Likud party slams former PM Barak after Netanyahu-Hitler comparison

Ehud Barak shared a video comparing Netanyahu to Hitler

The Likud party issued a sharply worded statement on Monday slamming former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak for sharing a video on X, formerly Twitter, which compared Netanyahu to Hitler.

The Likud called to prosecute Barak for his inflammatory comments which, according to the Likud, are akin to incitement to the assassination of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The video in question shows Prof. Ichak Adizes, who compares the behavior of Netanyahu to that of Adolf Hitler, along with Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević, who was accused of war crimes, and former U.S. President Donald Trump.

Barak shared the video on his account and commented: “Must watch! Is Netanyahu mentally unfit to run a country? Ichak Adizes, a leading international consultant on leadership issues with a shocking opinion!”

The video was originally uploaded to X by Eran Etzion, former Israeli National Security Council deputy head. “Prof. Ichak Adizes is an international figure who has advised heads of state and CEOs of huge corporations,” Etzion commented.

“He has written many well-regarded books on the character of leaders and managers. His analysis is that Netanyahu, like Milosevic, like Trump, and also like Hitler in his last days, loses touch with reality, loses control, 'commits suicide' and takes the whole country with him.”

“Ehud ‘neck warmer’ Barak, accomplice of the pedophile Epstein, has finally gone off the rails,” the Likud statement reads.

“After saying that he will lead the demonstrations against the government until there are ‘bodies floating in the Yarkon’ and he is called back into power, Barak continues to incite the assassination of a sitting prime minister in Israel and compares him to Hitler. After dozens of complaints against instigators like him, where are the law enforcement agencies that summon him and them for investigation?”

The epithet 'neck warmer' is a reference to a photo taken of Ehud Barak outside the residence of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which shows him wearing a neck warmer and sunglasses covering most of his face. Barak continued his relationship with Epstein after he was convicted of procuring a child for prostitution.

The Likud statement also references a recently surfaced video of Barak from 2020, speaking about ways to topple Netanyahu, who he says wants to become a dictator.

In the video, Barak claims that if the country faces a serious crisis, he is the most qualified person to deal with it. Then he adds that a friend told him that when the Yarkon River, which flows north of Tel Aviv, is filled with floating corpses of Jews killed by other Jews, “you would be called upon.”

Barak – who served under Netanyahu as Israel's defense minister from 2009-2012, while leader of the Labor party – has become one of the most vocal voices in the anti-judicial reform protest movement.

Since the protests began, Barak has repeatedly called Netanyahu a fascist and a dictator and compared President Isaac Herzog to Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister famous for trying to appease Hitler before World War II.

In February, the Likud party filed a police complaint against Barak, claiming that he incited violence and called for civil unrest and insubordination, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Jewish Power Knesset Member Yitzhak Kreuzer also filed a complaint with the police against Barak in June, accusing him of sedition and incitement.