Zelenskyj on anti-Semitism
“Russian leadership has forgotten lessons from World War II”
5/3/2022 1:33 am
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov provoked outrage with his confused war propaganda, according to which many Jews, like Ukrainian President Zelensky, were anti-Semites. Zelenskyj now accuses the Kremlin of wanting to reverse the roles of perpetrators and victims in Nazi crimes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted with outrage at the anti-Semitic outburst by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. In a reversal of perpetrators and victims, Russia’s top diplomat blamed the Jewish people for Nazi crimes, Zelenskyy said in a video message in Kyiv. There is no objection from Moscow. “Such an anti-Semitic attack by their minister means that the Russian leadership has forgotten all the lessons of World War II, or perhaps never learned them,” said Zelenskyy.
The 44-year-old is of Jewish descent. If Russia tortures Ukrainians in filtration camps or takes them to forced labor, it rejects all achievements as a victor over Nazism, he said. Lavrov repeated Russian war propaganda on Italian television on Sunday that Nazis were at work in Ukraine.
As a counter-argument, they say: “How can there be a nazification when he (Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy) is a Jew? I may be wrong. But Adolf Hitler also had Jewish blood. That means nothing at all. The wise Jewish people say that the most fervent anti-Semites are usually Jews.”
TV station belongs to Berlusconi
The TV group Mediaset of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, to which Rete4 belongs, defended the program and Lavrov’s invitation. This is “number two in the Russian Federation. The interview with the Russian Foreign Minister is a document of contemporary history,” said Director General Mauro Crippa. Lavrov’s statement caused outrage in Israel and many countries.
After Lavrov’s appearance, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi also criticized the show. “There was talk of an interview, but in reality it was an election rally,” said Draghi when asked about the cause. In Italy, unlike in Russia, there is freedom of the press and freedom of speech. But Draghi found: “You have to ask yourself whether it’s acceptable to invite someone to be interviewed, without any arguments. It wasn’t a brilliant achievement, strange things come to mind.” A number of other politicians had previously heavily criticized the program. Italy’s leader of the Social Democrats and former Prime Minister Enrico Letta spoke of an “abyss”.