The United States will show a red card to European leaders, ministers or officials attempting to travel to the World Cup if they’ve pursued policies the Trump administration deems anti-semitic.

“We are holding countries accountable for ministers who are saying things, and they are not being allowed into the country,” said Yehuda Kaploun, an ultra-orthodox rabbi appointed by Donald Trump as a special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism. He was addressing a conference in Brussels on Wednesday.

Concerns are rising in high-level EU circles that officials and ministers could be stopped at border controls on the way to the FIFA World Cup, hosted by the US this summer. An EU official said that Kaploun specifically linked antisemitism to World Cup travel access.

Recent weeks have seen a spate of bombings and attacks at synagogues across Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK, with European officials investigating links to Hezbollah.

Kaploun claims that antisemitism is at 1933 levels across Europe.

When pushed on what further steps the US could take, Kaploun told Euractiv: “We can take any step that the secretary of state and the president deem necessary to protect the community. Those are options. As to how that is, we’re not going to get into any nitty gritties.”

Belgium, whose football team has qualified for the World Cup, has been in US sights over a legal case brought against Jewish ritual circumcisers in Antwerp, home to the country’s ultra-Orthodox community.

Bill White, the US ambassador to Belgium, accused Belgium’s government of antisemitism – accusations the government denied.

White doubled down on his robust stance that his host country has a severe antisemitism problem at the same conference, held by the European Jewish Association, a pro-Israel group that has given prizes to the likes of European Parliament President Roberta Metsola and teaches politicians about the Holocaust.

“People are saying they no longer feel safe,” White said, as he picked up a prize for his support of the Jewish community.

Kaploun told Euractiv that White had the US administration’s firm support. “The whole world doesn’t have a problem with this, so why would Belgium pick this as an issue?” he asked. He suggested that a solution will be found “quickly” without “any” pressure being applied to the Belgian government.

Two Jews, three opinions

Central to Kaploun’s criticism of the global approach to fighting racism against Jews is that approaches have so far been too disparate.

Kaploun met senior European ambassadors during a previous trip to Brussels in March and clashed with a high-level German diplomat during one meeting, who pushed back at Kaploun’s assertion that Europe was being soft on crime, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting.

“He came here to lay down the law,” said one of the two people, referring to Kaploun. “We have different approaches,” one EU official said.

Kaploun told Euractiv: “I answered [the German diplomat] then that it’s not an issue of being soft on crime. Germans have done an incredible job of prosecuting people for the hate crimes against the Jewish community.”

“That’s not what that discussion was about. The discussion was about how we educate people so that we don’t get to the level of having to make arrests. It wasn’t a conversation that was antagonistic in any shape, way or form. He was saying that we are making our efforts, and I was explaining that we have to make efforts pre the arrests, pre the act.”

Busy with Trump

Asked whether Donald Trump’s attacks on the Pope were making his job harder, Kaploun said: “I don’t think the Pope has to be busy with the president. The president doesn’t have to be busy with the Pope.”

“I think the Catholic church needs to be more vocal about some of the issues that are affecting the world,” he said.

“If there was an anti-Christian bias, he could have been very quiet. He’s not. He’s speaking about right and wrong.”

(bw, ow)

Source: Euractiv.com