Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid early on Wednesday slammed as a “monstrous lie” comments made the day before by Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas, who claimed following a meeting with Germany’s chancellor in Berlin that Israel had perpetrated “50 Holocausts” against the Palestinians.
“Mahmoud Abbas accusing Israel of having committed ‘50 Holocausts’ while standing on German soil is not only a moral disgrace, but a monstrous lie. Six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, including one and a half million Jewish children. History will never forgive him,” Lapid tweeted.
Mahmoud Abbas accusing Israel of having committed "50 Holocausts" while standing on German soil is not only a moral disgrace, but a monstrous lie.
Six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, including one and a half million Jewish children.
History will never forgive him.
— יאיר לפיד – Yair Lapid (@yairlapid) August 16, 2022
Abbas made the remarks after having been asked whether he intended to apologize to Israel and Germany in advance of next month’s 50th anniversary of the massacre by Palestinian terrorists of 11 Israeli coaches and athletes during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.
“If we want to go over the past, go ahead. I have 50 slaughters that Israel committed … 50 massacres, 50 slaughters, 50 holocausts,” Abbas told reporters on Tuesday during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The mention of the word “Holocausts” drew a grimace from Scholz but no immediate denunciation, according to the Associated Press. Prior to that, Scholz disagreed with Abbas’s assertion that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians constituted “apartheid.”
On Wednesday, Scholz took to Twitter to outline his position, writing: “I am disgusted by the outrageous remarks made by Palestinian President Mahmoud #Abbas. For us Germans in particular, any relativization of the singularity of the Holocaust is intolerable and unacceptable. I condemn any attempt to deny the crimes of the Holocaust.”
Ich bin zutiefst empört über die unsäglichen Aussagen des palästinensischen Präsidenten Mahmoud #Abbas. Gerade für uns Deutsche ist jegliche Relativierung des Holocaust unerträglich und inakzeptabel. Ich verurteile jeden Versuch, die Verbrechen des Holocaust zu leugnen.
— Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz (@Bundeskanzler) August 17, 2022
Amid the blowback, Abbas on Wednesday released a statement through official P.A. media condemning “in the strongest terms” the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis and their allies against the Jewish people during World War II, an event he described as “the most heinous crime in modern human history.”
The statement then clarified: “What is meant by the crimes that President Mahmoud Abbas spoke about are the crimes and massacres committed against the Palestinian people since the Nakba at the hands of the Israeli forces.”
The Arabic term “Nakba” refers to the “catastrophe” of Israel’s creation in 1948.