German politicians attack Scholz for not pushing back against Abbas’ “outrageous” remarks.
By World Israel News Staff
In a shocking statement, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas charged that Israel has perpetrated “50 Holocausts” during a speech in Berlin on Tuesday, sparking condemnation from a number of German politicians.
“I am disgusted by the outrageous remarks made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,” tweeted German Councillor Olaf Scholz.
“For us Germans in particular, any relativization of the singularity of the Holocaust is intolerable and unacceptable. I condemn any attempt to deny the crimes of the Holocaust.”
However, much of the pushback in the country was directed at the German premier. On Wednesday morning, Scholz came under fire for continuing to stand by Abbas’ side after he made the remark.
Footage from the event shows Scholz grimacing when the word “Holocaust” was used by Abbas, but not confronting him about the statement.
Friedrich Merz, Scholz’s political rival and the head of the opposition Christian Democrat party (CDU), said that the premier failed by not speaking up.
Scholz “should have contradicted the Palestinian President in no uncertain terms and asked him to leave the [Bundestag],” Merz said.
“Every citizen is rightly expected not to remain silent about antisemitism, but to show civil courage,” noted CDU MP Matthias Hauer on Twitter
“And the head of government can’t even open his mouth in his chancellery or in front of the world public. Unforgivable!”
Christoph Heubner, a German writer and executive vice-president of the International Auschwitz Committee, had blistering criticism for both Abbas and Scholz.
Abbas “purposefully used Berlin’s political stage to defame the German culture of remembrance and the relationship with the State of Israel,” Heubner said in a statement.
“With his shameful and inappropriate comparison to the Holocaust, Abbas has once again attempted to cater to anti-Israeli and antisemitic aggression in Germany and Europe.”
But Heubner said that the German government, including Scholz, had demonstrated incompetence when they were caught off guard by Abbas’ remarks.
“It is astonishing and disconcerting that the German side was not prepared for Abbas’ provocations and that his statements on the Holocaust went unchallenged at the press conference,” he said.