Oded Revivi, mayor of Efrat in the Gush Etzion region of Judea, chided the European Union and British government on Monday against the backdrop of increasingly anti-Semitic rhetoric by the BDS movement.
Responding to the vicious anti-Israel material pasted across the London Underground system on Monday, Revivi compared the dramatic surge in anti-Semitism in Europe in recent years to the rise of Nazism in the 1930s.
“Unfortunately Europe is returning to the pre-World War II situation,” Revivi said. “This is exactly how the Nazi movement began, by posters in the U-BAHN [Berlin rapid transit system], underground, in quiet parlor meetings, and then slowly moved the power it accumulated to the government”.
Looking to Europe today, Revivi pondered whether governments there would take the threat of anti-Semitism more seriously this time, reflecting that Monday’s incident was an opportunity for Europe to “learn a lesson and not allow anti-Semitism to rise.”
The coordinated acts of vandalism across the London Underground network appear to be the work of the BDS movement. The incident coincides with annual "Israel Apartheid Week," a yearly BDS event begun in 2005.
London Mayor Boris Johnson has promised to get involved and get the posters taken down immediately.