Yair Netanyahu, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's son, weighed in on the controversy over the violent rally in Charlottesville, calling the extreme left a far bigger threat to Israel than the neo-Nazis due to the rising popular support they receive among the American public.
"Let's put things in proportion." Netanyahu wrote on Facebook. "The neo-Nazis in Virginia hate me and my country, but they belong to the past. They are taking their last breaths."
"However, the Antifa and the Black Lives Matter movements, who hate my country and America, are growing stronger and becoming dominant in US universities and in public life," added Netanyahu.
Condemnations were swift to pour in, with MK Mickey Rosenthal calling him 'Netanyahu Youth,' a spin off the notorious Hitler Youth. Rosenthal later retracted his remarks and apologized.
Netanyahu was responding to the violence in Charlottesville, where white supremacists, many of them heavily armed and bearing Nazi flags, descended on the town for a protest to prevent the destruction of a statue of Confederate commander in chief Robert E. Lee, titled 'Unite the Right,' and were met by radical 'Antifa' leftists.
They had a permit and claimed they intended to stage a peaceful rally. However, when a counter protest of radical leftist movements showed up - without a permit - things became violent. .
Videos appeared to show the police standing off to the side as the violence raged between the two sides, only stepping in after 20-year-old James Fields, of Ohio barreled his silver Dodge Charger into a group protesting the rally and killing 32 year old Heather Heyer.
Both sides were violent and both are anti-Semitic, but the rightists had neo-Nazi paraphernalia and expressed anti-Semitic sentiments. There are, as Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld wrote a The Jewish Voice op-ed, only a few thousand neo-Nazis in the USA, but there are tens of thousands of anti-Israel radical leftists.
Numerous Israeli politicians furiously denounced the events in Charlottesville. “I am outraged by expressions of anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism and racism,” tweeted Netanyahu. “Everyone should oppose this hatred.”
Yesh Atid faction leader Yair Lapid also weighed in, expressing outrage over United States President Donald Trump calling on "both sides" to refrain from violence.
"There aren’t two sides,” said Lapid. “When neo-Nazis march in Charlottesville and scream slogans against Jews and in support of white supremacy, the condemnation has to be unambiguous.”
