Israel is missing “concentration camps” for the millions of citizens who do not have a Green Pass, Likud MK Gadi Yevarkan said Sunday.
He made his comment during a meeting of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee and was evicted from the hearing by its chairman, Gilad Kariv (Labor).
Yevarkan made his remarks after Kariv tried to get him to stop interrupting coronavirus commissioner Prof. Salman Zarka, who was trying to speak to the MKs. When Kariv threatened to remove Yevarkan from the committee, the Likud MK said: “You are behaving here like in Austria. We are only missing concentration camps.”
Austria has taken measures against the unvaccinated in an effort to stop the spread of the Omicron variant.
Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said he was appalled by Yevarkan’s comments.
“The comparison that Yevarkan made between public health safety measures meant to prevent illness and Nazi concentration camps is nauseating,” he wrote on Twitter.
“His words border on Holocaust denial and are a disgrace to the victims and survivors. It is an especially disgraceful and rotten comment as the medical teams are giving their heart and soul for the health of all of us,” Horowitz wrote.
This is not the first time a public Jewish or Israeli figure has used comparisons to Nazi methods in protest of COVID safety measures.
Last Tuesday, Israeli television star Orna Pitussi compared Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla to Adolf Hitler in a video posted on her Facebook profile. The actress apologized for her remarks following public criticism.
In October, a prominent rabbi in the Netherlands compared her country’s COVID-19 safety measures to the policies of Nazi Germany, drawing harsh rebuke from Jewish groups.
In October, the UN Human Rights Council debated the connection between the virus and neo-Nazism, with a number of states warning that hate speech was on the rise.