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Jair Lapid (a few days ago in Jerusalem): "History will never forgive him."
Photo:
MAYA ALLERUZZO / AFP
Israeli Prime Minister Jair Lapid has in no uncertain terms rejected Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' allegations of the Holocaust against Israel.
"That Mahmoud Abbas accuses Israel of committing '50 holocausts' while standing on German soil is not only a moral disgrace but a blatant lie," Lapid wrote on Twitter Tuesday evening.
He also referred to the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust.
History will never forgive Abbas, Lapid wrote.
He is himself the son of a Holocaust survivor.
At a press conference with Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, Abbas accused Israel of a "Holocaust" against the Palestinians.
"Israel has committed 50 massacres in 50 Palestinian locations from 1947 to the present day," he said, adding, "50 massacres, 50 holocausts."
Abbas had previously been asked by a journalist whether he would apologize to Israel on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Israeli Olympic team by Palestinian terrorists in Munich.
The President of the Palestinian Authority said that there were dead people killed by the Israeli army every day.
“If we want to continue digging into the past, yes please.” Abbas did not respond to the Olympic attack in which eleven Israelis were killed.
The federal government's anti-Semitism commissioner, Felix Klein, also criticized the Palestinian president.
"By relativizing the Holocaust, President Abbas has lacked any sensitivity towards us German hosts," he told the editorial network Germany (RND).
»That also applies to the question asked about the attack on the Olympics, which was carried out by PLO terrorists.«
»The worst derailment that was ever heard in the Chancellery«
Scholz followed the statements with a petrified expression, visibly annoyed and also made preparations to reply.
His spokesman Steffen Hebestreit declared the press conference over immediately after Abbas' reply.
The question to the Palestinian President had previously been announced as the last.
Hebestreit later reported that Scholz was outraged by Abbas' statement.
The Chancellor said to the "Bild" newspaper on Tuesday evening: "Especially for us Germans, any relativization of the Holocaust is unbearable and unacceptable."
CDU leader Friedrich Merz criticized Scholz's handling of the incident on Twitter as "incomprehensible".
The chancellor should have "clearly contradicted the Palestinian president and asked him to leave the house," he wrote.
The CDU politician Armin Laschet also commented on the incident on Twitter.
He called Abbas' performance "the worst gaffe that was ever heard in the Chancellery."
aar/dpa
