‘Shame on you’: Yair Netanyahu condemns EU for mourning terrorists

“We have one day in a year to remember our fallen soldiers! And you destroy it with a ‘memorial’ to Palestinian terrorists!” said Yair Netanyahu.

By Josh Plank, World Israel News

Yair Netanyahu, son of the Israeli prime minister, lashed out Tuesday at the European Union (EU) on Twitter for its support of the controversial Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Ceremony.

The EU delegation to the State of Israel tweeted on April 28, “Yesterday we joined members of the Parents’ Circle in the joint [Israeli flag/Palestinian flag] memorial ceremony sharing their grief and breaking the cycle of violence and hatred. Those who have lost loved ones in the conflict know best the necessity of peace and the path to reaching it.”

Yair Netanyahu responded, “Shame on you for financing a disgrace in the holiest day of the Israeli calendar! We have one day in a year to remember our fallen soldiers! And you destroy it with a ‘memorial’ to Palestinian terrorists!”

“EU is an enemy of Israel, and an enemy to all European Christian countries! Schengen zone is dead and soon your evil globalist organization will be too, and Europe will return to be free, democratic and Christian!” he said.

The Schengen zone is an area comprising 26 European states that have officially abolished all passport and all other types of border control at their mutual borders.

The 15th annual Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Ceremony, which is promoted as an alternative to traditional Memorial Day ceremonies honoring Israel’s fallen soldiers, was broadcast online this year with hosts in Tel Aviv and Ramallah due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The event is organized by Combatants for Peace and Parents Circle Families Forum. The organizers claim this year’s ceremony was viewed by approximately 200,000 people around the world.

According to NGO Monitor, a globally recognized research institute, the Parents Circle Families Forum has received millions of shekels in donations from the EU since 2015.

“Contrary to the image presented by the organizers, the event represents a narrow, one-sided part of Israeli civil society, and promotes a Palestinian narrative that draws an immoral equivalence between terror victims and terrorists,” NGO Monitor said in an April 26 report.

Combatants for Peace said that the ceremony “challenges the traditional narrative of victimhood and separation, and brings people together to declare that, ‘War is Not an Act of Fate – but a Human Choice!'”

“By asserting that there is no difference between efforts to defend and eradicate Israel, organizers are likely encouraging those who want to continue the conflict, rather than those who want to end it,” said Jonathan Tobin, writing for the Jewish News Syndicate.

In 2019, the High Court overturned a decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deny entry to some 100 Arabs from Judea and Samaria who wished to attend the Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Ceremony in Tel Aviv.

“The High Court’s decision is wrong and disappointing,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “There is no place for a memorial service that compares blood between us and the blood of terrorists. I therefore refused to allow the participants to enter the ceremony, and I believe that there was no room for the High Court’s intervention in this decision.”