Cohen asked the ambassador to Romania to meet with the leader of the extremist AUR party, apparently reversing previous policy on the party whose leaders promote anti-Semitic views.
The August 28 meeting between Ambassador Reuven Azar and George Simion was criticized by the Elie Wiesel Institute, the Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Research, and Romanian politicians. They accused Israeli diplomacy of giving credibility to a party whose leaders have expressed anti-Semitic views and Holocaust denial.
Following the meeting, the Israeli ambassador has not been received by Romanian officials, sources said as the meeting „no longer allows him (the ambassador) the same level and standard of representation”.
Israeli newspaper Ynet News reported that the meeting in Bucharest came after a change of policy from Eli Cohen reassessing the boycott of the nationalist AUR party.
Haaretz reported that Cohen is pushing to change Israel’s policy toward Romania’s far-right AUR party, which has expressed anti-Semitic positions and denied the Holocaust, against the advice of both professional ranks in his ministry and Israel’s official Holocaust institution, Yad Vashem.
What was at stake in the meeting was to win support from far-right parties in Europe for Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, specifically the West Bank, which are considered illegal by the international community.
The head of the Shomron Regional Council in the West Bank, Yossi Dagan, was also present at the meeting with George Simion. Dagan invited Simion to visit the settlements with a AUR delegation, and Simion accepted it and declared his support for the right of Jews to colonize the West Bank.
Fear no Bibi, Biden
