Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar has branded comments made by the Croatian president about Israel as "unacceptable rhetoric".
President Zoran Milanović made the comments, which appear to compare Israel to an “infection”, in response to the country’s ambassador to Croatia Gary Koren, who claimed that the Iranian embassy needed to be checked for Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps infiltrators.
Koren told the Croatian news agency HINA last week: “There could be members of the revolutionary guard there with the task of gathering intelligence and supporting terrorism.”
Milanović responded to Koren's comments on Thursday by saying: “The ambassador of Israel stated that there is a terrorist den in the Iranian embassy in the middle of Zagreb. The Croatian public doesn’t need that kind of harassment. We don’t want other people’s infections and germs in Croatia, neither Iranian nor Israeli.”
He also accused Israel of “terrorism” in Gaza and added that Iran is “prone to certain terrorist methods”, but only in the Middle East and not in Europe – “at least as far as I know”.
Responding to the president’s comments on X, Sa’ar took issue with his “hate-filled language”.
He wrote: “The Croatian president’s offensive rhetoric is unacceptable. His hate-filled language about Israel and Zionism reflects an antisemitic approach.
“Croatia belongs to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and has pledged to confront antisemitism. The president betrayed these commitments."
Last month, Milanović, who is also the supreme commander of the Croatian armed forces, ordered the cessation of military cooperation with Israel, citing what he characterised as the “unacceptable actions of the Israeli army and the unprecedented violation of all norms of international humanitarian law”.
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