Berlin police opened criminal proceedings against Palestinian Authority (PA) dictator Majmoud Abbas last Friday. He is being investigated for denying—or downplaying—the Holocaust (Shoah), a criminal offense in Germany. Mike Delberg, a Berlin resident and descendant of Shoah survivors, filed an official police report with the Berlin Police after Abbas made comments comparing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the Holocaust. The incident occurred during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
World War II resulted in some 70 million deaths, including all fronts and occupied nations. About 1.5 million Jews of various nationalities fought in the Allied armies. There was even a “Jewish Brigade” with volunteers from the British Mandate in the Holy Land, which acted within the framework of the British army, standing out in armed actions in Italy and Germany itself. In the concentration and extermination camps set up by the Nazis in Europe, some 12 million people died —prisoners of war, opponents, and gypsies— and among them six million European Jews, civilians. Simultaneously, the Palestinian Arabs, led by the sinister Mufti of Jerusalem, openly supported Hitler.
In 1939, the Jewish community numbered some 18 million people. In 1945 —at the end of the war— it was estimated at just over 12 million. Today, estimates speak of a number similar to 1939, with the largest concentrations in Israel with almost seven million, the United States with some 6.5 million, and important communities in France, Great Britain, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, and Germany.
When Abbas was asked if he would apologize for the attack on the Israeli Olympic team by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September (Munich Olympics, 1972), he replied, “If you want to go over the past, go ahead. I have 50 massacres that Israel committed… 50 holocausts.” The respected professor of criminal law at the University of Augsburg, Dr. Michael Kubiciel, stated that the comparison is impertinent and therefore “can be evaluated as a trivialization of the Holocaust.”
German lawyer-criminologist Udo Vetter told the Bild newspaper that the statement can be understood as a relativization, unless Mr. Abbas “lives in a fantasy world.” The initial suspicion of minimizing Nazi tyranny “cannot be dismissed out of hand.”
At the press conference, Chancellor Scholz did not immediately react to the PA leader-for-life’s comments, but video footage of the press conference showed his obvious discomfort. He then took to Twitter to condemn Abbas’ comments. “I am disgusted by the outrageous remarks made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. 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,” Scholz stated.
Ich bin zutiefst empört über die unsäglichen Aussagen des palästinensischen Präsidenten Mahmoud #Abbas. Gerade für uns Deutsche ist jegliche Relativierung des Holocaust unerträglich und inakzeptabel. Ich verurteile jeden Versuch, die Verbrechen des Holocaust zu leugnen.
— Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz (@Bundeskanzler) August 17, 2022
The German Chancellery also summoned the Palestinian diplomatic representative in Berlin to condemn Abbas’ remarks.
Ich habe heute mit @yairlapid telefoniert und ihm die enge Partnerschaft zwischen Deutschland und #Israel versichert. Unsere Haltung ist klar, wir verurteilen jeden Versuch, den Holocaust zu leugnen oder zu relativieren. Ich freue mich, @yairlapid bald in Berlin zu begrüßen.
— Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz (@Bundeskanzler) August 18, 2022
In response to the outrage, Abbas issued a statement acknowledging that the Holocaust was “the most heinous crime in modern human history” and stressed that his comment was not meant to deny the particularities of the massacre. It is hard to believe someone who wrote a university thesis—in the now defunct USSR—is downplaying Hitler’s crimes.
Israeli Premier Yair Lapid also weighed in, calling the comment a “moral disgrace and a monstrous lie.” “History will never forgive him,” he added in reference to Abbas’ words.
