Germany, Israel condemn Palestinian president’s Holocaust remarks

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attend a information convention, in Berlin, Germany, August 16, 2022. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner

BERLIN/JERUSALEM, Aug 17 (Reuters) – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz voiced disgust on Wednesday at remarks by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that the German chief stated diminished the significance of the Holocaust, whereas Israel accused Abbas of telling a “monstrous lie”.

“For us Germans particularly, any relativisation of the singularity of the Holocaust is insupportable and unacceptable,” Scholz tweeted on Wednesday. “I’m disgusted by the outrageous remarks made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.”

Throughout a go to to Berlin on Tuesday, Abbas accused Israel of committing “50 Holocausts” in response to a query in regards to the upcoming fiftieth anniversary of the assault on the Israeli group on the Munich Olympics by Palestinian militants.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid additionally condemned the feedback as a “shame”.

“Mahmoud Abbas accusing Israel of getting dedicated ’50 Holocausts’ whereas standing on German soil is just not solely an ethical shame, however a monstrous lie,” Lapid stated on Twitter.

“Historical past won’t ever forgive him.”

In response to a storm of criticism, Abbas issued a press release calling Nazi Germany’s Holocaust, through which six million Jews have been killed, “probably the most heinous crime in fashionable human historical past”.

He stated his comment was not supposed to disclaim the singularity of the Holocaust however to spotlight “the crimes and massacres dedicated towards the Palestinian individuals because the Nakba by the hands of Israeli forces”.

Nakba, or disaster, is the time period Palestinians use to explain the mass exodus of Palestinians who fled or have been expelled from their houses within the 1948 conflict that accompanied the creation of the state of Israel.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany expressed “horror” at Abbas’s feedback, which it stated trampled over the reminiscence of the six million Jews who died and tarnished that of all Holocaust victims.

‘MASSACRES’

Standing alongside Scholz, Abbas referred to a sequence of historic incidents through which Palestinians have been killed by Israelis within the 1948 conflict and within the years following.

“From 1947 to the current day, Israel has dedicated 50 massacres in Palestinian villages and cities, in Deir Yassin, Tantura, Kafr Qasim and plenty of others, 50 massacres, 50 Holocausts,” stated Abbas.

The official Palestinian information company Wafa didn’t embody his Holocaust feedback in its report of the assembly with Scholz, and the Palestinian overseas ministry stated Lapid’s feedback have been supposed to divert consideration from Israel’s “crimes”.

In a press release, the ministry stated Israel not solely continued actions towards the Palestinians however was additionally making an attempt to suppress feedback “that remind the Israelis and the worldwide neighborhood of the various crimes dedicated by Israel”.

Abbas’s remark adopted months of pressure and a quick battle this month throughout which 49 individuals have been killed in Gaza after Israel carried out a sequence of air strikes in response to what it stated was an imminent risk from the militant Islamic Jihad group, which fired over 1,000 rockets in response.

Dozens of Palestinians have additionally been killed in clashes with Israeli safety forces within the occupied West Financial institution, whereas there have been numerous assaults on Israelis, together with an incident on Sunday when eight individuals have been wounded on a bus carrying Jewish worshippers in Jerusalem. learn extra

Palestinians search an unbiased state in territories captured by Israel within the 1967 Center East conflict. Negotiations have been frozen since 2014.

Extra reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Enhancing by Mark Heinrich

Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Belief Rules.