Menachem Z. Rosensaft, Adjunct Professor of Law Caw, Cornell Law School, and General Counsel Emeritus of the World Jewish Congress, strongly criticized Amir Gross Kabiri, the executive director of Aluminij from Mostar, against whom the president of the Jewish cultural, educational and humanitarian society "La Benevolencija" Vladimir Andrle submitted a report to FBiH police over alleged threats.

“I am appalled by the fact that Amir Gross Kabiri, an Israeli businessman who has set up operations in Mostar in recent years, not only appears intent on sabotaging the positive relations between Jews and Bosniaks that exist in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but is trying to undermine the important role played by Vladimir Andrle, the Sarajevo-born head of “La Benevolencija” who represents the future of the small but extremely important Bosnian Jewish community that has long been headed with distinction by Ambassador Jacob Finci”, Rosensaft said.

He noted that Kabiri “burst on the scene in 2020 when he took control of an insolvent aluminum factory in Mostar and became one of the city’s major employers.”

“The next year he was named vice president of a local football club whose fans are known to express ultranationalist Croatian political sentiments harking back not just to the 1990s but to the fascist and antisemitic era of the Ustaše-led World War II Independent State of Croatia. In 2022, Kabiri became head of Mostar’s tiny Jewish community reputedly consisting of around 30 members. All of which hardly qualifies Kabiri to be a legitimate voice of Bosnian Jewry,” Rosensaft argued.

“We have seen a number of troubling efforts by Israelis such as Kabiri who appear to be siding with Milorad Dodik in his efforts to resurrect the ethnic conflicts of the 1990s, including most recently by opposing the United Nations General Assembly’s long overdue designation of July 11 as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide. They need to be isolated as purely marginal figures. Bosnia and the Bosnian Jewish community need the constructive and courageous leadership of Vlado Andrle, and initiatives designed to undermine him are contemptible if not worse”, he stressed.