The Israeli Embassy in Minsk expressed formal protest Monday after the state-affiliated SB daily used the Hatikvah national anthem for part of a video on the migrant crisis on the Belarus-Poland border.
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The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that "relevant authorities" had been informed of the incident.
The one-and-a-half-long video includes footage of migrants enduring freezing conditions, with no running water, forced to wash their hands and clothes using water from bottles. The recording was removed shortly after, presumably at the behest of senior government officials.
Thousands of migrants, mostly from Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, have amassed at Belarus' western border with Poland in the hope of crossing into the European Union.
The bloc accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of encouraging masses to cross into Poland and other member states in order to spark a humanitarian crisis within the EU.
As for SB, the paper has a history of antisemitic rhetoric. In October, opinion-writer Andrey Mukovozchik brought his readers' attention to the (Jewish-sounding) last names of regime critics Shraibman and Katz. Artyom Shraibman is a highly-respected political analyst and Maxim Katz is a Jewish political blogger who currently lives in Moscow.
And although Mukovozchik did not specify, it was abundantly clear who he was referring to when he said last year's mass protests were organized by "non-Belarusian instigators."
In another piece, on popular blogger and regime-critic Yevgeny Lipkovich, Mukovozchik reminded him of pogroms and recommended he leave Belarus and move to Israel.
On Monday evening, SB said in a statement it had "no connection to the video."
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