At the end of his visit to the German chancellery on Tuesday evening, Abbas was asked by a German journalist if he planned to apologize for the deadly attack by Palestinian militants on Israeli civilians at the 1972 Munich Olympics, the 50th anniversary of which is on 5 September. The Black September militant group, which killed 11 Israeli athletes and a German police officer during the hostage-taking, was linked to Abbas’s Fatah party at the time. “If we want to dig further into the past, yes, please, I have 50 massacres committed by Israel,” the Palestinian leader said at the end of the press conference. “Fifty massacres, 50 Holocausts, and to this day, every day, we have dead people killed by [Israeli Defence Forces]by the Israeli army.” Scholz, who had criticized Abbas for describing Israel as perpetuating an “apartheid system” earlier in the news conference, did not immediately respond verbally to the Holocaust comparison, but shook the Palestinian president’s hand after his spokesman announced the end of questioning. -and- response session. Soltz condemned the remarks Wednesday morning. “I am disgusted by the outrageous comments of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,” Scholtz tweeted from his official account. “For us Germans in particular, any relativization of the uniqueness of the Holocaust is unacceptable and unacceptable. I condemn any attempt to deny the crimes of the Holocaust.” The head of the Palestinian diplomatic mission was summoned to the German chancellery in protest on Wednesday afternoon, Reuters reported. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The remarks also drew fire from various German politicians. “The PLO leader would have won sympathy if he had apologized for the terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972,” said Armin Lasset, the conservative candidate who lost to Soltz in last September’s federal election. “Blaming Israel for 50 Holocausts is the most disgusting speech ever heard in the German chancellery.” Tabloid Bild criticized Scholz for not directly challenging Abbas on his choice of words, which it described as “the worst relativization of the Holocaust ever uttered by a head of government in the chancellor’s office.” Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann of the Free Democrats, a partner in the coalition government, criticized the chancellor’s spokesman for not giving Scholz time to respond at the end of the press conference. “The question has to be asked whether he is the right person in his role,” he told Der Spiegel. Yair Lapid, the Israeli prime minister, said Abbas’s comments were “not only a moral disgrace but a monstrous lie”, especially as they were made “on German soil”. Approximately 6 million Jews were murdered by the German Nazi Party regime and its accomplices during the last four years of World War II. Israel’s ambassador-designate to Germany, Ron Prossor, said: “There must be zero tolerance for Mahmoud Abbas’s Holocaust denial on German soil.” The Palestinian leader’s visit to Berlin followed a trip to Paris in July that was seen as part of a broad diplomatic effort to reawaken European interest in the Palestinian cause in the face of America’s seemingly waning interest in restarting the Middle East peace process.
