Fidel Castro Slams Israel for ‘Palestinian Holocaust’ in Gaza
Image by getty images
Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro described Israel’s offensive in Gaza as a “new, repugnant form of fascism.”
Castro made his comments in a column published Tuesday in the Granma newspaper, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, titled “Palestinian Holocaust in Gaza. ”
“Why does the government of this country (Israel) think that the world will be impervious to this macabre genocide that is being committed today against the Palestinian people?” Castro wrote.
Castro, 87, ruled Cuba from 1959 until 2006, when he handed over power to his brother Raul. Cuba broke diplomatic relations with Israel in 1973 after the Yom Kippur War.
In a more conciliatory moment, in 2010, Castro told Atlantic writer Jeffrey Goldberg that Israel “without a doubt” has a right to exist.
In that interview, Castro, according to Goldberg, expressed “great sympathy for persecuted Jews throughout history” and expressed admiration for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s father, Ben-Zion, who Goldberg described as “the world’s foremost historian of the Spanish Inquisition, and a hard-line Likudnik.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
