West Jerusalem’s top diplomat has condemned Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko for his comments on a corruption scandal
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko attends a May 2023 economic summit in Moscow. © Kremlin Press Office/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has been criticized by Israel for suggesting that a disproportionate number of officials involved in corruption scandals in his country are ethnic Jews.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Sunday that Lukashenko’s remarks were “unacceptable,” “outrageous,” and clearly sounded “anti-Semitic.” The rebuke came one day after the Belarusian leader ranted during a government meeting about a scandal implicating dozens of suspects, including former Agriculture Minister Igor Brylo.
“Here are 36 people on a list involved in corruption,” Lukashenko told the Council of Ministers in Minsk. “Sorry, I don’t consider myself anti-Semitic, but more than half of them are Jewish. Do they have a special, privileged role, that they steal and do not think about their future? Do they have privileges?” He added, “All people’s living in Belarus should be equal: Jews, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians, and Poles.”
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Katz told the Jewish News Syndicate that the head of his ministry’s Eurasia bureau, Yuval Fuchs, had lodged a complaint over the incident with the Belarusian ambassador to Israel.
Lukashenko appointed Brylo as his presidential aide and inspector for the Vitebsk Region in July 2023, transferring him from the Agriculture Ministry. The president removed Brylo from his new post last November, citing “an offense incompatible with the civil service.” A media report suggested that the case was tied to an alleged corruption scheme in the country’s dairy industry.
Israeli officials have previously accused Lukashenko of anti-Semitic comments, including a 2007 incident in which he told reporters that Jewish people allowed the places they lived to fall into neglect. Referring to the Belarusian city of Bobruisk, he claimed Jewish residents had turned it into a “pigsty.” He added, “This was founded as a Jewish city, and you know how Jews treat the places they live in.”
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West Jerusalem responded by lodging a complaint with the Belarusian ambassador, stopping short of recalling its envoy to Minsk.
Lukashenko was scolded again by the Israeli government after he said in July 2021 that the whole world had been made to “kneel” to the Jewish people because of the Holocaust.
