Kamala meets new anti-Semitism stained leader of Honduras today on Holocaust Memorial Day

Vice President Kamala Harris landed in Honduras Thursday morning on Holocaust Memorial Day to meet the new president of Honduras whose inner circle have made anti-Semitic remarks.

The VP tweeted a tribute to the six million Jews who were slaughtered as she landed in the country.

She wrote: ‘Today, we honor the six million Jews and other victims murdered by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. We must teach our children the truth about the atrocities of the Holocaust, so that together we give meaning to that timeless pledge: never again’.

She is attending the inauguration of new socialist Honduran President Xiomara Castro in a bid to get her hep to stem the border crisis. 

Castro’s husband Manuel Zelaya, the former president of Honduras, claimed after the country’s 2009 coup that ‘Israeli mercenaries’ were torturing him with high-frequency radiation. 

Castro’s running mate, Salvador Nasralla, said Jews control the global money supply, according to Fox News. 

Nasralla also said in 2020 that Honduras’ outgoing president Juan Orlando Hernández’s ‘boss is the government of Israel.’ 

Harris walks down a red carpet with Amb. Ramon Valladares, Honduras Chief of Protocol

Nasralla’s wife Iroshka Elvir had to apologize to Jewish organizations for praising Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. 

When Elvir was named Miss Honduras in 2015 she said ‘Hitler was a great leader’ during an interview with the El Heraldo newspaper, according to the Times of Israel.

‘When I talked about Hitler I talked about his leadership because, to my understanding, he did not do anything good,’ Elvir wrote in her 2017 letter to the Latin American Jewish Congress.

‘The newspaper published that I admire Hitler, but it is not true, I never told them that I admired Hitler,’ she continued. ‘I am a great admirer of Israel, I love and bless that great nation. Receive my letter and my apologies since at no time did I want to offend any Jew.’   

Elvir attached a photo of herself holding an Israeli flag to the letter and concluded it by writing ‘shalom.’    

The VP is accompanied by US Agency for International Development (USAID) director Samantha Powers. After the inauguration, Harris will attend a bilateral meeting with the new president this afternoon. 

Honduras is one of the three ‘northern triangle’ countries that account for the flood of migrants coming over the U.S.-Mexico border.  

Kamala Harris arrives at Soto Cano Air Base to attend the inauguration ceremony of Honduran President-elect Xiomara Castro in Palmerola, Honduras 

On Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris (left) will attend the inauguration of Honduran President-elect Xiomara Castro (right), whose inner circle has made problematic statements about Jewish people and Israel 

Castro’s husband Manuel Zelaya is a former Honduran president who got pushed out in a 2009 coup. At the time he claimed he was being tortured by ‘Israeli mercenaries’ using high-frequency radiation 

Castro’s (right) running mate Salvador Nasralla (left) said Jews control the global supply chain and insisted a former Honduran president’s ‘boss is the government of Israel’ 

President Joe Biden charged Harris with running point with leaders of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador so they could address the root causes of migration, but that quickly opened the vice president up to political attacks from conservatives as border crossings surged. 

Harris wrote on Twitter ahead of the trip that it would allow her to ‘deepen our cooperation on key issues, from anti-corruption, to economic recovery.’ 

The trip is the vice president’s second to the Northern Triangle in her role as point person migration’s root causes, but she has avoided a visit the U.S.-Mexico border amid a record surge in border crossings. Customs and Border Protection officials arrested 178,000 migrants last month, a record high from December, but still below the peak in July of 213,000.   

The U.S. is working to build bonds with the new president in hopes she will steer the nation in a new direction, resisting the corruption and cartel money that swayed leaders of the past. 

The Biden administration sees investment as the way out of poverty for people in Northern Triangle countries. 

Harris’ call to action last year led private companies to commit to investing $1.2 billion in the region, but experts say the plan could fall through if businesses fear politicians will instead pocket the cash. 

In April, Harris announced the U.S. was offering $310 million in emergency aid to the Northern Triangle, including $255 million to meet ‘immediate and urgent humanitarian needs.’ 

Some experts believe that foreign aid can actually increases cases of migration. 

Both Zelaya and Nasralla are familiar faces in Honduran politics.   

Zelaya was elected in 2006 on a conservative platform but turned to the left politically, forging alliances with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and forming a friendship with Cuba’s Raul Castro.  

He was dispatched by a military coup in 2009, with opposition leaders claiming that Zelaya’s plan to have a vote to change the constitution indicated he planned to stay in power – an assertion the president denied. 

