US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the phrase “free Palestine” has become a “battle cry” to signify intent to harm Jews and repeat the horrors of the Holocaust.
Speaking in a pre-recorded video shown at this year’s International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday, Rubio referenced the words shouted by the murderer of the two Israeli embassy workers, Yaron Lichinsky and Sarah Milgrim, in Washington, D.C. last week.
He said the young couple were “cut down in cold blood by a monster” because he “believed [they] were Jews.”
Rubio said the words “free, free Palestine”, which were shouted by killer Elias Rodriguez after his arrest, “now clearly serve as a battle cry for the death of Jews, the destruction of Israel, and the horrors we must never again allow.”
Now more than ever, he said, “there can be no compromise with antisemitism, there can be no nuanced separation of Israel and hatred of Jewish people. Those who call to boycott Israel are calling for the boycott of their Jewish neighbours and classmates. Those who call for violence against Israelis are calling for violence against Jews. Those who call for the destruction of Israel are calling for the destruction of the Jewish people.”
He added: “There can be no coexistence with evil; there can be no nuance to hatred.”
He said the Trump administration is “holding the international organisations and nations accountable for rhetoric against Israel that surfaces in the manifesto of monsters, like Yaron and Sarah’s killer.”
Israel, he said, was built by “the Jewish people, exiles, dreamers from around the world who made the desert bloom into a high-tech superpower. Israel accomplished this miracle not by abandoning its history or identity, but by embracing it. Sadly, some of Israel’s neighbours have failed to appreciate how following Israel’s example could have brought prosperity to the region.”
Before Rubio’s address, Israeli President Isaac Herzog opened the day’s first panel session on antisemitism alongside Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Yad Vashem Chair Dani Dayan.
Senior ministers from European countries including the Czech Republic, Estonia, Moldova and Serbia were among the other speakers at the event. Also in attendance were the chief rabbis of Poland, Michael Schudrich, and the UK, Sir Ephraim Mirvis.
Rabbi Mirvis told the conference on Tuesday that “anti-Zionism is the new antisemitism” and that “if you are anti-Zionist, you are also anti-Jewish”.
The European ministers, representing more than 30 different countries, began the day with a wreath laying ceremony at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum atop the Mount of Remembrance.
