be the democratic representation of the people. Technically, the president is elected by the states.
The American ambassadors to almost anywhere are complete clowns these days. Obnoxious, unfunny, despicable clowns.
What is weird in all of this is why is the US obsessed with israel so much exactly! Was it a random choice; did they had a random number generator pick it? Why are they not going to such lengths for other random countries in the opposite side of the world for example? And if an official's number one priority is not the people that pay him and have granted him his power, should he be in that position?
The US is turning into a planetary joke and it's sad to see.
The answer: Evangelical Christians
The same reliable voting block that thinks the current president is basically the second coming despite the fact he is an obvious nihilist. They are obsessed with Israel for similarly delusional reasons. I have few things in agreement with Tucker Carlson. But the way he made Mike Huckabee or Ted Cruz squirm on basic questions about Israel was delightful. These people are motivated by little more than blind faith which resembles a cult to any thinking person. Couple this with American anti-democratic compromises (connecticut compromise which allows sparsely populated, evangelical states to get outsize representation) and you have your answer. These small states are also easier to control. AIPAC actually doesn't spend that much money. It turns out to buy a Senator in the middle of nowhere is pretty cheap, and a great ROI. A Senator from Arkansas has the same voting power as a Senator from New York. Of course, for the time being New York is also bought and paid for. That may be changing. Part of the reason primaries in NYC have gotten so much attention in the last month is because of what it portends for a potential primary against Chuck Schumer. While he is not an evangelical, he is a beneficiary of AIPAC.
Since he's not an evangelical and is capable of critical thought he did call for new elections in Israel in a somewhat notable speech in 2024. It was notable as a public criticism of Netanyahu even if it was pretty mild. People of Chuck Schumer's generation who are not evangelicals still have a bias towards Israel because of post WWII guilt. America essentially inherited the power, but also the responsibility of the terminated British empire in WWII's wake. Unlike young progressive Jews who are perfectly capable of recognizing two things can be true - a state can both be Jewish and genocidal - older Americans have a bias to buying into the fiction that Israel is some uniquely vulnerable nation that needs protecting because they have parents that were around to know America largely sat on its hands during the genocide against the Jews in WWII. Americans did not want to get involved until after Pearl Harbor, and even then, anti-semitism was not exactly out of the American mainstream. And there was a time where in the Middle East, Israel was not the obvious regional superpower that it is today. So the American intelligentsia was also largely behind Israel, even if for very different reasons than evangelicals.
But even these Chuck Schumer types have basically been forced to come to terms with the fact that the current Israeli leadership is extremely far right, and frankly, pretty much as nuts (if not more) as people like Mike Huckabee. That's why again, the real answer is the evangelicals. As with Trump, they don't care if a president or a nation careens off course. They believe they are doing what their invisible friend wants. You can't really argue with that type of crazy.
Interesting how the Overton window on this has shifted over the recent past. These are questions one wouldn’t dare verbalize not that long ago
* AIPAC is one of the biggest donors to US political campaigns.
* Entanglement of tech industries
* Israel serves as an outpost of US imperialism in the Middle East.
* Shared understanding with fellow Settler-Colonialist state
* On a related note, it's a country with a big white-reading population in a mostly brown neighborhood.
* Evangelicals believe Israel is where the battle that rings in the Second Coming will happen.
AIPAC is more than a PAC. Mossad involvement is all but guaranteed.
People think AIPAC is some all powerful unique lobbying group, in fact they're not even in the top 10 major lobbyists. Did you know SpaceX gave 5x as much as AIPAC in 2024? AIPAC was also outspent by Coinbase, by Ripple, and several other companies[0]. And this "18th largest lobbyist" position is after a post-october-7 surge in spending. Pre-october-7 (2022) they were ranked forty sixth in terms of spending.
Can you name 10 of the groups who spent more than them? How about five? The question worth asking is why are people obsessed with demonizing the AIPAC in particular and singling it out as the one or primary 'evil lobbying group' when there are tens or dozens of groups that spent more. The 2024 AIPAC spending number (50 mil, which is donated by American voters, not foreign money) is 1/8th of the $400 million plan Qatar (a foreign government) gave Trump in 2025.