A Newsweek account from that time said that Zelaya went into hiding at the Brazilian embassy in Honduras’ capital Tegucigalpa with about 50 followers. 

‘Since re-entering the country on Monday, he’s set up an improvised war room and living quarters in the embassy, issuing calls for the ‘fall of the usurpers’ and spinning increasingly conspiratorial tales to the media,’ the Newsweek report said. 

 ‘The once-proper president has resorted to sleeping on chairs and surviving on biscuits delivered to his makeshift bunker,’ the report continued. ‘His throat is sore from toxic gases, he says, while ‘Israeli mercenaries” are supposedly torturing him with high-frequency radiation from a device resembling a large satellite dish.’ 

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told CNN en Español that Zelaya had lost it, Newsweek said. 

Zelaya spent time in exile after the coup, but returned to the country in May 2011. 

He served as his wife’s campaign manager during her presidential run.  

Nasralla, who backed Castro’s presidential bid in October, so their political parties could rule together, previously ran for the presidency in 2017. 

Iroshka Elvir (left, in blue) had to apologize in 2017 for quotes she gave a newspaper in 2015 after winning Miss Honduras where she seemingly praised Adolf Hitler. ‘The newspaper published that I admire Hitler, but it is not true, I never told them that I admired Hitler,’ she said

The Jewish population in Honduras is only about 200 people, the Times said, out of 8.5 million.    

Harris will leave early on Thursday morning to lead the delegation to Castro’s inauguration. 

Harris will also be the first bilateral meeting with Castro once she’s sworn-in. 

On Friday, Castro saw her prospects of a successful administration take a hit when a leadership battle played out in Congress. 

The dispute threatened to split her own Liberty and Refoundation Party, as well as its alliance with the party of  Nasralla – and raised suspicions that the outgoing government is trying to scuttle her administration before it can start.

Castro had promised to give leadership of the new Congress to Nasralla’s party. 

Instead, 20 members of her own party broke ranks and chose one of their own members as leader – getting votes from anti-Castro parties to defeat the president-elect’s candidate. 

It infuriated Castro, who tweeted, ‘The betrayal is complete.’ 

Castro’s party, known as Libre, won 50 seats in the 128-seat Congress in November elections and to pass legislation it will need votes from allies such as Nasralla’s Honduras Salvation Party.

When Nasralla endorsed Castro they created a united front to remove the ruling National Party from power.  

As part of the deal, Nasralla got the vice presidency and his party was to lead the new Congress.

That leader was supposed to be Luis Redondo. 

But on Friday, 20 Libre lawmakers instead threw their support to one of their own, Jorge Cálix, and and other parties opposed to Castro backed him as well.

That set off shoving and shouting between loyalist and breakaway members of Libre inside the chamber. 

Outside, meanwhile, angry Libre supporters chained the doors of Congress so the lawmakers could not exit. 

Riot police moved in and eventually regained control.

Political analyst and former presidential candidate Olban Valladares said the dispute could be the result of interference from the outgoing administration Hernández, whose National Party had controlled the previous Congress with its allies.

Valladares said the developments made it doubtful that Castro would be able to count on the full support of her party to resolve Honduras’ problems. 

Zelaya said via Twitter that the selection of Cálix would not be recognized and traitors would be expelled. 

Asked about the brouhaha on the planning call Wednesday, a senior administration official said that they were aware and were closely following the situation.

‘We believe that it is up to the Hondurans to find a resolution for the differences that they are encountering there. And for them to do that in a way that is consistent with their constitution – with their constitution and with their laws,’ a senior official said. 

More broadly, officials said Wednesday that Harris’ trip had two aims.   

‘Number one, we want to deepen the bilateral partnership with Honduras,’ said the official. 

‘And two, we want to continue the vice president’s already very extensive diplomacy designed to address the root causes of migration in Central America.’

To that end, officials said they welcomed Castro’s commitments to economic growth and tackling corruption, including saying she would invite the United Nations to help root out graft.    

Other U.S. officials making the trip include USAID Administrator Samantha Powers and Rep. Raul Ruiz, a California Democrat. 

‘The Vice President’s visit will further the commitment she and President-elect Castro made during their December 10 phone call to deepen the partnership between the United States and Honduras and work together to advance economic growth, combat corruption, and address the root causes of migration,’ the White House said when it announced the trip last week.  

A spokesperson for Harris did not respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment. 

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