Gantz slams activist who compared Netanyahu to Hitler

“I strongly condemn the despicable comparison made between Netanyahu and the tyrant Adolf Hitler,” said Defense Minister Benny Gantz.

By Josh Plank, World Israel News

Defense Minister Benny Gantz condemned statements made at a protest Wednesday night outside his Rosh HaAyin home by left-wing activist Sadi Ben Shitrit, who compared Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.

“I strongly condemn the despicable comparison made between Netanyahu and the tyrant Adolf Hitler,” tweeted Gantz.

“There is no place in Israeli society for comparisons of this kind that harm the memory of the Holocaust. Even if there are serious disputes and disagreements over Netanyahu’s policies, this is not the way to express it,” he said.

In a video of the protest shared on social media, Ben Shitrit said, “There is no forgiveness for one who is corrupt. There is no forgiveness for the destruction and the abuse of us, the citizens.”

“In the 1930s, there was a bitter enemy of the Jews. He was in Germany, and he behaved just like you: dividing, inciting, and destroying,” Ben Shitrit said of Netanyahu.

Ben Shitrit stood by his comments Thursday morning, tweeting that he was not going to be “politically correct.”
“There’s a person here who, with his partners, is destroying the country. Wake up before it’s too late,” he said.

Ben Shitrit doubled down on his comments in an interview with Channel 12. “In Germany in the ’30s, Hitler took the leadership using the same methods as Netanyahu. I didn’t talk about the gas chambers and didn’t talk about the ’40s.

“What did Hitler do? Sowed division and incited, that is exactly what Netanyahu is doing,” he said.

Ben Shitrit is one of the leading figures in the anti-Netanyahu “Crime Minister” movement, with which he has been involved for over two years.

He is also the cousin of one of Netanyahu’s staunchest allies, Public Security Minister Amir Ohana, who Ben Shitrit reportedly hasn’t spoken to in years.