BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

19/10/2007

Israel protests Belarus president's 'anti-Semitism'

(JERUSALEM AFP)---Israel summoned the Belarus ambassador on Thursday to condemn "extreme anti-Semitic" remarks made by the country's head of state last week, the foreign ministry said.

"During a news conference broadcast live on national radio last Friday, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko made some extreme anti-Semitic comments against Jews and Israel," the ministry said.

Referring to poor conditions in the Belarus town of Bobruisk, the ministry quoted Lukasheko as saying: "After all this is a Jewish city and the Jews don't look after the place they live in. Look at Israel. I've been there."

"He went on to say the city was cleaned up after the Jews left and called on Jews 'who have money' to return to Bubruisk," the ministry added.

"Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni strongly condemned these anti-Semitic remarks. Leaders have a duty to fight anti-Semitism, which rears its ugly head in different places in the world, and not encourage it."

Belarussian ambassador Igor Leshchenya was summoned to the foreign ministry to receive the protest, the statement added.

Lukashenko's authoritarian regime has come in for heavy criticism from the European Union and United States over its human rights record.

Growing anti-Semitism

Belarussian Jewish groups have warned of growing anti-Semitism, voicing alarm at the open publication of anti-Semitic brochures and books, desecration of Jewish cemeteries and closure of the republic's only Jewish university.

The Nazis exterminated some 800,000 Jews in Belarus during World War II and mass emigration to Israel in the 1990s has reduced the country's Jewish community to around 28,000 people.

Source:

http://www.ejpress.org/article/21038