Israelis of all political stripes are aghast over a Youtube video showing Nazi propagandist Josef Goebbels endorsing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The video, titled “Bibi Uber Alles,” clearly violates pending and existing laws against using Nazi imagery and inciting hatred, wrote commenters on the video site's page, and called for police prosecution of the individual who posted the video.
In the video, called “one of the worst examples of leftist hate ever on the internet” by one commenter on the video's YouTube page, Goebbels is seen speaking to a mass audience of Germans in archival footage from a Nazi rally in the 1930s. However, interspersed in the video (obviously edited in) are shots of “settler” types, including what appears to be a woman wearing a head scarf – and oddly, one who bears a striking resemblance to former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert – along with the archival footage of Nazi-supporting masses.
The audio of the footage is in German, but the Hebrew subtitles make clear the intention of the poster: Goebbels tells the audience that “we want a new kind who will bring us prosperity, lower taxes, and kill Arabs. Raise your hands for Bibi Netanyahu, king of the world, now and forever.” The audience responds enthusiastically, repeating “Heil Bibi” over and over.
The video's author is listed as “Christian101,” and on Wednesday night it appeared on the Facebook page of an individual who calls himself Meir Mendelson, who wrote in a comment that “the cult of personality encouraged by Bibi the megalomaniac will lead to a catastrophe.”
Commenters who identified themselves as both leftists and rightists condemned the video on its home page, with rightwing activists saying that the video shows not just the left's frustrated hatred of the right – but also its hypocrisy; weeks after the hareidi-religious use of Nazi imagery to protest arrests in Mea Shearim and Beit Shemesh was roundly condemned by everyone, not one public voice from leftists who “fear for Israeli democracy” has been raised in the several weeks since the video has been posted.
Dozens of Israelis posting to the page called for viewers to demand that YouTube remove the video, and that police investigate and seek out the person behind the video and arrest him.