Olaf Scholz speaks with Yair Lapid

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned, in a phone call last Thursday with Prime Minister Yair Lapid, inflammatory comments made last Tuesday in Berlin by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Scholz told Lapid that it was important for him to personally emphasise to the Prime Minister his condemnation of Abbas’ claims that Israel had carried out “50 holocausts” against Palestinians.

“Keeping alive the memory of the civilisational rupture of the Shoah is an everlasting responsibility of this and every German government,” said Scholz, according to Berlin’s readout of the conversation.

On Wednesday last week, Scholz said he was “disgusted” by the remarks, after enduring criticism by local media for not immediately countering Abbas’ remarks, which the latter made as the two leaders stood side by side during a Berlin press conference the night before. Though Scholz seemed pained as Abbas spoke, he did not speak up.

During their phone call, Lapid thanked the German leader, saying he was speaking both as Israel’s PM and as the son of a Holocaust survivor, according to a statement released by Lapid’s office.

At last Tuesday’s press conference, Abbas was responding to a reporter’s question about the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Munich massacre. Eleven Israeli athletes and a German police officer died when members of the Palestinian terror group Black September took hostages at the Olympic Village on September 5, 1972. At the time of the attack, the group was linked to Abbas’ Fatah party.

Asked whether as Palestinian leader he planned to apologise to Israel and Germany, Abbas responded instead by citing allegations of atrocities committed by Israel since 1947.

“If we want to go over the past, go ahead,” Abbas, who was speaking Arabic, told the reporters.

“I have 50 slaughters that Israel committed in 50 Palestinian villages … 50 massacres, 50 slaughters, 50 holocausts,” he said, pronouncing the final word in English.

Scholz and Lapid agreed to meet in the near future, according to the Israeli statement. Reports last Thursday indicated that Lapid would visit Germany on an official visit slated for September, although no official confirmation has been published.

It is unclear whether Lapid’s trip would overlap with the commemorations in Munich. President Isaac Herzog is scheduled to attend the commemoration ceremony, despite pressure from the victims’ families not to participate.

Scholz was widely criticised for failing to speak out. Der Spiegel, Welt, Junge Freiheit, and other media outlets ran headlines noting his silence during the press conference. German daily Bild expressed shock that there was “not a word of dissent in the face of the worst Holocaust relativisation that a head of government has ever uttered in the chancellor’s office”.

Bundestag opposition leader Friedrich Merz, head of Germany’s powerful Christian Democrat party, said Scholz “should have contradicted the Palestinian President in no uncertain terms and asked him to leave the house”.

Most of the backlash, though, was aimed at Abbas for refusing to apologise over the Munich massacre and for what critics said was trivialising the Holocaust.

Germany’s ambassador to Israel Steffen Seibert called Abbas’ comments “wrong and unacceptable”.

Following the uproar, Abbas issued a statement released by the Palestinian Authority’s official WAFA news agency, walking back his comments and affirming that “the Holocaust is the most heinous crime in modern human history”.

A spokesman for Scholz told reporters that his office had summoned the head of the Palestinian mission in Berlin last Wednesday.

The Chancellor’s foreign and security policy adviser conveyed that Scholz expects the Palestinian Authority President “to acknowledge the singularity of the Holocaust without any qualification”, Steffen Hebestreit said. “His gaffe yesterday casts a dark shadow over Germany’s relations with the Palestinian Authority.”

Meanwhile, German police confirmed a report on Friday by Bild that Abbas was being investigated for possible incitement to hatred after receiving a formal criminal complaint. Downplaying the Holocaust is a criminal offence in Germany.

But the opening of a preliminary inquiry doesn’t automatically entail a full investigation. Germany’s Foreign Ministry said that Abbas – as a representative of the Palestinian Authority – would enjoy immunity from prosecution because he was visiting the country in an official capacity.

TIMES OF ISRAEL