Voice Of America: Israel Responded Harshly To Lukashenka

The Belarusian dictator became a "member of a neo-Nazi group".

Lukashenka once again made an anti-Semitic statement during a meeting with his government.

It was about the fact that the inspector for the Vitebsk region, ex-Minister of Agriculture and Food Ihar Bryla was involved in a corruption scandal, and mentioning this fact, Lukashenka noted that 30 more people were involved in this case. Literally, he said the following: “Excuse me, I am not an anti-Semite, but more than half of the Jews. Has a special, privileged position, that they steal and do not think about their future... Everyone is the same before the law. Jews, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians and Poles."

Experts, whom the Voice of America correspondent asked to comment on the episode during Lukashenka's meeting with his government, gave other examples of his anti-Semitic statements.

The Deputy Chairman of the Committee on European Affairs of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, Emanuelis Zingeris, began by saying that the Belarusian people have never been characterized by xenophobia, including anti-Semitism. “Although the Germans and local collaborators massacred (during the Second World War) almost ninety percent of the Jews who were called Litvaks. And in the Kaunas and Vilna ghettos, people said: "If you get to the Belarusian forests, maybe you will survive."

And now Lukashenka has decided to turn back history and prove to the whole world that Belarus is a country of racists and bandits in power. And Lukashenka decided to destroy everything that the Belarusian people themselves - thousands of intellectuals and just good people - expressed in relation to the destruction of half of the inhabitants of small towns, with whom they have lived in good neighborliness for the last 700 years, with one blow. And thereby join the German far right and become a member of the basement group of neo-Nazis," the Lithuanian MP said emotionally in an interview with a correspondent.

According to Emanuelis Zingeris, with his anti-Semitic tirades, Lukashenka continued to exterminate the cultures of different peoples living in Belarus. The closure of national schools – Belarusian, Polish and Lithuanian – is the evidence. "He opens the country's gates wide for Putin's Russian world, let the Russian army in and accepted tactical nuclear weapons for a possible strike on Kyiv. Now this unelected "president" has taken on the last ethnic minority in Belarus to make Jews "scapegoats", blaming all their sins on them and reviving the bacillus of anti-Semitism," said the deputy chairman of the Committee on European Affairs of the Seimas of Lithuania.

The editor-in-chief of the Daily Journal, Alexander Ryklin, believes that the reaction to Lukashenka's anti-Semitic statement was very harsh in Israel. He cited a statement by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who called Lukashenka's words about the Jewish people unacceptable, outrageous and anti-Semitic, adding: "And this is impossible to argue."

In his comment, he noted that there is nothing surprising in such remarks of the Belarusian dictator: "Lukashenka is not the first time he allows himself anti-Semitic statements. This was the case seven years ago and before. At some point, he called on the head of the Minsk region to "control his Jews." And he said something like that more than once. Of course, this is the real anti-Semitism."

According to the editor-in-chief of the Daily Journal, Ambassador of Belarus Yauhen Varabiou was summoned to the Israeli Foreign Ministry to present him with a note of protest. "But in fact, few people in Israel are interested in what Lukashenka says or does not say. Although, of course, we are tracking such episodes here, but at the present time their volume is such that "Lukashenka's spoon" adds little to "this soup". Well, he said and that's all," says Alexander Ryklin.

The source of the publication also points out that Lukashenka is the most loyal ally of Putin to date. "Although Belarus did not enter the war, we understand that Russia uses this country as a springboard for military action against Ukraine, and this has an obvious background. And anti-Semitic statements simply show the essence of this person, but I do not think that such a "mission" was entrusted to Lukashenka by Putin. It is difficult for me to imagine that in a phone conversation, Putin would say to him: "If you are there, say about the Jews, because they have crossed the frontier." I repeat: Lukashenka has not been shy about demonstrating his lack of commitment to the rules of good manners for a long time. He is a man without brakes and always says whatever he wants. He probably considers himself a good speaker, and indeed, he can make long speeches at the level of the chairman of a not very advanced collective farm. And we once again had the opportunity to make sure that he was, of course, an anti-Semite," concludes Alexander Ryklin.