Standing with President Donald Trump amid the recent hate-group controversy directed against him, calling Trump "the best U.S. leader Israel has ever had," has opened up Israeli Communications Minister Ayoub Kara for criticism, The Jerusalem Post reported.
"Due to the terrific relations with the U.S., we need to put the declarations about the Nazis in the proper proportion," Kara told the Post. "We need to condemn antisemitism and any trace of Nazism, and I will do what I can as a minister to stop its spread.
"But Trump is the best U.S. leader Israel has ever had. His relations with the prime minister of Israel are wonderful, and after enduring the terrible years of Obama, Trump is the unquestioned leader of the free world, and we must not accept anyone harming him."
Kara's comments were delivered with a declaration of Trump having "a proven track record in opposing antisemitism and religious extremism," according to the report, but Kara's statements were condemned for not going far enough in condemning hate.
"What Kara said was nonsense," Zionist Union MK Nachman Shai said, per the Post. "Our relations with the US and with the president are important, but Israel also has a deep obligation to the American Jewish community. This is the time to prove our shared values and make unequivocally clear that Israel will fight anti-semitism at any time and any place."
Zionist Union MK Erel Margalit also was dissatisfied, saying "Kara, [Israel Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, and their government lost their way: Israel has to condemn Nazis, period, and it should insist that the U.S. president and the administration should condemn Nazis and any form of antisemitism categorically and unequivocally."
In an unintended consequence of condemning those who condemn too inadequately, the anti-Kara statements have given rise to anti-Israel activists joining in seizing on Kara's statement – using it to verbally attack the Jewish state, too.