People focus on AIPAC specifically because they have a problem with Jews. Jews and other Israel supporting Americans are allowed to pool money and lobby just like anyone else. the fact that people think they shouldn't be allowed to play this game, the same one everyone else is playing in US politics, is what should be questioned.
0: https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/top-organizat...
"You can't criticize lobbying unless you can name all the more active lobbyists" is a very strange concept. Have you thought this one all the way through?
So they're getting their moneys worth.
AIPAC is just the most well-known and representative entity in a large constellation of a hostile foreign lobby that has somehow avoided accountability under FARA.
Qatar didn't spend 9 figures getting Trump elected, but an Israeli gambling magnate did.
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I’d say the embassy did a good job of exporting the American journalistic experience.
The only point of inauthenticity is that neither journalist suffered any lasting physical harm.
> The only point of inauthenticity ...
And that the fuzz "disagreed with detaining them". The real experience involves them doubling, tripling down, etc. and threatening to "find a reason". By their logic, they are never and could never be wrong.
"The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting"
Or reworded: "Belgian police stop our reporting simply because some foreign ambassador asked for it"
Yes, BUT...
If, indeed, the park was rented out for a private affair and the person managing that affair asked that someone be removed from the property, then like any case of trespass, it is within the purview of the police to remove that person.
It doesn't make the US look good, but I don't think it reflects poorly on the behavior of the Belgian police.
The Belgian police are the ones following American orders.
Could be but I am not sure belgian law is as trigger-happy with the whole trespassing thing. I wouldn't be surprised that lying to the police about someone being a threat in order to remove them form the private event you have invited them to would be a clear cut case
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.
So much for the "free speech" Vance hounded us Europeans with. All lies, of course.
It's interesting to see a European perspective on this incident. They seem a lot more intent on avoiding political agendas than Americans are.
Usually incidents like this (in the US) come from activists who are very bad at "picking their battles wisely." In this case, I don't think a battle was picked going in, as there was an assumption of a fair dialog, and the way the police acted implies that they (police) were hoodwinked into doing something they normally wouldn't do.
A bigger question is, what is the expected outcome from this reporting? Is it that Brussels shouldn't welcome events like this? Is it that the US needs to elect different leaders?
I hope the journalists in question will lodge a complaint with the Belgian police watchdog, Comité P: https://comitep.be
Belgium has been pretty repressive towards certain journalists for a while now. Our "World Press Freedom Index"-score has gone down a fair bit in recent years, and rightly so. The current prime minister and his friends have a history of litigating against journalists who exposed some questionable deals, so it's all to be expected.
"... 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 similarly be involved in removing people who interfered with the proceedings and didn't leave when asked to. The land owner has given the company exclusive rights to the space for the duration of the event.
Whether ejecting someone from a press event for asking a question you don't like is right or not (I personally think it's not) is irrelevant. At the point they ask you to leave for whatever reason and you don't comply, then it becomes trespass and the police can be asked to remove you.
Are you speaking from the perspective of US law or are you familiar with belgian law ?
> At the point they ask you to leave for whatever reason and you don't comply, then it becomes trespass and the police can be asked to remove you.
According to the journalists' account, they were never asked to leave.
Though I agree with the rest of your reasoning.
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.
They were not asked to leave by organizers.
> We also only have their word for it that that's what they told the cops
This part is about what cops told to them. They cops were told they are active threat, the cops disagreed with that assessment and did not detained them.
There is nothing suspicious about anything here, except your intention to twist what was written in the article into something else.
Bad take. They didn't refuse to leave. The problem is they were asked to leave at all.
>Whether ejecting someone from a press event for asking a question you don't like is right or not (I personally think it's not) is irrelevant.
That's the core issue. It isn't irrelevant.
