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This Romanian party called the Holocaust a ‘minor topic.’ Israel’s envoy just met with its leader.
(JTA) — Israel’s ambassador to Romania met with the leader of a right-wing political party there that Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, has denounced over past comments about the genocide and World War II.
On Monday, Ambassador Reuven Azar met in Bucharest with George Simion, president of the AUR party, and Yossi Dagan, the chairman of the Samaria Regional Council, an organization of Israeli settler leaders.
Some of AUR’s leaders have defended the record of historical figures who served in the regime of Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu — an ally of Hitler — or were part of the fiercely antisemitic Iron Guard, a revolutionary fascist movement. Last year, the nationalist AUR party issued a statement calling Holocaust education, which had been recently mandated in Romanian high schools, a “minor topic.”
Israel’s ambassador to Romania at the time, David Saranga, argued that the statement fell under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. “We are Christians, so we can’t be antisemites,” AUR member Claudiu Tarziu wrote in response.
Since then, Israel’s government has changed. According to the Times of Israel, lawmakers in the current, historically right-wing government have expressed a desire to rekindle relations with far-right governments across Europe.
Israel’s foreign ministry told the Times of Israel that it agreed to meet with Simion only after his party agreed to four things: that Romania holds responsibility for Jews who were killed in territory it held during World War II; that all parties should adopt the IHRA antisemitism definition; that the the glorification of war criminals, including Antonescu, should be condemned; and that Holocaust education should receive robust support.
Simion issued a statement that hit on those topics but did not support the government’s current Holocaust history curriculum, according to the Times of Israel. And instead of outright condemning Antonescu and Iron Guard figures, Simion wrote, “Romanian criminal legislation punishes severely any manifestations of support … for the war criminals or the members of the Iron Guard who took part to the Holocaust, including Ion Antonescu.”
Yad Vashem did not support Monday’s meeting. “In July, we notified the Foreign Ministry that in our view, the conditions justifying a meeting with the AUR party were not met,” the museum said in a statement. “Over the past few weeks, the Foreign Ministry hasn’t asked again for our opinion and hasn’t updated us on developments.”
Simion also accepted Dagan’s invitation to visit the West Bank. Israel’s i24 news channel reported that Dagan had worked with the foreign ministry for months to arrange the meeting.
Last fall, Israel’s foreign ministry said that it did not have any relations with AUR, after a group of lawmakers from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party attended a conference hosted by the political party. And earlier this month, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen — who this week was chided after disclosing a meeting with his Libyan counterpart, sparking a crisis there — said a detente with the AUR party was “fake news.”
AUR shocked analysts in a 2020 election, earning 9% of the national vote by capitalizing on anger in the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns. They are expected to grow in influence. A prominent figure in the party drew outrage — and distancing from Simion — after he praised an antisemitic fascist Romanian leader from the 1930s on primetime TV last year..
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The post This Romanian party called the Holocaust a ‘minor topic.’ Israel’s envoy just met with its leader. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Benjamin Netanyahu was burned in effigy on the streets of Montreal during a Friday night riot
Justin Trudeau condemned for subsequently attending a Taylor Swift concert in Toronto.
The post Benjamin Netanyahu was burned in effigy on the streets of Montreal during a Friday night riot appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Report: IDF targets Hezbollah chief in Beirut
Illustrative. Smoke billows over Beirut’s southern suburbs after an Israeli strike, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Hadath, Lebanon October 19, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
JNS.org – A massive explosion in a building in Beirut on Saturday killed 11 people and wounded dozens in what Arab media said was a failed Israeli attempt to kill Hezbollah’s head of operations, Muhammad Haydar.
Israel did not immediately claim responsibility specifically for the explosion early on Saturday in the eight-story building in the Lebanese capital’s Basta neighborhood. The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said only that Israel struck an unspecified target in Beirut, the fourth strike in the city in a week.
Basta is situated in the city’s center. The bulk of Israel’s strikes in Beirut have been in the Dahiyeh neighborhood, a Hezbollah stronghold in the city’s south.
Lebanese media reported that at least 63 people were wounded in the strike.
Avihai Edraei, the head of the Arabic-language department of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, posted a tweet on X on Saturday calling on residents of Dahiyeh to evacuate their homes. They are living near Hezbollah installations, he said, against which “the IDF will act in the near future.”
The targets of Saturday’s strikes “were located by Hezbollah in the heart of the civilian population. Prior to the attack, many steps were taken to reduce the chance of harming civilians,” the IDF wrote in a statement. A headquarters, a weapons depot, “and additional Hezbollah terror infrastructures” were attacked, the statement said.
According to Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, Israel has killed 2,450 terrorists in Lebanon and Syria. Lebanese health authorities said that 3,365 people have died in strikes by Israel. Those data do not distinguish between terrorists and civilians. On the Israeli side, terrorists have killed 121 people, with 76 of them being soldiers.
The post Report: IDF targets Hezbollah chief in Beirut first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Troubling Details Emerge About Disappearance of Chabad Rabbi, Inaction of UAE Authorities
Zvi Kogan. Photo: LinkedIn via i24 News
i24 News – i24NEWS learned chilling details about the disappearance of Chabad emissary Zvi Kogan, who went missing last week in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Kogan did not show up for scheduled meetings he had during the day. After he failed to make contact, his wife contacted the security officer of the Chabad house, who alerted the local authorities. Information about the incident was also shared with the Israeli authorities.
Kogan disappeared from a location about an hour and a half from Dubai. i24NEWS can report that complaints were made to both the Dubai Police and the Abu Dhabi Police on Thursday, yet no actions were taken by either.
i24NEWS also became privy to the information that although Kogan’s car got a speeding ticket on its way to Oman, in this case too the authorities in the Emirates and Oman did nothing.
i24NEWS can also confirm that there is tremendous anger in Israel at the Emiratis, who did not respond to the suspicious signs and did not act in time. In fact, actions were only taken after the intervention of Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar.
The story has troubling echoes of the abduction by Iranians of German-Iranian dissident Jamshid Sharmahd; he was kidnapped from Dubai to Iran via Oman and was eventually executed.
The post Troubling Details Emerge About Disappearance of Chabad Rabbi, Inaction of UAE Authorities first appeared on Algemeiner.com.