Open Letter to the Director of "La Republica de Perú" Newspaper

November 17, 2023

Buenos Aires

Mr. Gustavo Mohme:

With surprise and pain we have seen how the newspaper directed by you has made a constant display of lack of empathy with the suffering caused in Israeli society and the Jewish community in the world after the events of last October 7.

After the attack by the terrorist group Hamas on the civilian population of Israel, which included mass murders, rapes, beheadings, humiliation of the bodies and the kidnapping of more than 200 hostages, at the same time that since then the rain of rockets has not stopped, it would seem that your newspaper not only undermines the right of defense of a sovereign state that has been a victim of the attack, but through the caricatures it distorts the greatest historical tragedy of humanity by comparing the behavior of Israel with the Nazis.

While the State of Israel is fighting against Hamas, solely responsible for the subjugation of its own population in Gaza, whom it uses as human shields by hiding its arsenal in hospitals, schools, kindergartens and amusement parks, also preventing them from fleeing at the warning of attacks to maximize the damage, your “artists” perversely assign it the same role as those who tried to erase the Jewish people from the face of the Earth, systematically killing 6 million by building an industry of death.

It is worth clarifying that from its charter, Hamas does not only seek the destruction of Israel, but like the Nazis, it seeks to wipe out the Jews wherever we are.

Therefore, the comparisons made viciously in the newspaper you run are doubly offensive because, in addition, by equating Israel with the Nazis, it suggests that the latter must have done humanity a favor by trying to annihilate us.

To date, the only objective standard that allows us to distinguish when we face with an Antisemitic fact and when we are not is the Definition of Antisemitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which literally says that it should be considered Antisemitic “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis”, which your newspaper has clearly done more than once.
 

Hoping that you will stop this procedure, maintaining the seriousness with which the publication you direct has become known internationally, I greet you sincerely.

Dr. Ariel Gelblung
Simon Wiesenthal Center
Director for Latin America