ISRAEL PAGE  |  ISRAEL SECTION  |  LOWPOINT IN ISRAEL’S PROUD DIPLOMATIC HISTORY?

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Debbie Maimon in Yated Ne’eman on the “Pandora’s Box” Opened; Efraim Zuroff’s Critique of Netanyahu’s Acquiescence to Lithuanian State Holocaust PR Games

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DH’s Israel Page

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Ben Cohen’s Coverage  in Algemeiner.com Cites Three Defending History Suggestions for the “Lithuanian-Israeli Moral Agenda”

(1) Call for letters of apology for three Israeli citizens defamed for posterity by Vilnius prosecutors: Yitzhak Arad (b. 1926) and Rachel Margolis (1921–2015) and Joseph Melamed (1924–2017). All three fought with the Jewish partisans against the Nazis. Two of the three were decorated heroes of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.

(2) Call for rapid removal of street names and plaques that glorify Holocaust collaborators.

(3) Call for moving national convention center project away from the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery (international petition tops 44,000).

Wiesenthal Center’s Efraim Zuroff, writing in Jerusalem Post, critiques Israel’s ambassador in Lithuania for helping state honor an alleged Holocaust collaborator (DH background here). Op-ed also notes employment difficulties imposed on author Ruta Vanagaite for telling historic truth (DH background on others who have suffered state’s wrath for speaking out). Zuroff goes on to tell JTA that Netanyahu’s praise for Lithuanian gov’s Holocaust policies is “sickening”; in the Jewish Press;  also cited by Herb Keinon in the Jerusalem Post; video interview on World Israel News.

Zuroff’s post-visit critique of Netanyahu’s performance

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SEE TIMES OF ISRAEL REPORT; SECOND REPORT; JTA; JERUSALEM POST; SEE DH’S ISRAEL CHRONICLE PAGE