Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas retracted remarks in which he compared crimes committed by Israel against Palestinians to the Holocaust.
During a visit to Berlin on Tuesday, Abbas accused Israel of committing “50 Holocausts” in response to a question about the upcoming 50th anniversary of the attack on the Israeli team at the Munich Olympics by Palestinian militants.
Standing alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Abbas referred to a series of historical incidents in which Palestinians were killed by Israelis in the 1948 war that accompanied the creation of the state of Israel and in the years following.
“From 1947 to the present day, Israel has committed 50 massacres in Palestinian villages and cities, in Deir Yassin, Tantura, Kafr Qasim and many others, 50 massacres, 50 Holocausts,” said Abbas.
However, his remarks were met with outrage in Israel and the West, particularly Germany.
He issued a statement calling Nazi Germany's Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were killed, “the most heinous crime in modern human history.”
Abbas’s answer was not intended to deny the singularity of the Holocaust that occurred in the last century, said a statement published by Palestine’s official news agency Wafa, adding that he condemns the mass murder “in the strongest terms.”
“What is meant by the crimes that Abbas spoke about are the crimes and massacres committed against the Palestinian people since the Nakba at the hands of the Israeli forces. These crimes have not stopped to this day,” the statement added.
Nakba, or catastrophe, is the term Palestinians use to describe the mass exodus of Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes in the 1948 war that accompanied the creation of the state of Israel.
The Ynet news site reported, without citing sources, that Abbas’s statement was published following “heavy pressure” from Israel, with Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s office conveying strongly worded messages that the remarks were unacceptable and demanding that they be retracted.
Other Hebrew media outlets said Prime Minister Yair Lapid had spoken with senior Abbas aide Hussein al-Sheikh and demanded an apology.
In Israel, Abbas' remarks drew a hail of condemnation.
“Mahmoud Abbas accusing Israel of having committed '50 Holocausts' while standing on German soil is not only a moral disgrace, but a monstrous lie,” Lapid wrote on Twitter. “History will not forgive him.”
Gantz called the Palestinian leader's remarks “an attempt to distort and rewrite history.”
Justice Minister Gideon Saar said the remarks were “shameful” and Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman described Abbas as a “Holocaust denier.”
Dani Dayan, chairman of Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and Museum, called Abbas’s words “despicable” and “appalling.”
The European Union Commission Vice-President, Margaritis Schinas, who is also responsible for fighting antisemitism, wrote on Twitter that Abbas's remark was “unacceptable.”
Describing the Holocaust as “an indelible stain on European history,” Schinas said “Holocaust distortion is dangerous. It feeds antisemitism and has a corrosive effect on democracy.”
In the United States, Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department’s antisemitism monitor, warned that Abbas’s “unacceptable” comments could have far-reaching ramifications.
“Holocaust distortion can have dangerous consequences and fuels antisemitism,” tweeted Lipstadt.