Man, the World Apology Tour is gonna be a generational event won't it
free speech, I fear, is in retreat
freeze peach
Which is quite ironic, given all the chuds running around and screeching about _free speech absolutism_.
You misunderstood, they were only ever concerned with the freedom of their speech. You know, stuff like inciting racial hatred.
It was never their opposition's speech they wanted to be free.
"If democracy is foolish enough to give us free railway passes and salaries, that is its problem... We are coming neither as friends or neutrals. We come as enemies! As the wolf attacks the sheep, so come we."
Free speech for them, "woke propaganda" for you.
I'm sorry Mario, your Free Speech is in another Castle!
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
What even kind of response is this? The high profile ambassador invited the journalists to his event officially, presumably to BE JOURNALISTS.
Europe (which could mean anything from the UK to Belgium to Hungary to Turkey) never had absolute freedom of speech like the US. But yes, even by the US standards to champion freedom of speech, it is in retreat.
I'm saying this with love, so hear me out: Turkey has nothing to do with what comes to mind when you talk about anything European, except maybe some parts of Istanbul and Izmir.
I was born and raised in Turkey, and I have been living in Germany for nearly two decades, and I have Greeks, Bulgarians and Kurdish in my family too (no. I don't take pills to survive), so I know what I'm talking about.
It's not about inferiority/superiority, it's just a completely, unmistakably different culture, perspective on life, degree of pragmatism, and... everything. Especially when it comes to the topic at hand, freedom of speech. I think the Ottomans have a lasting effect there. The Turkish search for the new sultan never ends. You may say that some tendency in dictatorship exists everywhere, but in Turkey, you'll see authoritarian ambitions in the speeches of even the most supposedly liberal people.
I also have to say, I'm not even talking about religion. Perhaps the most religious groups, Muslim or Christian or Jewish, are the groups with the most similarities actually.
EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, Article 11:
Freedom of expression and information
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
2. The freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.
Is this the right of freedom of expression? https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/09/pimmelgate-g...
never had absolute freedom of speech like the US, which itself (since it was colonised) never had absolute freedom of speech.
I got the impression that free speech in the US is limited to right to annoy people and harass politicians from distance. Seems to be more restricted than Europe actually since access is tied to private property and its culturally acceptable to remove people from private spaces if you don't like their speech. In this particular case the US embassy appears to have "hacked" their way by claiming that those journalists are a threat but if it was in US they could have been removed and have their free speech in a designated area simply because they don't want them there.
You can give finger to Trump from distance but you can't attend to his press conference to actually ask him stuff if he doesn't like you. That's just slightly different from Turkey where you will be arrested for giving the finger to Erdogan's motorcade(happened a few times, then Turks learned their lessons and in the stats Turkey doesn't arrest as much as Britain).
In contrast, in most of Europe you usually can approach and ask politicians whatever you like.
>I got the impression that free speech in the US is limited to right to annoy people and harass politicians from distance.
That's a pretty trite way of looking at it. You could see for example how important free speech was to the US' civil rights movement in making sure that people were able to organize to challenge the status quo.
>.. if it was in US they could have been removed and have their free speech in a designated area simply because they don't want them there.
US' citizens generally have a better time in courts challenging such things than Europeans do, however.
>In contrast, in most of Europe you usually can approach and ask politicians whatever you like.
But can you tell them whatever you like without facing repercussion if they don't like what they're hearing? No.
In the US, you can still exercise your right to free speech to inform your fellow citizens about the genocide of Gaza - in Europe, most definitely not so easy. (Some European states, its easier than others ...)
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 who demand some other speech be suppressed and theirs amplified. Remember their attitudes over the Charlie Kirk assassination reactions?
I don't really care about the courts in this, you win in court and never speak again anything new because you don't want to go through all this again.
And who cares if you can tell someone something if you can't engage with them. Are you casting a spell? why would you care someone hears you? In USA they take you to safe distance behind some barriers to tell your thing. Useless stuff.
I don't know why you believe that you can't inform people about the genocide of Gaza in Europe, in fact Europeans are significantly more informed on this and having flotillas and what not.
