Neo-nazi in Israel. A call for actions in Armenia

It is hard to believe that a group of Jewish neo-nazi may exist, but shocking weekend news proved seemingly impossible. What an irony! A group of neo-nazi in a country which was founded in the wake of Nazi Holocaust!

BBC, PinkNews and others report that Israeli police have broken up a gang of neo-nazi who are accused of carrying out attacks on foreigners, gay people, the homeless, drug addicts and religious Jews.

While media is too enthusiastic in stressing the fact that most of the gang was from the former Soviet Union, trying to make an impression that it was something not home-grown, but brought in from the outside, Israeli Prime Minister’s statement is more balanced:

"I am sure that there is not a person in Israel who can remain indifferent to these scenes, which indicate that we too as a society have failed in the education of these youths," he said.

Lead police investigator said: "It is difficult to believe that Nazi ideology sympathisers can exist in Israel, but it is a fact."

In fact, they do have Jewish heritage, at least that what was claimed by authorities and neo-nazi themselves.

PinkNews reports that according to police, searches of their homes found Nazi uniform and regalia, portraits of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, knives guns and explosives. The gang filmed their attacks (a common tactic among neo-nazi) and Israeli police have released videos of violent attacks.

I mentioned before, in relation to attacks of Russia’s neo-nazi on foreigners, including Armenians, and gays, that “Intolerance towards one minority group generates intolerance towards other… creating the sort of environment where extreme right-wings, religious fanatics and others find it’s OK to attack foreigners or ethnic minorities, it’s OK to attack gay and lesbians, it’s OK to attack people with different opinions, political opponents, human rights activists, it’s OK to attack journalists…”

Back to the news, BBC reports: “The arrests follow a year-long inquiry which began after a synagogue in Petah Tikva, a city east of Tel Aviv, was desecrated with graffiti of Nazi swastikas and the name of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.”

I specifically bring here the above line from the BBC news, since recent resurgence of hate graffiti in Armenia has not been taken seriously by our society. Only few bloggers posted alarming notes, pictures and calls for actions. No outrage otherwise… But this example from Israel shows that it may be a sign of new, unknown before trend in Armenia too. We too suffered genocide, our citizens suffered racist attacks by neo-nazi in Russia or elsewhere. As this news clearly indicates, none of this means that we could be considered a neo-nazi-free zone. We do not need to look even further. Do not forget, that we have our own formally registered Armenian Aryan Order whose ideology is very close to those of neo-nazi and who preach extreme nationalism, hate towards gays and Jews. And how many non-registered groups there may be out there? Here is a call to authorities and NGOs for preventive actions in Armenia if we do not want to witness anything like this in the near future in our country.

*pictures via PinkNews