“Gaza should be turned into Auschwitz” says Israeli council leader
The Israeli mask slipped on December 17 as a councilor called for Gaza to be turned into Auschwitz during a radio interview, reports Haaretz.
David Azoulay the head of the council in Metula, a town in northwest Israel close to the border with Lebanon, was interviewed on the country’s 103FM Radio and said that, “The entire Gaza Strip should be emptied and levelled flat, just like in Auschwitz. Let it become a museum, showcasing the capabilities of the State of Israel and dissuading anyone from living in the Gaza Strip,”
1.1 million people were killed in the Poland-based Auschwitz by the Nazis during World War Two.
He added, “We should leave Gaza desolate and destroyed to serve as a museum, demonstrating the madness of the people who lived there,” as well as suggesting that the Israeli army should load up Gaza residents and ship them to Lebanese refugee camps whilst claiming- ironically- he doesn’t hold far-right views.
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19,000 Gazans have been killed by brutal Israeli assaults since October 7 and 1.6 million have been displaced.
Azoulay’s genocidal remarks were condemned by the Auschwitz Memorial who wrote on X, ex-Twitter, “Memory of victims of Auschwitz has, at times, been violated and instrumentalized in various extreme statements. David Azoulay appears to wish to use the symbol of the largest cemetery in the world as some sort of a sick, hateful, pseudo-artistic, symbolic expression. “
“Calling for acts that seem to transgress any civil, wartime, moral, and human laws, that may sound as a call for murder of the scale akin to Auschwitz, puts the whole honest world face-to-face with a madness that must be confronted and firmly rejected. We do hope that Israeli authorities will react to such shameful abuse, as terrorism can never be a response to terrorism.”
It is not the first time, and is unlikely to be the last, that an Israeli political figure has made abhorrent comments regarding Palestine or its people.
In March, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich argued that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people.
Haaretz/ Middle East Eye
