Controversial Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte repeatedly has come under international fire during his tenure for, among other things, a war on drugs that some claim has resulted in tens of thousands of extra-judicial killings, as well as a series of comments seemingly justifying the rape of women. The man who previously likened himself to Hitler and asserted that he would gladly eliminate 3 million drug addicts in his country, raised Israeli eyebrows on Monday by remarking at Yad Vashem—The World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem that insane leaders needed to be “disposed of at the first instance.” Duterte, who is on a four-day visit to Israel, also thanked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for providing “very substantial and critical” assistance to the Philippines when “we needed it most,” an apparent reference to Israel’s support for a 2017 counter-terrorism operation to liberate Marawi City from an Islamic State-affiliated group. In a joint press conference, the Israeli premier recalled how the Philippines opened its doors to more than 1,000 Jewish refugees during the Holocaust, and noted it was the only Asian country to vote in favor of the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan to establish Israel. Nevertheless, some Israeli officials were less welcoming, with opposition leader Tzipi Livni calling Duterte a “very problematic person” and expressing hope that his visit would be “very low profile.” Tens of thousands of Filipino care-givers live in Israel, which is known to be one of Manilla’s primary arms suppliers.
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