Chilean activist: Zionists are worse than Nazis

A political activist barred from Israel in April is back in the news in his native Chile, following a interview in which he said that “current Zionists” are worse than Nazis.

Mauricio Abu-Ghosh, the president of Chile’s Palestinian Federation, made the comments [Spanish] on Radio Cooperativa, partly as a response to a interview given by Shai Agosin, the president of the country’s Jewish community.

Telling listeners that Israel is inflicting a “brutal genocide” on Palestinians, Abu-Ghosh added that “the Nazis were boys compared to current Zionists.”

“I can affirm that the student surpassed the teacher,” Abu-Ghosh went on.

Israel’s embassy in Chile quickly condemned the comments [Spanish], likening them to the rhetoric of Iran. Israel sees it as a “great concern that the Palestinian Federation of Chile is using language similar to that of the Iranian regime,” the embassy wrote in a public statement.

The back-and-forth is the latest flare-up between Israel and Abu-Ghosh, who in the spring was kept from entering Israel. The ban, which Jerusalem attributed to security concerns, led to a spat with Chile’s foreign ministry, which protested the move.

In his radio interview, Abu-Ghosh also mocked comments by Agosin bemoaning tensions between Chile’s Jews and Palestinians. Describing the interview as “pathetic,” Abu-Ghosh clarified that “relations were never close with the Jewish community.”