Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair is the face of a far-right campaign poster in Germany following his online rant about a joint Israeli-Palestinian ceremony held for Memorial Day in the occupation state.
Joachim Kuhs, a senior Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, yesterday tweeted a poster of the young Netanyahu, echoing his calls for “a free, democratic and Christian” Europe.
The poster text says, “Schengen is dead. Hopefully, the globalist EU will be too. Then, Europe will again be free, democratic and Christian.” Kuhs has tweeted the poster, with Yair Netanyahu’s photograph and quote on it, with his own comment that, “#Christianity is the #cure for the evils of the globalist #EU, wrote Yair Netanyahu.”
Remember when Yair Netanyahu started ranting about ‘globalists’ and ‘Christian Europe’ online last week? Now an actual German far-right party that calls on Germany to stop commemorating the Shoah is running ads with his words. pic.twitter.com/DaYO5EXRG9
— Joel S. (@jh_swanson) May 6, 2020
The Schengen zone comprises 26 European states that have officially abolished all passport and other border controls within the zone. Members include Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Switzerland.
Yair Netanyahu replied to Kuhs’ tweet, saying, “Please act with your colleagues to stop this insanity!” He included a link to a page on the NGO Monitor website that describes how, “The German federal government provides millions of euros to political advocacy NGOs in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza through a variety of frameworks.”
This comes after the 28-year-old Netanyahu criticised the European Union’s delegation to Israel which commemorated Memorial Day by acknowledging its participation in the virtual ceremony on Zoom, hosted by the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
Netanyahu has sparked controversy on social media on a number of occasions in the past. In 2018, he was banned by Facebook after making genocidal anti-Muslim statements, and in September last year he accused the former US envoy to Israel of wanting to destroy the “Jewish state”. Three months later he called for all British diplomats to be kicked out of Israel for referring to Palestinians as “occupied”, and only two weeks ago he expressed hopes for all elderly left-wing voters in Israel to be killed by the coronavirus pandemic.