Romania’s antisemitism czar on Wednesday said a meeting between Israel’s ambassador and George Simion, leader of the AUR far-right party, was ‘scandalous’ asserting Simion merely paid lip service in recognizing the Holocaust in Romania.
Simion met with Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council, and Ambassador Reuven Azar on Monday. Historically, Israel has hesitated in its engagements with far-right European politicians.
However, some within Likud now see potential strategic opportunities in such interactions. Together, Simion, Dagan, and Azar publicly acknowledged Romania’s role in the Holocaust and committed to countering antisemitism.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, which includes the far-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties, have faced massive protests in Israel over judicial reforms that critics say are a threat to democracy. Likud and populist European parties like AUR are now bonding over common ground.
The Elie Wiesel International Committee for the Study of the Holocaust published a report in 2004 saying that Romanian authorities were directly responsible for the deaths of 280,000-380,000 Jews and about 11,000 Roma from 1940 to 1944.
Many of them were victims of pogroms such as the 1941 killing of almost 15,000 Jews in and around the city of Iasi. Many others died in labor camps or on death trains
In Romania the meeting has upset democratically minded officials who see it as legitimizing AUR which is climbing in the polls ahead of 2024 parliamentary elections.
AUR embraces nationalism and anti-globalization, support for Orthodoxy and anti-LGBT sentiment, and an „anti-system” platform built on populist disdain for the political class.. Its leaders have praised the fascist Iron Guard movement which murdered Jews during World War II.
Alexandru Muraru, the the Romanian government’s adviser on antisemitism, said the meeting was “as unexpected as it is scandalous (…). I knew about the intentions of the AUR party and an entire campaign trying to penetrate, so to speak, several diplomatic missions, both inside Romania and outside Romania. I was convinced that there was a cordon sanitaire, at least from the Israeli embassy,” he told Radio France International.
„This acknowledgment of the Holocaust and recognition of the Holocaust is not sincere, it is formal,” he added. “You can’t treat an anti-Semite.”
Remus Pricopie, the rector of the National School of Political and Administrative Studies called it ” a strategic mistake.”
„Unfortunately, Ambassador Azar validated a form of amnesty for extremist, xenophobic and antisemitic politicians,” he said.
„We are faced with the regrettable decision of Ambassador Azar which raises questions about his capacity to objectively identify the risk of escalation, even encouraging radical, xenophobic and antisemitic manifestations.”
The Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem said in a statement that two leading AUR party members had glorified „the fascist Romanian Iron Guard movement, which murdered many Jews in Romania during World War II, as national heroes…. We have been informed that both [Holocaust memorial] Yad Vashem and experts from the Foreign Ministry opposed the meeting,” Radio Free Europe reported.
Romania’s government traditionally has good relations with Israel.
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