Palestinian Leader Mahmoud Abbas Enrages Germany With Holocaust Lies
German media slams chancellor for remaining silent as Mahmoud Abbas spewed poisonous falsehoods about Israel and the Jews.
German
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (right) grimaces as Palestinian leader Mahmoud
Abbas accuses Israel of committing "holocausts" from the podium of the
Federal Chancellery in Berlin
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took it on the head Wednesday morning for failing to immediately and forcefully stop Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas from spewing lies about Israel, the Jews and the Holocaust during a press conference at the Chancellery in Berlin.
What happened exactly?
On Tuesday night, Scholz and Abbas held a join press conference at the Chancellery in Berlin following a private meeting together.
Toward the end of the event, a German reporter asked Abbas if he was prepared to apologize to Israel and to Germany for the involvement of terrorists from his own Fatah movement in the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.
Rather than answer the question, Abbas hurled vague and grossly exaggerated accusations at Israel.
“If we want to go over the past, go ahead,” responded the Palestinian leader in Arabic. “I have 50 slaughters that Israel committed.”
To drive his point home, Abbas then punctuated the claim by stating, in English, “50 holocausts.”
A group of Jews, including a small boy, is escorted from the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland to be shipped off to Treblinka, a Nazi extermination camp
A photo of bodies discovered in a storeroom at Auschwitz. Death was a common sight throughout the Nazi concentration camp system.
German press outraged
The mainstream German media was enraged by Abbas’ remarks, but was even more angered by Scholz’s failure to immediately and publicly contradict the Palestinian leader’s lies.
“Antisemitic Scandal in the Chancellor’s Office” read the headline in the daily newspaper BILD, which questioned Scholz remaining “silent” while Abbas paralleled Palestinian suffering with the Nazi Holocaust against the Jewish people.
“Abbas Accuses Israel of Holocaust – Scholz Is Silent” was the headline in Der Spiegel, which noted that the chancellor didn’t hesitate to counter when the Palestinian leader accused Israel of “apartheid” in their private meeting, but wasn’t willing to similarly take a stand in the face of Abbas’ public rant.
“This isn’t the first time Abbas has sparked outrage with remarks about the Holocaust,” the daily newspaper Die Welt reminded German readers.
German opposition wants Abbas booted
German opposition leader Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democrat Party later said not only should Scholz have called out Abbas on the podium, he should have kicked the Palestinian leader out of his office.
The chancellor “should have contradicted the Palestinian President in no uncertain terms and asked him to leave the building!” insisted Merz.
Armin Laschet, the former leader of the Christian Democrat Party, said Abbas had delivered “the most disgusting speech ever heard in the German Chancellery.”
Laschet went on to explain how and why the Palestinian leader had been utterly foolish. He noted that had Abbas simply apologized for the Munich Olympics massacre, he would have gained sympathy for the Palestinians today.
Instead, Abbas ranted about a phony “holocaust” and managed only to anger his hosts.
Scholz responds
It took Chancellor Scholz a while to publicly respond, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t equally displeased by his Palestinian guest.
A spokesman for the German leader noted that Scholz had strongly contradicted Abbas when the latter accused Israel of apartheid during their private meeting. He went on to explain that since Abbas’ Holocaust libel marked the end of the press conference, Scholz didn’t have a chance to react immediately to that accusation.
But in later remarks to BILD, Scholz let loose:
“Any relativization of the Holocaust is unbearable and unacceptable, especially for us Germans.”
Germany’s Ambassador to Israel Steffen Seibert tweeted that Abbas’ comments were “wrong and unacceptable,” adding:
“Germany will never stand for any attempt to deny the singular dimension of the crimes of the Holocaust.”
Israel responds
Needless to say, Israel found the speech by its so-called “peace partner” entirely unacceptable.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid tweeted:
“Abbas accusing Israel of having committed ’50 Holocausts’ while standing on German soil is not only a moral disgrace, but a monstrous lie. …History will not forgive him.”
Lapid’s predecessor and former partner in the “government of change,” Naftali Bennett, suggested that perhaps Abbas isn’t a Palestinian leader with whom Israel can make peace:
“A ‘partner’ who denies the Holocaust, pursues our soldiers in The Hague and pays stipends to terrorists is not a partner.”
Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman accused Abbas of “engaging in diplomatic terrorism,” and Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the remarks in Berlin were “part of institutionalized Palestinian propaganda based on false blood libels, with 50 shades of antisemitism, aimed at delegitimizing Israel.”
The head of Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, Dani Dayan, called on the German government to “respond appropriately to this inexcusable behavior done inside the Federal Chancellery.”
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