JERUSALEM, Israel — Argentinian President Javier Milei called the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas “the face of modern Nazism” after he completed a visit Wednesday to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, where he urged the free world to raise its voice.
Milei toured Yad Vashem on the second day of his four-day visit to Israel. He laid a memorial wreath at the Eternal Flame in Yad Vashem’s Hall of Remembrance, honoring the victims of the Holocaust.
Argentinian President @JMilei lays a wreath at @yadvashem in the Hall of Remembrance to honor victims of the Holocaust pic.twitter.com/OFAQvWwv9U
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) February 7, 2024
He also expressed solidarity with the victims of the October 7 terror attack, and the Israeli hostages who remain in Hamas hands in Gaza.
Argentina’s @JMilei at Yad Vashem, urging the release of the Israeli hostages: “Seeing the dismal images of the Holocaust, I ask myself…where is the voice of the free world, demanding and clamoring for the release of over 100 people, kidnapped for over 100 days already?” pic.twitter.com/496FqcjV28
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) February 7, 2024
“Seeing the dismal images of the Holocaust, I ask myself where the free world was back then. And today, I ask myself the exact same question: where is the voice of the free world, demanding and clamoring for the release of over 100 people kidnapped for over 100 days already?
“We shouldn’t remain silent in the face of the monstrosity of Nazism. Similarly, we shouldn’t remain silent in the face of modern Nazism, today disguised as the terrorist group Hamas.”
Milei also said that he had drawn inspiration from the way in which Israel had built a free and prosperous society despite the destruction of the Holocaust. He emphasized the role of freedom in Israel’s rebirth, and related a story from the Talmud in which destruction was reinterpreted as a sign of hope for redemption.
Argentinian President @JMilei offers a lesson from the Talmud at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial: just as Rabbi Akiva took hope amid destruction in a prophecy of rebuilding, so, too, has Israel overcome destruction to build a new, free and prosperous society today pic.twitter.com/BrynmpZCKM
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) February 7, 2024
A visit to Yad Vashem is part of the official itinerary for any visiting dignitary. But Milei’s visit is special. The libertarian president has a unique connection to Israel and to the Jewish people, one that he has made through his intense interest in the Jewish faith.
Milei made clear during his campaign last year that he wished to travel to Israel on his first official state visit to a foreign country. Upon landing in Tel Aviv on Tuesday afternoon, he went straight to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the holiest site in the Jewish faith, where he prayed and wept.
At the wreath-laying ceremony, a choir sang the folk song “Eli, Eli” (“My God, My God”), whose lyrics come from a poem written by the late Hannah Senesh, a Jewish woman from Hungary who settled in Palestine before Israel became an independent state, and who volunteered as a paratrooper in a secret British mission to rescue Jews trapped in Eastern Europe. She was caught by the Nazis, tortured, and murdered.
Not everything was mournful, however, despite the heavy themes and somber surroundings: a group of Argentinian students touring Yad Vashem, noticing their president, gleefully shouted his famous slogan at him: “¡Viva la libertad, carajo!” (“Long live freedom, damn it!”).
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
