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Israeli ambassador expresses «surprise and regret» over Lukashenka’s remarks about Jews

The Israeli ambassador expressed “surprise and regret” over Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s controversial remarks about Jews.

While talking to a group of Russian reporters in Minsk on October 12, the Belarusian leader blamed Jewish residents for turning a Belarusian city into a “sty.”

“If you were in Babruysk, you saw in what condition the city was. Entering it was a fearful experience! It was a sty! This was mainly a Jewish city. Well, you know how Jews treat the place where they’re living. Look in Israel,” he said.

In an interview with BelaPAN, Ambassador Zeev Ben Arie said that the remarks were reminiscent of “the anti-Semitic myth depicting Jews as untidy, dirty, smelling people.” “There’s an impression that Babruysk was an independent Jewish place with its own budget rather than one of Belarusian cities where the responsibility and funds for its cleanup and landscaping were in the hands of authorities,” he stressed.

The diplomat said he wished that “municipal and social services” in Belarus would one day match Israel’s level, “although the president saw untrimmed grass somewhere.”

Referring to a recent vandal attack on a Jewish cemetery in Babruysk and the appearance of anti-Semitic graffiti on a building in Slutsk, he expressed hope that “in Belarus, on whose land one of Europe’s biggest Jewish communities was nearly entirely destroyed at the hands of Nazis and their henchmen, they will devote more attention to manifestations of anti-Semitism and refrain from any remarks that may encourage such regrettable phenomena.”