On Thursday, August 18, a solemn meeting was held in Ramallah for the head of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, who returned from Germany. He was honored as a national hero after his announcement of “50 Palestinian holocausts”. This was reported by the official news agency of the autonomy Wafa.
The agency reports that thousands of people took to the streets to personally greet the politician. Many pinned his car on the side of the road near the north exit of Jerusalem.
The agency writes that Mahmoud Abbas managed to delight the Palestinians with his directness and courage with which he defended his views and political position, reflecting the mood of the Palestinian people. Many who met Abbas in Ramallah held signs: “You are not alone, Mr. President.”
The Palestinian Authority was enthusiastically received by what caused condemnation in European countries and Israel. During a joint press conference with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Abbas was asked if he intended to apologize for the deaths of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, when 11 Olympians became victims of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September.
“If you want to turn to the past, please: Israel carried out 50 Naqbs, 50 Holocausts against the Palestinians!” Abbas said in response. Scholz’s face during this answer expressed indignation, but he could not find what to say and did not condemn the guest’s statement right on the spot.
The first reaction followed immediately after the press conference. Scholz’s press office released a statement condemning the drawing of parallels between the Holocaust and Israeli policy towards the Palestinians.
On the morning of August 17, the German leader issued an even harsher statement. “Abbas’s outrageous statement is disgusting. Especially for us Germans, any comparison with the Holocaust is unacceptable,” Scholz said.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid sharply condemned the statements of the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), who said that Israel had perpetrated “dozens of Holocausts” on the Palestinians.
“Abu Mazen’s statement about” 50 holocausts “when he stood on German soil is not only a moral disgrace, but also a monstrous distortion of history. Six million Jews died in the Holocaust, one and a half million Jewish children were killed. History will not forgive him,” he said. Lapid.
Shift Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said: “As prime minister, I did not agree to meet with him and advance any political negotiations with him, despite pressure in Israel and abroad. This ‘partner’ who is suing our soldiers in court in The Hague, which denies the Holocaust and pays salaries to terrorists, is not, in fact, a partner and cannot be.”
Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who met with Abbas, including at his home, said:
“Abbas’s statements are false and disgusting, he rewrites and falsifies history. An attempt to equate the actions of the Nazis and their assistants, who sought to destroy the Jewish people, with the actions of the IDF, protecting the citizens of the country from cruel terror, is Holocaust denial. One can expect from someone who seeks to world that it will not falsify history, pervert the truth, but recognize the crimes of the past. We will continue to study history, including its dark and gloomy pages, continue to strive for peace and maintain our firmness and security.”
Later, the office of the chairman of the Palestinian Authority published a clarification stating that Abbas did not deny the Holocaust, but only pointed to Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians. “The President emphasizes that the Holocaust is the most heinous crime in modern history. The President’s statement was not intended to serve as a Holocaust denial that took place in the last century and which he strongly condemns. The President spoke about the crimes committed by Israeli forces against the Palestinians since the time of the Nakba and these crimes are being committed to this day,” the Abbas office said in a statement.