Israel Compared to Nazis: Conditional Sentence

ORF, August 5, 2024

German original: https://salzburg.orf.at/stories/3267915/

A man from Salzburg was sentenced at the regional court on Monday for comparing Zionists and Israel to Nazis on the internet – for incitement, incitement to hatred against Israelis and Jews. The 50-year-old man asserted in court that he was a pacifist who wanted nothing more than for all wars to end.

The 50-year-old published five pictures of children bleeding and killed in the Gaza Strip on social media. According to the prosecution, he wrote: "Zionists are Nazis and all those who support these monsters." He published this after the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, said the man from Salzburg.

He was under the influence of strong painkillers at the time. His words were "politically incorrect". He is a pacifist in the spirit of the Indian national leader Mahatma Gandhi, who practiced passive resistance and encouraged people to oppose all forms of war.

Judge: "Anti-Semitic comparison, often on the internet"

The judge said that it is illegal to make a completely indiscriminate comparison between Zionists who advocated the founding of a Jewish state and National Socialists and their mass murders. This comparison is antisemitic and often appears on the internet. And the judge said that a signal must be sent against this increasingly powerful current, which leads to hatred and discord.

His sentence is seven months' imprisonment on probation – for incitement. It is already legally binding. The convicted man sees this conviction as an opportunity – presumably to weigh his words on the internet more carefully.