Published time: 16 May, 2017 16:02
An
Israeli minister has bluntly called for Syrian leader Bashar Assad to be
assassinated after unsourced media reports claimed Damascus was using a
“crematorium” to cover-up mass killings. He said the “serpent’s head” in Tehran
should be dealt with next.
“The reality whereby Syria executes
people, intentionally uses chemical weapons to hurt them and, now, in the most
recent move of extremism, is burning their bodies – this has not been seen in
the world in 70 years,” said Israeli
Housing Minister Yoav Galant, as cited by Haaretz.
“We are
crossing a red line and, in my view, the time has come to assassinate Assad,” he continued.
“And
when we finish with the tail of the serpent, we will reach the head of the
serpent, which can be found in Tehran, and we will deal with it, too,” he said.
What appears to be the first recorded Israeli threat
to assassinate Syrian President Bashar Assad came after the US Department of
State alleged, without presenting any hard evidence, that the Syrian government
is using “a crematorium” outside Damascus to burn the bodies
of people killed by the government.
Earlier on Tuesday, Galant told Israeli Army Radio
that Assad’s rule has been the worst since Nazi Germany. “What is
happening in Syria is defined as genocide, under all its classifications,” he
said on Army Radio, according to Jerusalem Post.
Galant, a retired IDF general, added that Israel wants to see Assad and his
Alawite government ousted from power and replaced by a “moderate Sunni ruler.”
Some previous attempts to compare Assad’s government
to the Nazi regime have been met with public outcry. White House spokesman Sean
Spicer, who claimed that Hitler’s death squads hadn’t used chemical agents
during the Holocaust “in the way
that Assad used them” sparked outrage in the US and beyond.
Certain
journalists have used the Assad-Hitler comparison when covering claims that
Syrian forces have used chemical weapons, but those remarks were dismissed by
the public.
Assad,
a UK-educated doctor, has been in power since the 1999 passing of his father,
Syria’s long-time president, Hafez Assad. Syria is one of the few Arab
countries where the president is elected through a nationwide vote.
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