US free speech seems to be performative. Its even limited to words, they try not to say the N word and do all their racism without that, then they are relieved when they end up saying the N word and claim freedom of speech win. It's weird from European perspective.
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 and break up concepts into paragraphs for easy reading.
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.
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.
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.
Nah
I even have to be polite to you despite your attitude, if you were in Europe as well that would have been optional :)
Sounds like the Americans lied to get a stronger response than warranted.
Can definitely understand why police would roll aggressively and with limited info if they’re lead to believe there is an active threat at a mass public event.
More and more we see the relationship with authoritarianism (police) and tyranny (those in power) out in the open. We see this with the protests in Germany for Gaza. We see this in Britain with freedom of speech taken away from Palestine supporters. And we see this shamelessly occurring from the Trump world.
I used to balk at those who were too worried at growing government power, but this is a wake up call. Protections have to be in place for the vast majority of people, even if it does allow a few criminals to get away.
I'm a little bit less cynical about it; most police still live with the assumption that all of our allies are trustworthy. If the US says there is a credible threat, they rather exercise caution, and remove the threat.
It's just that the US cannot be trusted anymore, and this will probably be the moment that Belgian police will stop taking US intel as fact.
> Protections have to be in place for the vast majority of people...
And how do those protections work when the current administration doesn't even respect the law, and no one will enforce it against them?
In a 6-3 Supreme Court decision..
The power is already curtailed if there's no one to enforce court rulings. An appropriate court says X, the administration just ignores it. How do you get enforcement when law enforcement at every level is willing to answer only to the Executive in Chief?
We see this in Britain with freedom of speech taken away from Palestine supporters.
Palestine supporters or "Palestine supporters"? Your freedom of speech ends when you sabotage military bases.
Quite a leap to bring Gaza and Palestine into a discussion about the US ambassor in Belgium.
It logically supports the claim "More and more we see the relationship with authoritarianism and tyranny out in the open."
It's a shame someone is so sensitive to a subject that it can't even be used as additional support of another argument.
Well most of the discussions could very easily end up making parallels to nazis since we see similar situations all around us over and over, hence Godwin's law. its generally considered a poor performance though and better arguments are expected.
Palestine is so divisive it should have its own 'law' - both sides are abhorable, both sides are shielded by fanatics who don't want to hear any criticism of their side, despite there being plenty of official evidence with photos, videos, wiki articles and so on.
Only if you’re not following along.
The link is police abusing their allowed powers to silence free speech and protest.
> The link is police abusing their allowed powers to silence free speech and protest.
If you'd actually read the post you'd know that its about the the US ambassador being an asshole and the Belgian police doing their job (quickly removing a supposed 'active threat' from an event - because that's the only information they had - they later realized their mistake and that the 'active threat' was just a journalist asking inconvenient questions - but at that point the damage was done and the journalist wasn't let back into the event.
> they later realised their mistake
Here’s the very problem. The police acting immediately to suppress a supposed threat (even “active” ones, whatever that means) which allows them to silence protest or even inconvenient questions to a public servant…
… and we’re splitting hairs here, but it also allows the police to be manipulated by said public servants to get the protest silenced on their behalf.
The police in this case should have quickly realised the individuals were journalists, posed no real threat (no weapons, explosives, chemicals on their persons) and let them go about their business.
I agree that the police could probably have acted more 'flexible' in the first few seconds before removing the journalist from the event. The other somewhat weird fact is that they showed up in 'cilivian' outfits instead of in uniform.
Yet still the *main* problem is the ambassador lying about that person being an active threat.
E.g. what if that information would have been correct? All hell would break lose if the police wouldn't take such a call serious and the supposed 'threat' would be real and people killed, from that perspective they seemed to have reacted quite civilized and calm.
If the events happened as reported, the ambassador should at the very least be summoned and grilled by the Belgian government.
> because that's the information they had
That has always been and will always be the excuse for these kind of rights violations by the police. "Oh it's just what we were told, sorry".
