Reuters
Israel-Hamas war: Mahiedine Mekhissi (here in 2016) compares Netanyahu to Hitler and provokes indignation
POLICY – ” A shame. » Former French runner Mahiedine Mekhissi, triple Olympic medalist, compared the head of the Israeli government Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler on X (ex-Twitter) and described Westerners as “collaborators”words that make ” shame “ to the mayor of Reims, the city where the athlete comes from, and pushed the Minister of Sports to react.
“Adolf Hitler is an altar boy compared to Netanyahu!” The West of real collaborators »published on the social network the 3,000 m steeplechase specialist, who announced his retirement at the start of the year, accompanying his message with hashtags, including #Nazisrael #GazaGenocide or #IsraeliNewNazism.
“Little Dangerous Music”
His publication sparked numerous indignant comments on the social network, including that of Arnaud Robinet, the mayor (Horizons) of Reims, where Mahiedine Mekhissi is from: “And to think that this individual wore the French team jersey! I’m ashamed for our city… What a wreck! ».
Other political leaders, notably in the majority, also criticize the athlete’s comments. “ The question is not whether or not you approve of the Israeli government. But this little music which consists of naming Israel after those who organized the Shoah is dangerous and intolerable. », writes for example the MP Anne-Laurence Petel on social networks, regretting in passing the fact that the athlete did not “ deplored the massacre of October 7. »
“ The same people who do not condemn terrorism in France do not condemn it in Israel. Worse, they justify it », she adds, asking for a reaction from the Minister of Sports. A little later in the morning, the Minister of Sports rightly declared, also on social networks, that she was “deeply shocked by such comments, in these tragic circumstances”.
“These disastrous comparisons flirt with everything that is most nauseating and distance you so much from the universal values of peace that sport will always defend as well as the values of Olympism that you have been able to embody for so many of our compatriots”she continued, in a message directly addressed to Mahiedine Mekhissi.
On Tuesday, it was the comedian Guillaume Meurice who was called to order by the director of France Inter Adèle Van Reeth for an outing on public radio, massively criticized in the political sphere. In his column Guillaume Meurice suggested an idea of “disguise to scare” on the occasion of Halloween, evoking for example a “Netanyahu costume”, “a kind of Nazi but without a foreskin”.
Israel launched a war for “annihilate” Hamas in retaliation for the unprecedented bloody attack perpetrated on October 7 by the Palestinian Islamist movement, whose commandos killed at least 1,400 people, mostly Israeli civilians, on the edge of the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli authorities who assure that at least 240 hostages are still being held in the Gaza Strip. More than 8,500 Palestinians have been killed since the start of incessant bombardments by the Israeli army on the enclave, according to a report from the Hamas Ministry of Health.
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