The attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, which killed four people, has already started to take its psychological toll not only on the city's small Jewish community, to which I belong, but on all believers in diversity and peace in Europe.

The CCTV images released by police are haunting as we watch an individual who appears calm and focused throughout. His actions seem simply incomprehensible. As a rabbi familiar with this museum and with many of the people who have devoted themselves to its ideas and message, I was shocked. But to any Jew living in Brussels the shootings did not come as a surprise.

Over the years, with the constant increase in verbal and physical attacks, with the unceasing rhetoric of anti-Jewish speeches emanating from radical groups, this tiny Jewish community has long feared that such an act would one day take place.

At this stage, the identity of the killers has not been established. Speculation is running high that radicalised young Muslims, possibly inspired by radical preachers, carried out the attack in an antisemitic rampage. However, it would be misleading to limit the source of antisemitic abuse to Islamic radicalism. European, and in particular Belgian, antisemitism is more complex.

A violent attack against Jews in the heart of Europe does not happen in a vacuum. The oxygen and water to grow the seeds of violence planted within radicalised youth are found not only in their homes and communities but also in the general atmosphere prevailing in the country and in Europe at large.

Having lived and worked as a rabbi in Europe, I cannot help but feel that there is an atmosphere of animosity towards Judaism within the highest spheres of power and intellectual life in Europe. While sophisticated in its rhetoric, the recent campaigns within the Council of Europe, supported by a majority of European intellectuals as well as by most of its citizens, seeking not only to ban circumcision but also to declare it barbaric and incompatible with the EU's ethical standards, undeniably contributes to demonising Jews and Judaism. One must think hard about the consequence of declaring Jewish rituals "incompatible" with standards of European life.

Labelling Judaism in such a way is not an innocent act. After all, if my religious practices are so unworthy of preservation, why should I expect the respect and protection from violence that is the right of any other European citizen? It is in such a context that radical hate speech can flourish openly in the middle of the continent's most European city. This is the oxygen on which radicalism thrives.

Yet Brussels is also the capital of a country. As such, the particularity of Belgium needs also to be reflected upon. The city and the country seem to create the right ingredients for such tragedies to take place. Belgium is a divided country, growing more so with every passing election. There can be very few Belgians who would argue that the deep division within the country, based primarily on language, does little to create a sense of unity and self-identity. In such conditions, where a lack of overall cohesiveness is the expectation, is it any wonder that individual communities turn inward, fearful and violently rejecting what they see as the other? It is water to the seeds of radicalisation: filling a gap, creating an identity and a sense of belonging where the country is failing in its task to infuse its citizens with a cohesive vision.

The rabbis of old taught that "a rope made of three interwoven cords cannot easily be broken". They used this metaphor to explain that cultures and traditions do not exist on their own; they need support structures to make them unbreakable. The reality of antisemitism in Belgium and Europe resembles this rope, with three intertwined ingredients of hate.

Radical Islam fuelled by the ideologies of some of the darkest corners of the Arab world, European demonisation of Jewish ritual practices and the absence of a strong sense of self-identity and unity are the components that, sadly, will be very hard to break.