Austria: New FM denies having compared Zionism with Nazism

Via The Times of Israel:

Zionism cannot be equated with Nazism, Austria’s new foreign minister said, rejecting accusations that she had made such a comparison in the past.

In an in-depth interview with The Times of Israel, Karin Kneissl defended the far-right Freedom Party, saying neither its leader Heinz-Christian Strache nor its other members have anti-Semitic inclinations. (...)  

When she was appointed in December, the 52-year-old Vienna native made headlines in Israel for having described early Zionism in one of her books as a “blood-and-soil ideology based on German nationalism.”

The quote, from her 2014 book “My Middle East,” led some observers to believe that she linked Zionism with Nazism.

“Some journalists only pointed out one line of the book without explaining the content,” she told The Times of Israel. “What’s important today is that myself and the new Austrian government are and remain committed to Israel as a Jewish state and to a two-state-solution, where Israel and Palestine live side by side, in peace and prosperity.”

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