- 04 Feb 2018 23:13
#14885654
Strange bedfellows or birds of a feather?
Ex-Israeli spymaster, who helped capture Adolf Eichmann, releases video in support of German far-right party
I'm sure that Mossad must be aware of the fact that the AfD contains antisemitic elements:
Many in AfD 'have an anti-Semitic view of the world'
Ex-Israeli spymaster, who helped capture Adolf Eichmann, releases video in support of German far-right party
Rafi Eitan, a former Israeli minister and head of the Mossad operation that led to the capture of Nazi fugitive Adolf Eichmann, has filmed a message of support for the German far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD).
The message, recorded in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day and posted to social media accounts by both AfD and Eitan himself, shows the Israeli offering greetings to the party's leadership and saying, “We all in Israel appreciate your attitude towards Judaism.”
“I’m sure that if you work wisely, strongly and, most important, realistically … that instead of ‘Alternative for Germany,’ you might become an alternative for all of Europe,” Eitan said.
➡️…
According to Israeli media reports, Eitan also wrote a message in German on his personal Facebook page that said “the Muslim world and its culture are very different from those of the West. Anywhere there are Muslims today, in any European country, one can expect violence and terror because of these differences.”
Israel's ambassador to Germany, Jeremy Issacharoff, wrote on Twitter that he rejected Eitan's remarks and accused the AfD of glorifying Nazi Germany's past. “It's sad and a shame,” Issacharoff said.
Founded in 2013, AfD has captured a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment to emerge as the third-strongest party in the German Parliament, called the Bundestag, last year with almost 13 percent of the vote.
In a country that has generally been keen to put its dark 20th-century history behind it, some members of the AfD have embraced it: One the party's founders has said that the country should be proud of its Nazi-era soldiers, while another member has called Berlin's Holocaust memorial a “monument of shame.”
In January, a German court ruled that one AfD politician could be called a Holocaust denier, a charge that the politician, Wolfgang Gedeon, has denied.
The party has generally focused much of its ire toward Muslim immigrants, and many of its elected members claim a strong affinity toward Israel: A poll from last September found that 90 percent of AfD Bundestag members supported a statement by Chancellor Angela Merkel that “Israel’s security is Germany’s raison d’etre.”
The 91-year-old Eitan has a legendary history in Israeli intelligence and played a key role in the capture of Eichmann, a major architect of the Holocaust, from Argentina in 1960. Eichmann was subsequently put on trial in Israel and executed.
Eitan later worked as an adviser on terrorism for the Israeli government and served as a Knesset member.
He has previously expressed similar support for Austria's Freedom Party, an anti-immigrant party founded by ex-Nazis. According to reports in the Austrian media, Eitan appeared at an event with Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache, whom he dubbed the “next president of Austria,” warning of the dangers of Islam.
I'm sure that Mossad must be aware of the fact that the AfD contains antisemitic elements:
Many in AfD 'have an anti-Semitic view of the world'
The AfD is not a genuinely anti-Semitic party. That would mean that the party is actually being held together by anti-Semitic sentiments, but this is not the case. However, many AfD members do share anti-Semitic ideas; they have an anti-Semitic view of the world, meaning that they believe that Jews are the masterminds of all evil. So, in that sense, anti-Semitism does play an essential role in the AfD.
What evidence of anti-Semitism have you found within the AfD?
You can always find clearly anti-Semitic remarks made by AfD members on the internet - for example, on Facebook. A former member of the AfD executive in the Weserbergland region, Gunnar Baumgart, once wrote in an article that that Zyklon B was used to protect lives and that not a single Jew was killed by it.
Dirk Hoffmann, a party executive in Saxony-Anhalt, criticized Israeli activities in the Palestinian territories by saying that they are the equivalent of the Holocaust. At the moment, it is also popular within the AfD to blame Jews, in general or as individuals, for migration to Europe - i.e., the refugees who come to Europe. It is said that this is a Jewish plan. Familiar anti-Semitic stereotypes can repeatedly be found within the AfD.