The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, was himself criticized for not having reacted immediately to the declarations of the President of the Palestinian Aurité.
Le Monde with AFP
Germany and Israel strongly denounced, Wednesday, August 17, the words of the President of the Palestinian Aurité, Mahmoud Abbas, who compared Israeli politics in Berlin in the Palestinian territories occupied with Shoah.
The 87-year-old leader in Germany for his medical follow-up, spoke on Tuesday with the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in particular about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and bilateral cooperation. Questioned at the end of a joint press conference on the 1972 Munich Olympic Games attack, fatal to Eleven Israelis and perpetrated by a Palestinian commando, Mr. Abbas replied:
“From 1947 to today, Israel has committed fifty massacres in fifty Palestinian cities, (…) fifty massacres, fifty holocausts and still, today, there are deaths caused by the Israeli army every day. “
“We want peace, we want security, we want stability, (…) We must develop confidence between us,” added the president of the Palestinian Aurité, also denouncing the “Apartheid politics” “From Israel.
Tuesday, Mr. Scholz said that the term “apartheid” was not a “correct description of the situation” in the Palestinian territories, without however reacting to Mr. Abbas on the Shoah. What he finally did Wednesday. “I am disgusted by the scandalous remarks of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,” tweeted in the morning the head of the German government, adding: “For us, Germans in particular, any relativization of the holocaust is intolerable and unacceptable.” p>
Abbas sought to “clarify” his position
The German Chancellor himself was criticized, mainly by the conservative opposition and certain media, for not having reacted immediately to the declarations of Mr. Abbas at the press conference which ended directly after this response .
“Abbas puts the Holocaust into perspective … and Scholz is silent”, titrait the popular daily Bild . “It is surprising and disconcerting that the German side was not prepared for the provocations of Mr. Abbas, whose statements remained without contradiction,” said Christoph Heubner, Vice-President of the International Committee of Auschwitz.
m. Abbas regularly uses the terms “genocide” or “apartheid”, just like the NGOs of human rights Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, to describe the occupation and the colonization of the Palestinian territories. But it rarely uses the words “Shoah” or “Holocaust”.
Wednesday, the words of Mr. Abbas – to the sometimes muscular statements against Israel but often accused by Palestinians of collaborating with the Hebrew State – aroused lively indignation in Israel. “Mahmoud Abbas who accuses Israel of having committed” fifty holocausts “while he is on German soil is not only a moral disgrace but a monstrous lie (…), the story will never forgive him,” condemned Israeli Prime Minister Yaïr Lapid. “Those who seek peace (…) must not distort reality and rewrite history,” commented the Minister of Israeli Defense, Benny Gantz.
Dani Dayan, the president of Yad Vashem, the Israeli Memorial of the Holocaust, condemned “vile declarations” and “inexcusable behavior” to which “the German government must answer in an appropriate manner”.
Faced with these reactions, the Palestinian leader said he wanted to “clarify” his position. His statements “did not intend to deny the singularity of the holocaust” which remains the “worse hate crime of the modern era”, reported his office. “The president did not denote the massacres from which the Jews under Nazi Germany suffered, but he told the world not to lose sight of the massacres inflicted on the Palestinian people,” added Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh .