President Reuven Rivlin expressed satisfaction on Sunday with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's decision not to make contact with the ministers of the extreme right in the new government in Austria after the election of a new government, including representatives of the Austrian Freedom party.
Speaking at a ceremony in which he was presented a copy of the newly-published illustrative adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank, by the books creators Ari Folman and David Polonsky, Rivlin said, "Today we see how in many places in Europe parties of the New Right win electoral achievements by using and spreading anti-Semitic slogans." He also said, "Let there be no mistake: There is no such thing as loving Israelis and hating Jews. The clear and important voice of the State of Israel and its decision not to hold contacts with representatives of the Austrian Freedom Party, the freedom to hate, is the minimum necessary for a nation that remembers and will remember its victims. It is our moral duty to remember and not to forget to learn from the sins of the past and to look to the future."