Radio program on Darwish’s works like praising ‘Mein Kampf’ – Liberman

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman says a recent radio program on the works of Palestinian poet and author Mahmoud Darwish is like praising Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”

In a meeting today with Army Radio chief Yaron Dekel surrounding the brewing scandal over the station’s broadcasting on Tuesday of an educational program on Darwish, Liberman says the renowned Palestinian writer “who called in his poetry for the expulsion of the Jewish people from the State of Israel and who wrote that ‘the flesh of the occupier will be my sustenance,’ cannot be part of the Israeli narrative program that was aired.”

“By that logic, the complete legacy of the Mufti al-Husseini or the literary merits of ‘Mein Kampf’ could also have been included” in the program, says Liberman, according to Channel 2.

The station had come under fire since the broadcast, with Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev called on Liberman to intervene and urging him to defund the station.

Army Radio has defended its programming, saying in a statement that its educational broadcasts sought to “enrich and engage” their listeners with a variety of ideas.