Israel and Germany condemn Palestinian leader’s ’50 Holocausts’ claim
Israeli and German leaders have expressed outrage after the Palestinian president accused Israel of committing “50 Holocausts” against his people. Mahmoud Abbas made the claim during a news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin on Tuesday. Mr Scholz said nothing at the time, but later called the president’s comments “intolerable and unacceptable”. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said Mr Abbas’s accusation was “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,” he tweeted. “History will never forgive him.” Following the criticism, Mr Abbas reaffirmed in a statement that “the Holocaust is the most heinous crime in modern human history”.
Mr Abbas travelled to Berlin with the aim of winning Germany’s support for a bid by the Palestinians to join the United Nations as a full member state and asking it to help restart long-stalled peace talks with the Israelis. After meeting Mr Scholz at the Federal Chancellery, the president was asked by reporters whether he planned to apologise to Israel and Germany ahead of the 50th anniversary of a deadly attack by Palestinian militants on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.(BBC)…[+]