Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has complained that Deputy-Minister Ayoob Kara meets with anti-Semites and neo-Nazis in Europe, in a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to Lieberman, Kara disregards Israel’s foreign policy and causes a great damage to the country’s image abroad.
In the letter, the Israeli Foreign Minister wrote that he has "recently learned of the Deputy Minister's meetings in Europe with extremists affiliated with racist and anti-Semitic lineaments, without informing or consulting with our official delegates in those countries."
"Israel has a clear policy forbidding such meetings. Holding such meetings renders controversial actions permissible, causing substantial damage to the image of the State of Israel within the international community."
Several weeks ago, Kara, who is a member of the Druze community, met in Belgium with a leader of the Flemish extreme-right party Vlaams Belang. The Belgian Jewish community but also the Israeli embassy then reacted with surprise at the meeting.
The Israeli minister later insisted that this was a "private visit."
Belgian Jews stressed that it was precisely the Vlaams Belang party that proposed a bill in the Belgian Senate calling for amnesty for Belgian collaborators of the Nazis during WWII.
Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported last week that Kara had met with Swedish-German millionaire Patrik Brinkmann who has ties with German neo-Nazi groups in Berlin.
Brinkmann, who is trying to establish an extreme-right anti-Islamic party in Germany claims he is not an anti-Semite. But his previous close contacts with the German neo-Nazi party (NPD) and his past membership in another neo-Nazi party raise questions regarding his ideology.
Lieberman has demanded that Netanyahu personally intervene and stop Minister Kara's overseas trips.