Composer reiterates anti-Jewish remarks

JERUSALEM – Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis, who outraged Jews in November by calling them “the root of evil,” is at it again, this time saying Jews control the world’s banks and the mass media.

Theodorakis, best known for the score of the 1964 film “Zorba the Greek,” called himself a “true friend of the Jewish people” in an interview published Friday by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Theodorakis said he granted the interview to try to soothe the feelings he hurt in November.

“And I was very much hurt by the Jewish reaction to what I said. It was not a civilized reaction,” he told the paper. He said he had received hundreds of “poisonous e-mails from Jews all over the world. I couldn’t understand this hatred toward me.”

But Theodorakis went on to reiterate his earlier comments and used common anti-Semitic invectives.

He said he doesn’t hate Jews, but rather Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s policies regarding the Palestinians, which he described as Nazi-like. He said Sharon – and other Jews in influential positions – persuaded President George W. Bush to go to war against Iraq.

Theodorakis’ comments in November led Israel to complain to the Greek government, which distanced itself from the composer’s remarks.

In March, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish advocacy group, urged Jews not to visit Greece, saying: “There is no country in Europe that matches the intensity of anti-Semitic invective.”