Israel summons Belarusian ambassador over Lukashenko Holocaust comparison

The Israeli Foreign Ministry summoned Belarusian Ambassador Yuri Yaroshevich on Wednesday to protest comments by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko comparing the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered, to Israel’s military operations against Iran and Hamas in Gaza.

“Many people have begun to look at history and ask: ‘What Holocaust are they talking about? What possible Holocaust, of which the Israelis speak, [could justify] the killing of so many people, above all women and children?’ They have wiped everything off the face of the earth there,” Lukashenko said during an interview with the Saudi network Al Arabiya.

The Belarusian leader also appeared to mock international efforts to rebuild post-war Gaza.

“And now they speak of building some kind of resort on the bones of the dead,” Lukashenko said. “Israel [has] already earned [itself] such a reputation in the international community by bombing Gaza,” he added.

Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack that killed some 1,200 Israelis and saw 251 individuals taken hostage.

Israeli Foreign Ministry Dir.-Gen. Eden Bar Tal condemned Lukashenko’s remarks, rejecting comparisons between the Holocaust and the IDF's actions against Iran and and its regional proxies.

Bar Tal stated, “The remarks made by the President of Belarus – a country that knows all too well the horrors of the Holocaust committed on its own soil – in his interview with Al Arabiya are unacceptable and deeply disturbing.”

“Any comparison between the Holocaust of the Jewish people and Israel’s just war against terrorism must be unequivocally rejected.”

The Foreign Ministry also condemned Lukashenko’s comments about a purported “Jewish lobby” that he alleged was seeking to push the United States into war with Iran and prevent Russia from defeating Ukraine.

Lukashenko further claimed that American and Israeli strikes on Iran had produced a “united Iranian society, which was quite fragmented before.” The Belarusian leader is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Prior to the Holocaust, a large Jewish community existed for generations in what is now Belarus. Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, and former prime ministers Menachem Begin and Itzhak Shamir were born in territory that is today part of Belarus.

Newly-appointed Mossad Director Maj.-Gen. Roman Gofman was also born in Belarus in 1976 before immigrating to Israel with his family as a teenager.

Russia and Belarus have developed close commercial and military ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran. In August 2023, Iranian and Belarusian defense officials met to discuss expanded military cooperation, including the joint production of military drones.

At the time, John Hardie, Deputy Director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Russia Program, warned that Iran and Belarus “have already provided significant support for Russia’s war in Ukraine. For Minsk, that has included allowing Moscow to take large quantities of ammunition and other materiel from its storage facilities.”

“If Belarus does end up establishing production of one-way attack drones or other munitions with Iran’s help, I’d expect Russia to benefit. Regardless, it is noteworthy that Russia’s friends in Minsk and Tehran seem to be growing closer,” Hardie said.