Mahmoud Abbas rolls back ‘Holocaust’ remark after international outcry
The Palestinian president made the remark during a press conference with Germany's Olaf Scholz — who had just criticised him for using the term 'apartheid'
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appeared to roll back his comments suggesting Israel had committed “50 Holocausts” amid growing international outrage during his visit to Germany.
The Palestinian leader made the remark at press conference with the German chancellor Olaf Scholz after he was asked if he planned to apologise for the deaths of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics in Munich.
The Palestinian group Black September, which was linked to Abbas’s Fatah party at the time of the attack, took the eleven athletes and coaches hostage before killing them.
Abbas expressed no regret for the incident, responding in Arabic: “If we want to go over the past, go ahead”.
He then said that Israel had committed 50 massacres in 50 Palestinian locations since 1947, adding: “50 massacres, 50 Holocausts.”
Scholz was seen to grimace as the Palestinian leader used the word “Holocausts”.
A later statement published by Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, said Abbas had “not intended to deny the singularity of the Holocaust” and the president reaffirmed it as the “most heinous crime in modern human history”.
Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid said it was “not only a moral disgrace, but a monstrous lie” for Abbas to have made the remark while standing on German soil.
Lapid continued: “Six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, including one and a half million Jewish children.
“History will never forgive him.”
Deborah Lipstadt, the US antisemitism envoy, also criticised the Palestinian president, saying: “Holocaust distortion can have dangerous consequences and fuels antisemitism.”
The Israeli website Ynet reported Abbas’s retraction came following “heavy pressure” from Defence Minister Benny Gantz, who has met the Palestinian leader several times over the past year.
Scholz said Abbas’s remark was “unacceptable”.
Earlier, the German chancellor had rejected Abbas’s use of the term “apartheid” to describe Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories.
“We also have a different assessment with regard to Israeli politics,” Scholz said during the press conference.
“I want to say explicitly here that I do not adopt the word apartheid as my own and that I do not think that is the right way to describe the situation.”
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