These are busy days for the Brussels-based “terrorism expert” Claude Moniquet. Ever since it emerged that a few men from Belgium took part in the recent attacks on Paris, his “analysis” has been much in demand by the media.

Any time I have seen Moniquet on TV lately, he has always been given
softball treatment by his interviewers. As a result, he is presented as
an earnest figure, who has amassed considerable knowledge on extremism
both through his past career
with the French external intelligence agency and his subsequent
research. Viewers are never told that this “terrorism expert” has
applauded atrocities perpetrated by Israel.

In 2004, Moniquet described Israel’s assassination of Ahmed Yassin, a founding member of Hamas, as “good news.” Yassin was 66-years-old and paralyzed from the waist down.

Seven other Palestinians were killed in the Hellfire missile attack on Yassin. According to Amnesty International, Israel’s actions violated international law.

Moniquet has worked closely with some of Israel’s most dedicated apologists in Brussels.

He has long been a member of a “think tank” called the Atlantis Institute, founded by Joël Rubinfeld.

A veteran lobbyist, Rubinfeld has strived to bolster Belgium’s relationship with Israel.

That relationship was strained in the early years of this century as Ariel Sharon,
then Israel’s prime minister, was sued in Belgium over massacres in
Palestinian refugee camps during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

Under pressure from Israel and its supporters, Belgium soon diluted its “universal jurisdiction” law to shield Sharon and other war criminals from prosecution.

Parroting propaganda

Moniquet heads the European Strategic Intelligence and Security
Center. One of his former employees at this “terrorism” watchdog is Dimitri Dombret, with whom Moniquet has written a paper on the “threat” posed by Iran.

A former secretary-general with the lobby group European Friends of Israel, Dombret now runs his own consultancy firm. Its main client in recent years was Teva, an Israeli drugs-maker.

The website for Moniquet’s center lists “lobbying” as one of its
activities. While I was undertaking a research project about Israel’s
supporters in Brussels last year, Moniquet told me that neither the
Israeli government nor any Israeli company was paying his center for
advice.

Nonetheless, Moniquet has been known to parrot Israeli propaganda.

During Operation Cast Lead — Israel’s invasion and bombardment of Gaza in late 2008 and 2009 — he called Palestine solidarity activists “pathetic.” In an opinion piece,
he accused those who protested against Israel of “selective
indignation,” asking why they were not so exercised about human rights
abuses in Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Congo and Zimbabwe.

Conveniently, he overlooked two salient facts: Israel has much
stronger political and commercial ties to the West than the countries he
listed and many of the protesters he dubbed “pathetic” were calling out
their own governments as accomplices to Israel’s crimes.

Defying logic

Moniquet cannot be regarded as an expert on terrorism in any real sense.

A genuine expert would help us understand how Islamic State
emerged. They would take us through the history of Western meddling in
the Middle East that spawned this monstrous organization.

They would join the dots between the 1916 Sykes-Picot accord (a secret deal to carve up the Middle East between Britain and France), the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, the ongoing civil war in Syria and the deadly machinations of the Saudi elite.

Rather than offering the kind of incisive commentary that is so
sorely needed, Moniquet reinforces stereotypes. He has, for example,
helped to stigmatize the entire community living in the Brussels
district of Molenbeek based on how a small number of extremists have lived there.

In a weekend appearance on France TV, Moniquet distorted
the truth. In his warped mind, efforts by the local authority in
Molenbeek to make its Muslim inhabitants feel welcome was transformed
into a “tacit pact” with “Islamists.”

Such rhetoric closely resembles that of Belgium’s right-wing politicians trying to capitalize on the Paris attacks.

Moniquet has also been known to defy logic. Not long before the Paris attacks, he wrote
about how those involved in recent acts of extremist violence in Europe
were already known to the police. Yet rather than making the case for
greater scrutiny of known extremists, he praised France’s introduction
of “massive digital surveillance.”

Although Moniquet indicated that the new surveillance rules would be used to keep an eye on suspects, their breadth represents a clear erosion of civil liberties.

Despite the patently dubious quality of his analysis, Moniquet is
able to charge money for his services. Last year, he told me that his
center’s annual budget is between €1 million and €1.5 million and its
clients include police agencies and foreign ministries.

Will his recent media appearances help him drum up more business? I fear that they might.