And yes, it's worth bringing up e.g. Palestine or climate activists being beaten, arrested etc. in this context, because it's where the limits and tolerances for this kind of behavior are being tested.
Police, at least in Germany, always justify their transgressions with arguments like: "well we had to beat up these demonstrators because they were engaging in criminal behavior", the "criminal behavior" being "chanting a slogan they don't like" or "carrying an umbrella" (I kid you not).
TLDR: If we continue to allow law enforcement to justify their actions with "well that's just what I was told", we are in for a very bad time, because, it turns out, anything can be justified this way.
And then Americans will lecture us that we don't have free speech.
The Streisand Effect is taking effect in here in terms of surpressing a question has lead to many more people finding out about it, as it should be and I just find some layers of irony about America celebrating its freedom while this whole thing happens because of press freedom.
I did some search on freedom250.org and found this interesting piece of TOS: YOU WAIVE AND HOLD HARMLESS THE COMPANY AND ITS AFFILIATES, LICENSEES, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS FROM ANY CLAIMS RESULTING FROM ANY ACTION TAKEN BY THE COMPANY/ANY OF THE FOREGOING PARTIES DURING, OR TAKEN AS A CONSEQUENCE OF, INVESTIGATIONS BY EITHER THE COMPANY/SUCH PARTIES OR LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES.
also it seems to be an wholly owned subsidiary of a Non profit (national park foundation): https://www.nationalparks.org/freedom-250-faqs#:~:text=NPS%2...
I am not a lawyer but I am unsure if this terms of service applies to the website or anything in general and if the European correspondent can sue freedom250.org or not
> The Streisand Effect is taking effect in here in terms of surpressing a question has lead to many more people finding out about it
The reason why people like this don't care about the Streisand effect is that they are not afraid about a one-time scandal. The value they get out of harassing their victim and potentially having them stop reporting is worth a bad buzz that people will eventually forget.
Or not forget! They want people to remember that if you stuck your chin out, you're gonna get punched. Hard.
This is an example of the Bondaz Effect which is a subtype of the Streisand Effect:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_warrior_diplomacy#Bondaz_...
IANAL either but ToS are not superseding the law. It's not because somebody they claim their action will have no consequence that they do. It's a bit like a kid playing a game shouting "I won!". Sure, you can say that, it doesn't make it true.
Freedom250 is essentially another of Trump's fundraising bodies.
The congressionally created organization that was supposed to run the 250th events was America 250 - it was created in 2016 (IIRC). When Trump was re-elected, he spun up Freedom250, redirected funds to it, and started accepting bribes.
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reminds me of Dan Brown's latest book: The Secret of Secrets.
Why?
*book spoilers*
In the book, the Czech police characters frequently complained about the various ways the US ambassador in Prague had too much influence over their investigations, especially of American citizens.
This influence was served as multiple plot devices.
> It happened roughly 300 metres from the European Commission, in Europe's capital.
Well, considering the EU's general direction, that is perpahsp appropriate symbolism :-(
> For a continent that lectures others on press freedom
Well, if it becomes difficult to lead by example:
https://europeanjournalists.org/blog/2026/03/03/press-freedo...
then lecturing about it is the thing to do I guess. The US is famous for lecturing other world states about human rights.
America: a terrified little country, run by a small, terrified maniac.
not surprised
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.
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Sad day when this is number one and highly upvoted. I don't know why they can't use AI to identify posters that leave more than 90% of political postings here, and nicely suggest that at least some of the content be technical. The political postings would be better if they contained at least some technical information, or just go ahead and change the name of the forum to something other than "hackers".
Agreed. I'd add to that, as a Belgian: let the US and americans celebrate their 250 years of independence.
That US ambassador is a known asshole. These "journalists" looks like politically slanted assholes too.
And this isn't tech news and shouldn't be here.
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yep. and anyone not aligning to the anti-american reddit rants here get downvoted. shows you where HN is going.
Or does it show where popular opinion is going?
