Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who once likened his crime-fighting policy to Hitler’s mass murders and then apologized for the comparison, on Monday laid a wreath to commemorate the Holocaust dead in Jerusalem, Reuters reports.
During his visit to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial and museum, Duterte stood alongside his daughter, Sara, whom he fathered with Elizabeth Abellana Zimmerman, his Jewish first wife, which by religious tradition makes Sara Jewish too.
In a solemn ceremony, he kindled the eternal flame in the Hall of Remembrance and laid a wreath.
Reading from what he wrote in the visitors’ book after the ceremony, Duterte said: “Never again.”
“May the world learn the lesson of this horrific and benighted period of human history. May the hearts of peoples around the world remain ever open. And may the minds of all men and women learn to work together towards providing a safe haven for all who are being persecuted.”
In 2016, in a reference to an opponent’s remark that his rise could be like that of Adolf Hitler, Duterte said he himself would be “happy to slaughter” drug addicts in a similar way to the Nazi leader’s mass murder of Jews.
Duterte is paying an official four-day visit to Israel, the first by a Philippines president, and officials on both sides have tried to play down his record of jarring invective.
Israel’s Government Press Office said most of the visit would be closed to the media, an apparent precaution against any faux pas by a president whose two-fisted crime-fighting tactics and rhetoric have raised hackles at home and abroad.
Tourism, labor and defense deals were signed earlier when Duterte met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his office.