The publications of the United States Ambassador in Brussels turned into a new diplomatic crisis with the Belgian government, after he launched a personal attack on Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke, which prompted Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot to announce that he had been summoned for a reprimand session, in the second such confrontation in about 6 months.
According to a report by journalist Eli Leon in the Israeli newspaper “Maariv”, Prevo announced on Friday his intention to summon the US ambassador to Brussels, Bill White, after the latter published on his “Instagram” account an article in which he personally attacked the Belgian Minister of Health.
The current confrontation began against the backdrop of an internal debate in Belgium regarding a new health warning that is supposed to appear in advertisements for alcoholic beverages, bearing the phrase “Alcohol is harmful to health.”
White posted, via the Instagram Stories feature, an image generated by artificial intelligence, in which Vandenbroucke appears on a cigar box next to the phrase “harmful to all forms of enjoyment in life.”
The ambassador wrote above the photo: “Who is the biggest loser in Belgium?”
The story disappeared from his account within less than 24 hours, and it was not clear whether White was the one who deleted it himself.
Prevot, who is on a visit to the Sahel region in Africa, responded in a sharp tone, saying: “It is unacceptable for an ambassador accredited to Belgium to attack in this way a member of our government.”
He added that he would summon White in the coming days.
The head of the Forecast Party, Conner Russo, also attacked the US ambassador, writing: “Bill may be a funny person, but he knows nothing about health. He just repeats what Father Trump says. They only care about money, not our health.”
This is not the first confrontation between White and the Belgian government.
Last February, the ambassador was summoned after he accused Belgium of “anti-Semitic persecution,” against the backdrop of an investigation against circumcisers in the city of Antwerp who were suspected of having performed circumcision operations without the medical license required by law.
In that case too, White attacked Vandenbroucke personally, and accused the Belgian authorities of targeting the Jewish community.
Prévot responded at the time, describing the ambassador’s statements as “dangerous misinformation” and warning him against interfering in Belgium’s internal affairs and judicial system.
Thus, the relationship between the American ambassador and the Belgian authorities returned to the circle of tension again, but this time due to a sarcastic personal publication, which raised the level of the dispute from a political debate to a protocol crisis that required a second official reprimand within half a year.
