Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas caused a new scandal on Tuesday in Berlin, where he accused Israel of committing “50 Holocausts” against Palestinians, DPA reports.

During a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Abbas said that “since 1947, Israel has committed 50 mass murders in 50 Palestinian locations.” “50 mass murders, 50 holocausts,” he added.

His remarks came in response to a question from a journalist who asked him if he would apologize to Israel on the 50th anniversary of an attack by Palestinian terrorists on Israeli athletes who participated in the 1972 Munich Olympics, which was marred by a terrorist attack. On September 5, eight Palestinian terrorists from the Black September group entered the Olympic Village, where they killed two members of the Israeli national team and took nine hostages (eight Israeli athletes and coaches and a German police officer), who were later killed. The Olympic Games were suspended for 34 hours, a service was held in memory of the dead, and the flags of the participating countries were lowered to half-mast.

The German chancellor is annoyed, but so far without an answer

Chancellor Olaf Scholz was puzzled and annoyed by Abbas’s statement, but had no answer for now.

His spokesman, Steffen Hebeshreit, announced the end of the press conference immediately after Mahmoud Abbas answered a question previously announced by the latter. Hebstreit later stated that Olaf Scholz was outraged by Abbas’s statement.

“For us Germans, in particular, any relativization of the Holocaust is intolerable and unacceptable,” the German chancellor later told the Bild tabloid.

Reaction of the Prime Minister of Israel

For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid responded with a message on Twitter:

• Mahmoud Abbas accusing Israel of committing “50 holocausts” while on German soil is not only a moral disgrace, but also a monstrous lie.
• During the Holocaust, six million Jews were killed, including one and a half million Jewish children. History will never forgive him.”

This is not the first time that Mahmoud Abbas has made controversial remarks about the Holocaust. In 2018, he stated that the killing of some 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany was not caused by anti-Semitism per se, but was caused by the social position of the Jews, many of whom were moneylenders, which would lead to the spread of the idea that Jews are stingy people. Abbas later apologized. (Source: Agerpres)