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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas caused controversy this week when he said Israel has committed “50 Holocausts” against Palestinians during a visit to Germany, provoking international condemnation. Israeli and German officials have demanded formal apologies from the PA, with the German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz coming under criticism for not acting sooner. Abbas has a recorded history of Holocaust revision but has since attempted to reframe the remarks after widespread pressure from world leaders.
The comments were made by Abbas during a press conference in Germany alongside the German Chancellor when he was asked by a reporter whether he would apologise to Israel and Germany ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Munich Olympics massacre. In response, Abbas said in Arabic: “If you want to go over the past, go ahead. I have 50 slaughters that Israel committed… 50 massacres, 50 slaughters, 50 Holocausts”. He only pronounced “Holocausts” in English.
Responding to the comments, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid tweeted: “Mahmoud 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 never forgive him”. The Israeli Defence Minister, Benny Gantz called the remarks “despicable and false”, with the former Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennet tweeting that “a ‘partner’ who denies the Holocaust, pursues our soldiers in The Hague and pays stipends to terrorists is not a partner”. Prime Minister Lapid requested a formal apology from the PA leader.
Mr Abbas has a long history of Holocaust revisionism, in 2018 he claimed it was Jewish “social behaviour” not antisemitism, which led the Nazis to commit genocide against the Jewish people. Whilst at University, his doctoral thesis was titled “The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism”, which disputed the claim that six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, questioning whether the number could be below one million. He also went as far as to claim Zionist leaders wanted more Jewish victims during the Holocaust as a means to justify the State of Israel.
Chancellor Scholtz was criticised for not immediately refuting the comments at the conference, with German opposition leader Friedrich Merz stating Scholtz “should have contradicted the Palestinian President in no uncertain terms and asked him to leave the house”. German reporters called the incident “the word Holocaust relativisation that a head of government has ever uttered in the Chancellor’s office”. The German Ambassador to Israel Steffen Seibert tweeted: “Germany will never stand for any attempt to deny the singular dimension of the crimes of the Holocaust”.
However, a spokesman for the Chancellor told the media the press conference was not meant to end with Abbas’ response, and he had no time to immediately respond to the comments. Chancellor Scholtz has since said he was outraged by the comments and stated: “Especially for us Germans, any relativisation of the Holocaust is unbearable and unacceptable”. On Wednesday, Scholtz summoned the head of the Palestinian mission in Berlin and on Thursday, he called PM Lapid to reiterate his condemnations of the remarks.
Abbas has since tried to reframe the remarks, claiming he had only meant to “highlight Israeli crimes”. In a statement released by the Palestinian WAFA news network, he stated: “The Holocaust is the most heinous crime in modern human history”. However, the statement also added: “What is meant by the crimes that President Mahmoud 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”.
