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Comment by elric | Hacker News Reader

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.

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Well, he didn't just say it was anti-semitic. He called for the judges to rule in a specific way. It was very much framed as being about Belgian sovereignty by much of the Belgian media.

One of the mohels was from the US, it was viewed as asking for US citizens to have special treatment in the Belgian legal system.

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.

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.

The particular circumcision was also performed in an unsanitary manner (metzitzah b'peh), hence why a whistleblower brought it to the attention of authorities and it was prosecuted. This is not accepted practice in the US either.

No one here is getting arrested for doing a normal at-home bris, even if it's technically illegal.

> 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.

The ADL is a rather discredited pro-Israel organization. It reports protests of Israel and of Zionism as "anti-semitism". Here's a link to a documentary about it from 2009:

http://www.defamation-thefilm.com/

For a bit of context https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brit_milah#Metzitzah

"In three medical papers done in Israel, Canada, and the US, oral suction following circumcision was suggested as a cause in 11 cases of neonatal herpes " lovely.

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

Exactly my thought… I just woke up

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.

According to VRT it was involved: https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2024/09/20/antwerps-parket-onde...

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