Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is "treading in the footsteps of leaders of fascist movements in the past few generations," former Prime Minister Ehud Barak said Thursday in a radio interview.
Yinon Magal of 103FM asked Barak if by "fascist leaders" he was referring to Hitler and Mussolini, and Barak answered yes.
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"All leaders of the fascist movement. I'm saying that because there is still value in the truth. The public is being divided into groups against each other, and 'Amaleks' or 'Hitlers' are being identified on the outside and 'traitors' on the inside. It's crushed the institutions of law, and more.
"Netanyahu needs the Amaleks and the traitors at home, that was the fascist formula for years. He sows existential fears because he needs them to stay in power," Barak said.
Barak made his statements barely a week after social activist Sadi Ben Shitrit of the Crime Minister movement compared Netanyahu to Hitler. In a video clip disseminated on social media, Ben Shitrit is seen speaking at an anti-Netanyahu demonstration and saying, "In the 1930s, there was a scourge for the Jews in Germany, and he behaved exactly like you, [referring to Netanyahu], he divided and incited and destroyed."
The Likud Party, of which Netanyahu is the leader, issued a response to the Barak interview saying that the former prime minister had "crossed all red lines" by comparing Netanyahu to Hitler.
"Barak's infuriating remarks have no place in the discourse, and all public leaders should condemn them, starting with Opposition leader Yair Lapid, who along with Iranian activity on social media is stirring up the Black Flags [protest] movement," the party said.
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