Antwerp city cancelled last week a deal with an Israeli company for the purchase of electric four-wheelers for its police force after it was disclosed that the local company that presented itself as its representative had published hateful statements on social media related to the Israel-Hamas war.
As previously reported, the cabinet of Antwerp’s mayor, Bart De Wever (N-VA), told media that the city decision to cancel the deal was not due to the Israeli origin of the vehicles but prompted by hateful comments made by the local company’s CEO about Palestinians.
When asked to specify the statements, his office declined to comment further. A local Jewish member of the city council declined also to comment on the affair which has upset the Jewish community in the city.
The community, which is mostly ultra-orthodox, was persecuted during WWII by the Nazis and their collaborators. More than 10,000 Jews were deported in 1942 to their death in Auschwitz. Today the community numbers ca 20,000 people and is associated with the diamond industry.
The original story was disclosed by Apache, an investigative news website, which in an article (by journalist Frank Olbrechts) described the series of events. Hateful and extremist statements had been published but not by the CEO of D.S Raider Ltd., the Israeli company manufacturing the special e-vehicle (EZ Raider), but by the CEO of the Belgian company importing the scooters.
Whether the city council objected to the deal because of the hate speech or because of the Israeli origin of the e-scooter is not clear but some of its members took a pro-Palestinian position. The article also faults the local sales representative for having being active in Belgian – Israeli friendship organisations.
It emerges from the article that Bart De Wever himself tested the e-vehicle in December and was enthusiastic about using it as an adapted electric vehicle for police patrols. The Antwerp police force seemed also interested. Money had already been allocated for the purchase in the budget. Whether the e-vehicles were supposed to be bought without a tender procedure is not clear from the article.
The EZ Raider is described as an electric ATV (all-terrain vehicle) with four-wheels. The vehicle is the first Standing-Position ATV in the world and can be used in deep mud, sand dunes or snow, and can also drive smoothly up and down stairs. The company has developed it for police patrolling but it has also found a market in the tourist industry.
The story does not end with this. “The local company mentioned in the article used to be a distributor of ours up until the beginning of 2024 when we decided to terminate our agreement with them,” says a member of the management team at D.S Raider Ltd.
“I’m sorry that a company associated with us, although we stopped working with them long before the article, had caused so many troubles. We distance ourselves from any hurtful remarks and hope that we’ll be able to repair the relationship with the Antwerp city council.”
Bart De Wever has met with King Philippe and been appointed to ‘preformator’ to explore the possibilities of forming a Belgian federal coalition government. One of Belgium's unwritten political rules states that the prime minister should be from the biggest party in the majority. As N-VA won the most votes in the country, De Wever – as party leader – is likely to become prime minister.
He has a record of friendly relations with the local Jewish community where many voted for his party despite its roots in a separatist movement in Flanders where some elements cooperated with Nazi-Germany. A historian by profession, he was interviewed in 2019 by The Brussels Times about the lessons learned of history in connection with Herman Van Goethem’s book ‘1942, The year of silence’.
