Mumbai: Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Saturday clarified that he had no intention of hurting Israel and that he had criticised the Gaza hospital attack in the same way as Hamas’s attack against Israel.
Referring to the reports regarding the Gaza hospital, Mr. Raut had posted on his X handle, “Now we can understand why did Hitler hate Jew community so much.” Though he deleted his post later, the Israeli Embassy has lodged a protest with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla expressing his disappointment over Mr. Raut’s comments justifying the Holocaust.
“It has been a long time since that tweet. I removed it. There was a reference to Hitler in that, but I had no intention to hurt Israel. The way Hamas attacked Israel, I criticised that attack. In the same way, when Gaza’s hospitals were attacked, newborns and children were killed in large numbers, I criticised it,” Mr. Raut said.
The Rajya Sabha MP said that the objection raised by the Israeli embassy to his now-deleted post nearly “after a month” suggests that the action was taken by the mission at the behest of someone.
Clarifying his intention in the post regarding Gaza hospital, Mr. Raut said, “I said it was inhumanity and because you are not showing humanity, a leader (Hitler) must have opposed you during that time… After one month, Israel’s High Commission has written a letter on that. Someone must have told them to oppose me.”
On November 14, Mr. Raut had reshared a report about the challenging situation in Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital. Commenting on the report in Hindi, he had said, “Why did Hitler hate Jews so much? (Do you) understand now?”
