The prime ministers of Germany and Israel on Wednesday condemned comments by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who said Israelis committed “50 Holocausts” against their people.
The statement was made by Abbas in Berlin on Tuesday (16), when he was asked about the proximity of the 50th anniversary of the attack on Israeli athletes by Palestinian militants at the Munich Olympics in September 1972.
“From 1947 until today, Israel has committed 50 massacres in Palestinian towns and cities, in Deir Yassin, Tantura, Kafr Qasim and many others, 50 massacres, 50 Holocausts,” he said, referring to a series of incidents in which Palestinians were killed by Israelis since the Nakba—a term used in Palestine for the mass exodus of the population that fled or was driven from their homes in the 1948 war that accompanied the creation of the state of Israel.
According to a German government spokesman, Prime Minister Olaf Scholz’s office summoned the head of the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Berlin to protest the declaration.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid called the statement a “moral disgrace”. In a post on Twitter, he wrote that “Mahmoud Abbas accusing Israel of committing ’50 Holocausts’ while on German soil is not just a moral disgrace, but a monstrous lie.” “History will never forgive him,” he added.
In response, Abbas issued a statement in which he called the Nazi-promoted Holocaust against Jews — in which 6 million were killed — “the most heinous crime in the modern history of mankind.”
Nazi salute
Also on Wednesday, Munich police announced the arrest of a 19-year-old who gave a Nazi salute in front of a delegation of Israeli athletes participating in the European Athletics Championships.
The 16 athletes visited a monument erected in memory of the victims of the attack carried out on September 5, 1972 by the Palestinian organization Black September, at the Munich Olympic Games, which killed 11 members of the Israeli delegation.
According to a police statement, the athletes did not notice the gesture, which was observed by agents who accompanied them to the scene.
In Germany, the Nazi salute or the use of signs such as the swastika are considered crimes and can be punished with fines or sentences of up to three years in prison.
