A centre-left Democratic Party (PD)
councillor in the northern region of Trentino has come under
fire for a historical tweet in which he compared Israel to
Second World War German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
The councillor in the worn of Lavis, 25-year-old Youness Et
Thairi, wrote eight years ago in 2014, when he was 17: "The
(Israelis) should be the first to understand what it means to be
massacred seeing that there was a certain Hitler who
exterminated them, and yet they are doing the same thing (to
Palestinians)".
The chair of Alliance for Israel, Alessandro Bertoldi, said "it
is the third day running that we have been forced to deal with a
fresh report of raving statements, mystification of reality,
hatred for Israel and its citizens on the part of an
institutional political representative".
Last week a PD candidate for the September 25 general election
in Italy, Raffaele La Regina, was forced to resign as candidate
after an anti-Israel post, in which he said Israel didn't exist.
He was widely condemned but another PD candidate supported him
saying that it was legitimate to criticise Israel for its
treatment of the Palestinians.
PD leader Enrcio Letta reaffirmed the party's support of Israel
and the Mideast peace process.
Rightwing League party leader Matteo Salvini said it was
"shameful" to see such anti-Israel sentiments voiced by the
Italian left, as they had allegedly been by Britain's Labour
party under former leader Jeremy Corbyn a well as by far-left
French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
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