10 August 2006
Jörg Haider, governor of the Austrian province of Carinthia and leader of the far-right BZÖ party, has again verbally attacked the leader of the country's Jewish community, Ariel Muzicant. It was the latest round in right-wing politician Haider’s battle of words with Jewish and Israeli spokesmen over Israel’s attacks on Lebanon. Without naming Haider directly, Muzicant charged in the government-owned paper "Wiener Zeitung" on Sunday that in Austria, "anti-Semites" were commenting on the "tragedy in the Middle East" by accusing Israel of "war crimes" even though they knew better. These same people regarded the date of the Nazi capitulation (8 May 1945) as the beginning of Allied "occupation". They also had difficulties putting up a few bilingual signs, Muzicant said, referring to a legal battle between Haider and the Austrian Supreme Court, with the governor resisting rulings for more German-Slovenian urban signs in his province. Haider reacted promptly. He accused Muzicant of being "among those Zionist provocateurs in the West who defend the murder of dozens of children and hundreds of civilians, the blowing up of bridges to cut off flight and aid routes, and the killing of UN soldiers, and thereby justify a senseless war by Israel". Haider had earlier demanded the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador in Vienna, and war-crimes trials for "warmongers in Israel".
