German Chancellor Olaf Scholz voiced disgust on Wednesday at remarks by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that the German chief mentioned diminished the significance of the Holocaust, whereas Israel accused Abbas of telling a “monstrous lie.”
“For us Germans in particular, any relativisation of the singularity of the Holocaust is intolerable and unacceptable,” Scholz tweeted on Wednesday. “I am disgusted by the outrageous remarks made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.”
During a go to to Berlin on Tuesday, Abbas refused to condemn a lethal assault by Palestinian militants on Israeli athletes on the 1972 Munich Olympics. Instead he accused Israel of committing “50 Holocausts.”
The remarks got here a number of weeks earlier than the deliberate commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Munich assault, during which Palestinian militants killed 11 members of the Israeli Olympic staff. Relatives of the slain Israeli athletes mentioned they plan to boycott the ceremony after failing to achieve an settlement on larger compensation from the German authorities.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid additionally condemned the feedback as a “disgrace.”
“Mahmoud Abbas accusing Israel of having committed ‘50 Holocausts’ while standing on German soil is not only a moral disgrace, but a monstrous lie,” Lapid mentioned on Twitter.
“History will never forgive him.”
Six million Jews have been killed in Nazi Germany’s Holocaust.
Standing alongside Scholz, Abbas referred to a collection of historic incidents during which Palestinians have been killed by Israelis within the 1948 conflict that accompanied the creation of the state of Israel and within the years following.
“From 1947 to the present day, Israel has committed 50 massacres in Palestinian villages and cities, in Deir Yassin, Tantura, Kafr Qasim and many others, 50 massacres, 50 Holocausts,” mentioned Abbas.
The official Palestinian news company Wafa didn’t embrace the Holocaust feedback in its report of the assembly with Scholz, and the Palestinian international ministry mentioned Lapid’s feedback have been meant to divert consideration from Israel’s “crimes.”
In a press release, the ministry mentioned “the occupying power is not satisfied with committing these crimes on a daily and continuous basis, but also does not tolerate and rejects any talk or statements that remind the Israelis and the international community of the many crimes committed by Israel.”
Abbas’ remark adopted months of rigidity and a quick battle this month throughout which 49 folks have been killed in Gaza after Israel carried out a collection of air strikes in response to what it mentioned was an imminent menace 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 Bank, whereas there have been quite a few assaults on Israelis, together with an incident on Sunday when eight folks have been wounded on a bus carrying Jewish worshippers in Jerusalem.
Palestinians search statehood in territories captured by Israel within the 1967 Middle East conflict. Negotiations have been frozen since 2014.
Associated Press contributed.
