In June 2025, AKEL, Cyprus’s communist party — one of the few to survive the fall of the Iron Curtain without fading into irrelevance — held its congress.

Unlike previous gatherings, it drew attention beyond the party’s base because of strikingly antisemitic remarks by its secretary-general, Stefanos Stefanou, which were highly unusual in Cyprus’s public discourse.

“Recently, we have been witnessing the emergence of closed-off areas — ghettos — created by Israeli nationals, with Zionist schools and synagogues being established and sweeping acquisitions of major economic assets and large tracts of land,” Stefanou said. “This is happening at a time when serious newspapers in Israel are speaking of a deliberate policy of Israeli expansion into Cyprus. We are not saying this out of xenophobia or antisemitism.”

“After all,” he added, “AKEL, which provided substantial humanitarian assistance to many Jews who arrived in Cyprus after World War II and were held by the British in detention camps, cannot be accused of such motives.”

This was no slip of the tongue. It was part of Stefanou’s written speech. That AKEL’s leader would cynically exploit such a historically charged subject to make such a crude and absurd argument shocked many.

The Palestinian representative in Nicosia, Abdallah Attari — a member of the diplomatic corps since Cyprus recognized a Palestinian state in 1989 — was a guest of honor at the Congress. Seated in the front row, he appeared delighted as Stefanou launched into repeated anti-Israel and........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)