Abbas’ accusation, made during a press conference alongside Scholz, also prompted calls for a tougher response from Germany and its leader, who has been criticized for remaining silent rather than pushing back and only later expressing his displeasure at the observation. “For Israel to accuse Abbas of committing ’50 Holocausts’ while standing on German soil is not only a moral disgrace, but a monstrous lie,” Lapid wrote in English. “History will not forgive him.” Dani Dayan, president of Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and Museum, called Abbas’ words “abhorrent” and “disgusting.” “The German government must respond appropriately to this inexcusable behavior within the Federal Chancellery,” he wrote on social media. Get The Times of Israel Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories By signing up, you agree to the terms Abbas was responding to a reporter’s question about the upcoming anniversary of the Munich massacre half a century ago. Eleven Israeli athletes and a German policeman died when members of the Palestinian militant group Black September took hostages in the Olympic Village on September 5, 1972. At the time of the attack, the group was affiliated with Abbas’s Fatah party. Asked if, as Palestinian leader, he planned to apologize to Israel and Germany for the attack ahead of the 50th anniversary, Abbas instead responded by citing allegations of atrocities committed by Israel since 1947. “If we want to overcome the past, go ahead,” Abbas, who spoke Arabic, told reporters. “I have 50 massacres committed by Israel….50 massacres, 50 massacres, 50 holocausts,” he said, pronouncing the last word in English. At a press conference at the Federal Chancellery, Mahmoud #Abbas literally accused Israel of committing “50 holocausts” since 1947. @phoenix_de declined to classify what was said. pic.twitter.com/avlfyvzyUR — Horacio Troche (@breisgau_uru) August 16, 2022 While Scholz had earlier dismissed the Palestinian leader’s description of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as “apartheid,” he did not immediately chide Abbas for using the term “Holocaust.” A chancellor spokesman later said the press conference was scheduled to end with the question to Abbas, meaning Scholz did not have a chance to respond. However, the spokesman told reporters who stayed after the incident that Solz was furious, German tabloid BILD reported. In a statement to BILD, Scholz said that “especially for us Germans, any relativization of the Holocaust is intolerable and unacceptable.” Germany has long argued that the term should only be used to describe the Nazis’ single crime of killing six million Jews before and during World War II. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, right, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas hold a joint press conference at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, on August 16, 2022. (JENS SCHLUETER / AFP) Scholz was widely criticized for not speaking up. Der Spiegel, Welt, Junge Freiheit and other media ran headlines noting his silence during the press conference. BILD expressed surprise that “there was not a single word of dissent in the face of the worst relativization of the Holocaust ever uttered by a head of government in the chancellor’s office.” Defeated Friedrich Merz, right, congratulates Armin Laschet on his election as party leader at the digital CDU national party congress. (Michael Kappeler/dpa via AP) Bundestag opposition leader Friedrich Merz, head of Germany’s powerful Christian Democratic Party, said Scholz “should have stood up to the Palestinian President in no uncertain terms and asked him to leave the house!” Scholz’s office, which usually releases statements about meetings with world leaders and other official business, did not issue a press release on the meeting with Abbas. On social media, Scholz was silent beyond a post mourning the death of German filmmaker Wolfgang Peterson. But most of the backlash was aimed at Abbas for refusing to apologize for the Munich massacre and for what critics said was trivializing the Holocaust. Germany’s ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, called Abbas’ comments “wrong and unacceptable.” “Germany will never tolerate any attempt to deny the unique dimension of the crimes of the Holocaust,” he tweeted. A headline on the website of German newspaper BILD expresses shock at Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas’ use of the term “holocaust” to describe past Israeli actions. (Snapshot) Former Christian Democrat leader Armin Lasset said Abbas’s statement was “the most disgusting speech ever heard in the German chancellery”. “The PLO leader would have won sympathy if he had apologized for the terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972,” he said. In the US, Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department’s anti-Semitism watchdog, warned that Abbas’ “unacceptable” comments could have far-reaching consequences. “Distorting the Holocaust can have dangerous consequences and fuel anti-Semitism,” tweeted Lipstadt, who famously fought Holocaust denier David Irving in court last century. Union for Reform Judaism President Rabbi Rick Jacobs shared Lapid’s condemnation and took Abbas to court for refusing to apologize. “Sir. Abbas is not advancing the cause of peace like this. The leadership would be to apologize for the killing of the Israeli Olympic athletes 50 years ago at the 1972 Munich games,” he tweeted. Germany was already embroiled in controversy over a planned commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Munich attack after victims’ families announced plans to boycott the ceremony over a dispute with Berlin over reparations. A West German border police helicopter prepares to land in Munich’s Olympic Village after terrorists held Israelis hostage inside the village, September 5, 1972. (AP Photo/File) The athletes’ relatives have long accused Germany of failing to secure the Olympic Village, refusing Israeli aid and botching a rescue operation in which five of the attackers died. Abbas has previously courted controversy over comments about the Holocaust, including a 2018 claim that Jewish “social behavior” — not anti-Semitism — was the cause of Nazi Germany’s genocide of European Jews, for which he later apologized . The PA leader’s 1982 PhD thesis was titled “The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism” and he has previously been accused of denying the scope of the Holocaust. The thesis allegedly argued that the Holocaust’s six million victim figure was grossly exaggerated and that Zionist leaders collaborated with the Nazis. The Associated Press contributed to this report. ToI Archive, May 2018: After blaming Jews for Holocaust, Abbas apologizes and condemns anti-Semitism * Lipstadt: With ‘classic anti-Semitism’, Abbas ends career as it began
