FACT CHECK: Did Benjamin Netanyahu Say, ‘Biafra Is Due To Stand As A Nation’?
An image shared on Facebook claims former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Biafra is due to stand as a nation.”
Verdict: False
There is no evidence Netanyahu made this statement.
Fact Check:
Netanyahu, who served as Israel’s prime minister for more than a decade, was ousted from power in June 2021 and replaced with a new coalition government led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Reuters reported. Now, an image is being shared on Facebook that claims the ousted leader is voicing his support for Biafra, a secessionist state in the southern part of Nigeria.
The image shows a picture of Netanyahu along with an alleged quote from him that reads, “Biafra is due to stand as a nation.” (RELATED: Did Nigeria Purchase WhatsApp From Facebook?)
Biafra existed as an independent country from 1967 until its reunification with Nigeria in 1970 following a bloody civil war with the Nigerian government, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. Some activists in recent years have called for Biafra to be restored as a sovereign state, Foreign Policy reported.
There is, however, no evidence Netanyahu made the statement attributed to him in the post. It does not appear in any of his official prime ministerial speeches or statements. Likewise, none of Netanyahu’s social media posts include the supposed remark either, nor can it be found anywhere on his website.
This is not to say the former prime minister has never discussed Biafra. In a speech he gave at a Holocaust memorial ceremony in 2017, he claimed the world has failed to respond to genocide since the Holocaust, including in Biafra.
“And as to the world’s apathy, has anything changed in this regard? Here too we must admit that the answer is primarily negative,” said Netanyahu. “It is true that since World War II, no tragedy on the scale of the Holocaust has occurred, but there are many cases in which the world just stood by and did nothing to prevent the destruction of peoples or mass murder: in Biafra, in Cambodia, in Rwanda, in Sudan and indeed, also in Syria.”
