Some Holocaust scholars say Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to host leaders from four Central European countries for the Visegrad Group summit is a ploy to ally himself with human rights abusers and Holocaust deniers for political gain, reports AI-Monitor.
Israel hosts the summit meeting of the Visegrad nations – Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia – on Feb. 18-19 in Jerusalem. The leaders are expected to visit the Western Wall and the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center in Jerusalem.
The Visegrad group is considered to be the most nationalist and right-wing countries in the European Union. In 2016, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban passed a law "that humiliates the memory of Holocaust victims and a premier who publishes anti-Semitic materials," Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid said.
"It is the loss of all national pride and causes damage to the international arena," Lapid wrote last week. "The Prime Minister has to overcome his passion for election shots and to cancel it."
Colette Avital, chairwoman of the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, said Netanyahu was providing "seal of approval to leaders and regimes with neo-Nazi leanings, hurting Holocaust survivors and the memory of its victims."
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