Israeli envoy to Germany says he shuns far-right AfD party

BERLIN — The Israeli ambassador to Germany says he is avoiding any contact with the far-right Alternative for Germany party because their leaders have said things that are “highly insulting for Jews, for Israel and for the entire issue of the Holocaust.”

Jeremey Issacharoff tells German news agency dpa Sunday it is very difficult for him to imagine any interaction with those who feel nostalgia for Germany’s past.

During the Nazis’ reign in 1933-45, the Germans organized and participated in the genocide of 6 million Jews in Europe.

Party leader Alexander Gauland has referred to the time of Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship as a “speck of bird poop” in Germany’s history, while Bjoern Hoecke, a powerful party leader in the east, suggested it was time for the country to stop atoning for its Nazi past.

— AP