“Gaza is a shame for humanity”: the strong words of the Belgian king Philippe

On the eve of the Belgian national holiday, King Philippe surprised by the resolutely international tone of his speech. Very far from the traditional Belgo-Belgian considerations, the sovereign has widened his focal length, evoking a Europe which “chooses cooperation rather than confrontation”, and calling for a stronger, fairer continent, and faithful to its democratic values.

But it was by evoking the global dramas that the king marked the spirits. About Gaza, his words decided with the usual prudence of the palace: “A shame for whole humanity”he said, denouncing humanitarian drifts, hunger, bombs, and “The suffocation of innocent people in their enclave”. Explicit support for the call of the UN Secretary General to put an end to this crisis “Unbearable”. The sovereign also mentioned the war in Ukraine, calling for “continuing to support” the Ukrainian people, in a parallel which inscribes current conflicts in the same logic of disintegration of international law.

The strength of this discourse is as much to its content as to the one who pronounces it. King Philippe is only expressed with sparingly on the international scene, and his words weigh all the heavier as they are rare.