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> The writers of the article are just mad that instead of state taking money away from someone, they just funded an event with voluntary donations.
In decent countries, a "voluntary donation" to state officials is called a bribe.
You seem to have a strange idea of both money and government.
It is, unfortunately, a quite common misunderstanding many have, that value is exclusively created in the private sector and spent in the public. So the private morgue creates value, and the public birth ward spends it. Nail saloons and lawyers create value, teachers and nurses does not (unless they work at a private institution).
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Media Bias Fact Check has them at center-left alignment and high factual credibility, like the Washington Post and Guardian.
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If that’s your opinion, I don’t think you know what actual leftism is.
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Sure you were. That's why your comment history is full of far right US politics posts, including anti-immigration.
I live in Australia and US trends reach us within 5-10 years. As a (legal) immigrant myself I'm not at all anti-immigration, I'm anti-unauthorized-immigration and anti-below-reasonable-wage-immigration.
И да, я родился в совке и вырос в его смердящих останках, не думал, что мне придётся это доказывать какому-то херу из интернета, притом что мне абсолютно насрать, как он оценит моё, основанное на личном опыте, мнение.
For an australian from the soviet union, you sure do have strong opinions about teachers getting H1b visas in the US.
Я тоже умею пользоваться программами для перевода.
Being born somewhere doesn't automatically grant you instant knowledge. For example most people in the mediterranean have no idea about all the history of the roman empire.
Those born in the actual roman empire and catching a glimpse of how awesome it was might have some clue right?
They could certainly tell you how they were doing, not really generic things about the entire empire no.
I don't think it qualifies you to judge the political spectrum in the UK as much as you think it does.
They are social democrats and firmly left of centre. You won’t find anything remotely radical in the Grauniad.
It might not be radical, but the spin is everywhere, whether they are talking about industry trends, current events or gardening.
No, it’s not everywhere. Reporting is fair and accurate.
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State-funded journalism - people complain of using taxpayers’ money
Journalism funded by private interests - people complain of bias
Journalism funded by customers - people complain of clickbait to sell more rags
Not sure what your comment is supposed to indicate. That they disclosed a source of funding when most aren’t even bothered to?
They detail the work they did with that grant money here:
https://www.journalismai.info/programmes/innovation/innovati...
Looks like it built an AI editing assistant with Google News and Polis.
What specific point are you trying to make, here? Do you think a news organization should not be acquiring tech tools? Do you think that state-funded journalism matters, in this context, or do you just think those are good bogeyman words?
Come on, be proud of your opinions. Don't hide behind scare quotes and insinuations. Don't be a coward.
The European Correspondent is a legitimate, though young, news organization. I can recommend their newsletter, they write about a nice mix of topics from all across Europe.
Sounds like they had a legitimate question for the ambassador who reacted badly - which is no surprise for someone in this administration.
So a long article about them being kicked out and all they detail about their own actions is that "we asked him about it"? I'm not sure what "tacitly threatened" means, either.
If they want sympathy, they probably should lay out the details of their actions more clearly. This just reads as some juveniles went to an event, tried to rile up an official (while filming the response in hopes of getting a juicy clip), then were surprised when they were kicked out.
They were not an active threat. It was simply a lie. They were in fact invited.
That does seem to be a trend in the stories becoming more about the journalists when the expected no comment response is given as if that was the true intent because of course they are not going to comment to hostile questions. In 2026, this is not news. We know what the administration is doing, so becoming the story is not the story they want it to be. They kept repeating "we were invited" as if that means something. While you can be invited, that invitation can be rescinded. At that point, you can't keep saying "we were invited" as a meaningful response to you being asked to leave regardless of why.
To me, it does feel a bit like some journos looking for clout. Kaitlan Collins is the poster child for this type abuse from Trump even if she's not being manhandled by police.
You rescind an invitation by (preferably kindly) asking the people in question to leave. Not by informing the police that they are an "active threat".
When America is sending their diplomats they're not sending their best!
