A Romanian television station is under fire after broadcasting an anti-Semitic Christmas Carol performance earlier in December, according to United Press International. 

The state-operated TVR3 Verde, a channel directed to rural communities, began broadcasting December 3 with a program that included a Christmas carol with anti-Semitic lyrics. 

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency revealed the horrific lyrics Wednesday, which include the statements, “The kikes, damn kikes, Holy God would not leave the kike alive, neither in heaven nor on earth, only in the chimney as smoke, this is what the kike is good for, to make kike smoke through the chimney on the street.”

TVR3 insisted in a public statement it did not choose the song, but rather simply broadcast what was given to them by the Center for Preservation and Promotion of Traditional Culture, a local cultural organization based in Eastern Romania. The statement referred to the song as “an uninspired choice.”

MCA Romania, a local watchdog group, said it wrote a letter of complaint to Romanian President Traian Basecu and to Prime Minister Victor Viorel Ponta.

“It is outrageous that none in the audience took a stance against the anti-Semitic Christmas carol that incites to burn the Jews,” the letter stated. It added that it was “absolutely unacceptable that TVR3 tried to deny responsibility” by blaming the cultural group.

The move is another strike by Romania, after talks with Israel soured on Tuesday over the country’s refusal to allow its workers to operate in Judea and Samaria. The development followed months of work between the Foreign Ministries of the respective nations over the agreement. 

This is not the first time Romanian television has broadcasted anti-Semitic statements on a national scale. In 2012, a Romanian member of the European Parliament denied the Holocaust on national television. 

“There was never a Holocaust in Romania,” EP Corneliu Vadim Tudor stated. “I will deny it until I die because I love my people.”