2 hours ago
Israeli and German leaders expressed their anger following Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of committing a “50 Holocaust” once morest his own people.
But Abbas later issued a clarification statement, expressing his condemnation of the massacres committed by Nazi Germany during World War II.
Abbas traveled to Berlin with the aim of winning Germany’s support for the Palestinians’ bid to join the United Nations as a full member state, asking it to help restart long-stalled peace talks with the Israelis.
During a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Schulz on Tuesday, Abbas was asked if he would apologize for what Palestinian gunmen in Munich took for holding Israeli athletes hostage during the 1972 Olympics, in an operation that ended in the deaths of 11 Israelis.
Abbas did not answer the question directly, instead saying, “If we want to go back to the past, let’s do it.”
“Since 1947 until the present day, Israel has committed 50 massacres in Palestinian villages and cities – in Deir Yassin, Tantoura, Kafr Qasem and many others – 50 massacres, 50 Holocausts. Even today, every day, there are victims killed by the Israeli army.”
Schultz appeared to frown as Abbas spoke, but did not comment before the advisers finished the press conference. He also shook hands with the president before they left.
Schultz was criticized for not directly condemning Abbas’s statement.
“We would have liked Schulz’s clarification immediately,” wrote Der Spiegel magazine.
Later, Schultz wrote on Twitter, “I am disgusted by the outrageous comments made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. For us Germans any comparison between what happened in the Holocaust and any other event is intolerable and unacceptable. I condemn any attempt to deny the crimes of the Holocaust.” .
In turn, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid wrote on Twitter that “Mahmoud Abbas’ accusation that Israel committed 50 Holocausts while standing on German soil is not only a moral disgrace, but a heinous lie.”
“Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, including one and a half million Jewish children. History will not forgive him,” he added.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz also described the Palestinian president’s comments as “appalling” and “an attempt to rewrite history.”
He added that the German government should respond appropriately to “this unexcusable behavior that took place in the Chancellery.”
Christopher Hubner, Executive Vice President of the International Committee of Auschwitz also saw that “the German side is not ready to face Abbas’s provocations, and what he said regarding the Holocaust was left unanswered at the conference.”
On the other hand, Shultz directly opposed Abbas when he used the term “apartheid” in reference to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, according to Agence France-Presse news agency.
Later, Abbas said in a statement that “the Holocaust is the most heinous crime in modern human history,” stressing that he did not mean “to deny the privacy of the Holocaust…it is condemned in the strongest terms.”
The statement issued by the Palestinian presidency’s office added that Abbas’s comments meant “the massacres committed once morest the Palestinian people.”
