In Call With Israeli PM, Scholz Condemns Holocaust Denial

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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, left, speaks during a news conference after a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, right, at the Chancellery in Berlin, Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2022, that “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.” ( Wolfgang Kumm/dpa via AP)

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Israel’s prime minister Thursday that he condemns any attempts to deny or downplay the Holocaust, offering reassurance after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sparked outrage with remarks to that effect earlier this week.

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Speaking at a joint news conference with Scholz in Berlin, Abbas on Tuesday accused Israel of committing “50 Holocausts” against Palestinians over the years. Scholz, who was standing next to Abbas, didn’t immediately react to the comments but later strongly criticized them.

Scholz’s office said the German leader spoke by phone Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Jair Lapid to discuss relations between their countries.

“The chancellor emphasized that he sharply condemns any attempt to deny or relativize the Holocaust,” Scholz spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said.

“The comments by President Abbas in Berlin were intolerable and completely unacceptable to (the chancellor) and the entire German government,” Hebestreit said.

“Keeping alive the memory of the civilizational rupture of the Shoah is an everlasting responsibility of this and every German government,” he added, referring to the Holocaust by the commonly used Hebrew word.

Post-war German governments have long argued that the word Holocaust refers to a unique crime: the systematic murder of 6 million European Jews by the Nazis and their henchmen during the Third Reich.

On Wednesday, Abbas appeared to walk back his comments. His office said in a written statement that the Palestinian leader’s reference “was not intended to deny the singularity of the Holocaust that occurred in the last century.”

While Abbas’ remarks drew outrage in Europe, the United States and Israel — Lapid called them “not only a moral disgrace, but a monstrous lie” — Scholz received criticism as well for not intervening immediately at the news conference held at his chancellery.

“That a relativization of the Holocaust, especially in Germany, at a press conference in the Federal Chancellery, goes unchallenged, I consider scandalous,” said Josef Schuster, the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

Abbas’ comments came in response to an Associated Press question about the the 50th anniversary of the attack by Palestinian militants at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, which resulted in the death of 11 members of the Israeli team and a German police officer.


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3 Comments
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R. Moshe
R. Moshe
1 year ago

Too little, Too late. The response should have been immediate and to the face of abbas.

Democrats support mutilating confused children.
Democrats support mutilating confused children.
1 year ago

Yet the german nazi spawn said nothing when the pali terror chief was spewing his holocaust denial.

Shmuel
Shmuel
1 year ago

So the German acts one way with the savage arab and tryst to walk it back with the Jew.
Leopards don’t change their swastikas.