We used to send people who were concerned with building relationships. These days it sounds like we’re sending people to milk relationships dry.
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If you don't want to jump to conclusions, why then didn't you research a bit before posting?
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Not lazy enough to keep quiet rather than spreading FUD.
> Though if this really happened as they say, it reflects very badly on Belgium as well.
Not so sure. If the security at the event said "these people are active threats to security", then its the police's job to remove the threat and then investigate.
However it should now be on those lying about it that made the accusation to prevent their evidence, and if that's not good enough then to revoke their diplomatic credentials.
If the event was a private function as it appeared to be, then removing them is fine, but from the report it sounds like more accusations were made then "these people are no longer allowed at our event", and like the boy who cried wolf, that's where the problem needs to be sorted.
The way the journalism business is going, open-source investigators and bloggers looking for clout will be the only independent media left.
The American embassy considers them to have sufficient legitimacy to invite them.
Yes, they're a legitimate news organization. They are partially funded by the EU government.
Since when having a government fund your news organization is a good sign for legitimacy
PBS put out a lot of fantastic content. Sesame Street, Nova, Frontline, Nature, Reading Rainbow, News Hour...
Seems no better or worse than having privately funded news these days.
Belgian here, never heard of them/the site
Belgian here with some knowledge of the EU-centric media operating out of Brussels.
They are legit but have a tiny audience, this accident made them instantaneously recognizable.
Good for them, we are all fed up with Politico (Axel Springer) + Euractiv (Mediahuis) duopoly.
P.S. This is just IMO, but De Wever should not have gone to the event, he lost a lot of political capital there. He should have given the ground to Theo Francken and Vansina to do their clown thing and instead he should have traveled 100km to the Florennes airbase to assist at BAFS-2026 that happened at the same time.
Does it matter? Should they have been kicked out of an event they were invited to for asking a reasonable question? Why are you asking about a news organization and not an extremely fragile man-baby who can't take a tough question?
Many blogs will omit key facts. For example you could write "I was booted out for asking a question" when in actual fact you'd broken in with some wire cutters and then proceeded to pour champagne over all the soft furnishings.
A credible reporter for a credible outlet writing a credible article won't, whether that's the Washignton Post, the Daily Telegraph, or Le Monde, or if it's BBC, RTL, Al Jazzera.
So it's always worth asking "is this a credible source". It used to be fairly easy, to be a journalist you had to have significant backing from a significant institution.
Given that they were invited to the event "as press" (did you even read the article?) it is safe to assume that they are credible reporters.
Many people on the internet lie.
Trump omits key facts and lies all the time. Also, the SCOTUS yesterday let stand a ruling that he is in fact a rapist.
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So American, is Bill White a trustworthy ambassador or a political donor looking for clout?
A natural question to ask – after their very legitimate and important questions have been answered!
(Or are you just trying to derail?)
Do you ask this about all of the alt right slop artists that have been legitimized by the Trump admin? Or only about those who pose adversarial questions to the Trump administration?
Judge for yourself. Why are you asking other people to think for you?
"Belgian police willingly comply with U.S. ambassador's request, and Belgian police stopped your reporting"
FTFY
> a foreign ambassador had Belgian police remove us
Belgian police removed us.
FTFY again.
The article is making a good point, especially the hilarious irony of all the private companies, and US being complicit in limiting press freedom. But it also fails to recognize the agency and complicitness of the Belgian authorities as well, and makes them out to be some sort of innocent bystandards -- "Oh look those poor Belgians being bullied by the big bad US!" If they didn't want to remove you, they simply could have not.
Renting a venue for an event usually comes with the right to decide who may attend and who may not. So if the embassy indeed rented the park, then as soon as the ambassador decided the journalists weren't welcome, they were no longer allowed to stay and the Belgian police were correctly doing their duty in making sure they complied and left.
So the article isn't strictly alleging that the ambassador did anything he didn't have the right to do, but uninviting journalists from an event after they ask a question he preferred not to answer and involving the police instead of directly telling them to leave is maybe not the best use of those rights.
