HOW ONE WEB PORTAL, BY PUBLISHING ANTISEMITIC TEXT, AROSE EFRAIM ZUROFF'S REACTION AND AMBASSADOR IVAN DEL VECHIO'S APOLOGY

Croatian Ambassador to Tel Aviv Ivan Del Vechio on Tuesday 25 July had to write a letter of apology to the Director of Jerusalem Centre Simon Wiesenthal dr. Efraim Zuroff and had to spill himself with ashes in order to moderate the incident caused by an insulting anti-Semitic text on web portal Požega online. If it were just one of thousands Croatian blogs, or some reader's commentary on on-line newspapers , Del Vechio would easily handle the situation, by saying that defamatory naming of Jews “Cifuti”, and naming Zuroff “Efendija Efraim” or other distasteful jokes about renovation of Jewish cemetery in Požega or about arresting Milivoj Ašner whom Zuroff's Centre accuses of death and deportation of Požega Jews, has nothing to do with the attitudes of Croatian Government or any other serious institutions in this country.

Bishops and Anti-Semitism

But, how to do this when Požega Online is an official web site of the County behind which stand such powerful institutions like Požega Bishopric, Bishop Ordinariate, HVIDRA Association ( Croatian Military Disabled in the Homeland War ), UHDDR Požega ( Association of Homeland War Veterans ), Association of parents of deceased war veterans of Homeland War, Požega Polytechnic and another ten institutions which are explicitly mentioned as institutions that stand behind the web site.

Responding to harsh caveat of dr. Efraim Zuroff , Ivan Del Vechio , Croatian Ambassador to Israel, himself born in Požega, says that he strongly believes that this is about individuals, supporting this view by the fact that more than 100 thousand Israelis visit Croatia during the summer and that not even a single complaint of any possible inconveniences ever came to Croatian Embassy, which, to the contrary, received only compliments.

Del Vechio furthermore says that the city of Požega did a great deal in reconstructing Jewish cemetery and that there is a support to re-build the synagogue that existed in this town until 1941. But, he does not explain how this anti-Semitic text appeared on the web site and which consequences it caused already when it was published for the first time.

Insulting anti-Semitic text titled “Says ‘jokes' but is not joking” ( there is a word play here: ‘šalom' means ‘by joking' but alludes to ‘shalom' ) published on July 11 th , 2005, but was soon removed from web portal. After it was published, leaflets with messages “Jews and Serbs out of Požega” were found all over the town, and afterward a hand bomb M-75 was found on the Jewish cemetery. Grave monuments were again devastated, and monument to Mavro Bleier , Požega Rabbi from the beginning of 20 th century was destroyed.

This insulting anti-Semitic text was then removed from portal Požega Online, only to appear again these days, somehow at the same time with Israeli military operations is Lebanon . Its appearance caused an international incident, and on Tuesday it was once again removed, after Zuroff's intervention.

The author of the text is Žejko Lukic , the editor of web portal Požega Online, who uses the name Bay Mata. He says for himself that he is “a long time Požega journalist, editor, associate in numerous papers, satiric and cultural worker”. One of his known columns from the serial “Bay Mata's tentanja” described devastation of Bakic antifascist monument in Kamensko during the Homeland War.

Prank to Ronko

But it can be heard in Požega that by publishing this text somebody actually wanted to prank the actual County ruler, and SDP member Zdravko Ronko . The whole story began by publishing the text during the time of HDZ County ruler Ante Bagaric whom Ronko over won in this year's elections. This is why some tend to explain that revenge to Ronko comes from this side. That this may be a prank to Ronko testifies the picture in which the actual Požega County ruler and a recent mayor, is shown with “rabbi” beard, and is described as a man with three marriages, who tries to “butter up” to Zuroff , who apologizes for the slowness of judiciary in Milivoj Ašner case and because he gave ham for Easter to his employees, food that Jews don't eat.

This is how internal Požega war in which Bagaric tries to knock down Ronko , spilled over Croatian borders causing a serious international incident.