NEW YORK (JTA) — Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras told a Jewish audience that the extremist Golden Dawn party would be eliminated.
“There is no room for the neo-Nazis in any part of the democratic world,” Samaras said Monday in New York during an address to the American Jewish Committee at a reception in his honor.
His remarks came two days after a crackdown by the Greek government on Golden Dawn resulting in the arrest of leading party members. Samaras said the actions were “something unique” and “have not happened elsewhere in Europe,” where politics and extremism often coincide.
Samaras emphasized Greece’s economic recovery, which he believes will reduce support for neo-Nazi idealism, and spoke of plans to meet with top Israeli officials.
He emphasized that Greece, Israel and Cyprus, working together, could “become a beacon for freedom and hope” in the eastern Mediterranean.
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