German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke on Thursday with Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid two days after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a joint news conference in Berlin said that Israel has committed “50 holocausts” against the Palestinians since the formation of the state.
Meanwhile, Berlin police opened a preliminary investigation against Abbas for incitement over the comments. Trivializing the Holocaust is a criminal offense in Germany.
Following his conversation with Lapid, Scholz tweeted: “I called Yair Lapid today and assured him of the close partnership between Germany and Israel . Our stance is clear, we condemn any attempt to deny or relativize the Holocaust. I look forward to welcoming Yair Lapid to Berlin soon.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who stood beside Abbas when he made the remark, scowled, but did not respond. But on Wednesday he tweeted: “For us Germans in particular, any relativization of the singularity of the Holocaust is intolerable and unacceptable. I am disgusted by the outrageous remarks made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.”
Abbas on Wednesday in a statement clarified his remarks, saying that he does not deny the “singularity of the Holocaust” and “condemned it in the strongest terms.” What he was describing, the statement said, “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.”