US Vice President criticised for “disgusting” Holocaust Memorial Day trip to Honduras for inauguration of President beset by antisemitism allegations

Vice President Kamala Harris has been criticised for a trip to Honduras on Holocaust Memorial Day to meet the country’s new President whose husband and running-mate have been beset by allegations of antisemitism.

On her arrival in Honduras, Vice President Harris tweeted a tribute to the six million Jews who perished in the Shoah, writing: “Today, we honour the six million Jews and other victims murdered by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust.” She continued: “We must teach our children the truth about the atrocities…so that together we give meaning to that timeless pledge, ‘never again’.”

Ms Harris was in Honduras to attend the inauguration of the new socialist President Xiomara Castro, in a bid to get her help to stem the crisis on America’s southern border. The leaders also held a meeting at which Ms Harris announced that the US would be sending more aid, including more Covid vaccine doses, to the Central American nation. The Biden administration sees cooperation and investment in the Northern Triangle countries – Honduras, Mexico and El Salvador – as the way to ease the crisis on its border. 

Ms Castro’s husband Manuel Zelaya, a former President, claimed after the country’s 2009 coup that “Israeli mercenaries” were torturing him “with high-frequency radiation,” while Ms Castro’s running mate, Salvador Nasralla, has reportedly said that Jews control the global money supply. Mr Nasralla also stated in 2020 that “the boss” of the country’s outgoing President Juan Orlando Hernández, was “the Government of Israel.”  

‘It’s totally disgusting and unacceptable that the US Vice President would attend this inauguration and give legitimacy to this vile behaviour, especially on the day we honour and remember the six million Jews and millions of others killed in the Holocaust,”  said Lee Zeldin, a Jewish Republican Congressman. 

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