Horacio Sevilla Borja. (Screenshot)

“Such words are a terrible affront to the last remaining survivors of the Holocaust and to the second and third generations that are still recovering from the greatest crime against humanity the world has ever seen.” – Danny Danon, Israeli Ambassador to the UN

Ecuador’s Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Horacio Sevilla Borja addressed the UN’s General Assembly last week and compared Zionism to Nazism, a  decades-old attempt to delegitimize the State of Israel.

Quoting a speech given in 1979 by former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who died last week, Borja proclaimed the while “we deplore the genocide the Nazis visited on the Hebrew people,” the “Hebrews” themselves are acting just like the Nazis to the extent that “there is no event in history that parallels it as much as the genocide practiced by imperialism and Zionism on the heroic Palestinian people.”

Borja made his remarks at the annual “Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People,” during which the GA passed six anti-Israel resolutions.

In response to the offensive remarks, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon wrote a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, urging him to condemn the Ecuadorian representative’s statement, and demanded that Borja apologize.

“The UN cannot treat such despicable words of hate and pure anti-Semitism as business as usual,” wrote Danon. “It should be made crystal clear to all member-states that such anti-Semitic behavior will not be tolerated at the UN.”

Danon emphasized “the destructive carelessness” in Borja’s words, writing that “the idea that Israel, a thriving democracy where civil and minority rights are protected and cherished, would be compared to the most brutal dictatorship in history which massacred six million of our people and millions of others is deeply offensive.”

“Such words are a terrible affront to the last remaining survivors of the Holocaust and to the second and third generations that are still recovering from the greatest crime against humanity the world has ever seen,” Danon concluded.