> The officers, we later learned, had been told that Samuel was an ”active threat.”
The ambassador does not have the right to lie about someone being an active threat.
> A few days before the event, Samuel had published on his Instagram that ambassador White tacitly threatened an American and Belgian resident after that citizen urged the Zac Brown Band not to perform at the event
No right to threaten either.
> how we had got into the event (that the American embassy invited us to).Eventually, they accepted that we were journalists and that they disagreed with detaining us.
You dont get to invite journalists and then try to get police to detain them either.
Did you actually read the article?
The Belgian police got the information that the person would be an 'active threat' which is just absolutely bizarre and explains the somewhat 'hasty' reaction of the police to quickly remove that person from the event before asking further questions. After they realized their mistake they apologized but of course at that point the journalist wasn't allowed back in.
The ambassador essentially swatted the journalist.
Indeed, I find this story quite interesting (and disturbing) from the Belgian point of view.
Suppose the Belgian government declared the ambassador persona non grata, and sent them on the next plane to Washington. Presumably this would raise their popularity with their own voters, although if Trump noticed he'd throw another temper tantrum. What then?
Europe is mighty, independent, strong and decoupling from the US, but also everything bad Europe does is because the big old meanies in the US made them do it against their will
Yes, the Brussels state is in desperate need of funds, so they rent out public parks, including the Cinquantenaire, for private events. Of course, during such events the park is not accessible to the public, and there's private security who can hand over anyone to the Brussels police to be escorted out of the park. You know, like you can do in your apartment too.
So if Bill White, the US ambassador, pays to rent out the park for, I think it was 2 weeks, they can have whoever they want removed from this public park. Including any reporters.
They are not allowed to lie about it though.
Lying to the police that the reporters are an "active threat" is criminal.
Presumably the ambassador has diplomatic immunity unfortunately. Really a concept we should get rid of in the day of video calls - there's no longer a strong enough need for foreign diplomats to be in a country to justify putting them above the law.
The police didn't do something outside of their legal powers, that's not what the question is. It's rather unusual for any ambassador to use force to kick out invited reporters from a function.
> So if Bill White, the US ambassador, pays to rent out the park for, I think it was 2 weeks, they can have whoever they want removed from this public park. Including any reporters.
That would be by private security not police though. You aren't generally arrested for annoying an event organiser.
If you get trespassed then wouldn't the police get involved?
Depends on the laws in Belgium (I've no idea what they are)... in the UK for example trespass by itself is not a criminal matter, even if somebody refuses to leave your property... they need to be doing something else.
Just to clarify. The UK police can assist you in ejecting trespassers, whom you have told to leave your house, in order to "prevent a breach of the peace". They won't arrest or charge trespassers unless they have reason to suspect criminal activity.
In this case the Belgian police might have been justified in escorting the journalists off the premises. But I'm not sure what grounds they had to detain and question them.
They should have claimed the reporters were using AC
They weren't trespassing, they were invited!
Aside: why do Americans always talk about trespassing as something that is done to the trespasser? Isn't trespassing the act itself? If I plant myself in your livingroom uninvited, then surely I am trespassing. Why do so many people instead say that I "get trespassed"?
I think they mean the victim got trespassated
Because in semi-public places, like a store, you are only trespassing if you've been told to leave (you are trespassed).
Why "are you trespassed" if you're told to leave? I understand that you might not be engaging in the act of trespassing until you have been made aware that you must leave. But refusing to do so surely then means that you are trespassing not that you "are trespassed?
Trespassing is the act. The trespasser is the subject undertaking the act. The object that is being trespassed upon is surely then the offended location and/or person?
> They were “just doing their job,”
It's always this one exact excuse. They were simply "following orders". The police don't have their own brains capable of thinking.
You are meaningfully misquoting here ("doing their job" not "following orders", which has a different ring to it, at least for me).
Also, apparently they do have brains capable of thinking because: "Eventually, they accepted that we were journalists and that they disagreed with detaining us."