Israel blasts Lavrov's comments on Zelenskyy, Hitler
The Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry on Monday summoned the Russian ambassador after Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested that Adolf Hitler had Jewish roots.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said Lavrov had made "an unforgivable, scandalous statement" and demanded an apology from Moscow.
On Sunday, Lavrov defended Russia's claim that it is seeking to "de-Nazify" Ukraine, saying it did not matter that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was Jewish, because "Adolf Hitler also had Jewish blood."*
"The wise Jewish people say that the most keen anti-Semites are usually Jews," Lavrov told Italian TV channel Rete4.
"Foreign Minister Lavrov's remarks are both an unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error," Lapid said. "Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust. The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of anti-Semitism."
"Ukrainians are not Nazis, only the Nazis were Nazis, only they carried out the systematic extermination of Jews," Lapid said.
*HIS FATHERS NAME WAS SCHICKELGRUBER
WHICH IS THE ORIGIN OF THIS TROPE
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on April 26, 2022
May 2, 2022
Israel denounced on Monday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for suggesting that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had Jewish roots, and demanded an apology from Moscow, reports Reuters.
Israeli Foreign Ministry Yair Lapid said the Russian ambassador would be summoned for "a tough talk" over the comments, which Lavrov made on Sunday in an interview with Italian television.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's recognised two breakaway territories in Eastern Ukraine – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/Middle East Monitor]
"It is an unforgivable, scandalous statement, a terrible historical mistake, and we expect an apology," Lapid told the YNet news website.
There was no immediate comment from the Russian embassy.
During his interview with Italy's Rete 4 channel, Lavrov was asked how Russia could claim that it needed to "denazify" Ukraine when the country's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was Jewish.
"When they say 'What sort of nazification is this if we are Jews', well I think that Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it means nothing," Lavrov said, speaking through an Italian interpreter.
"For a long time now we've been hearing the wise Jewish people say that the biggest anti-Semites are the Jews themselves," he added.
Dani Dayan, chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, called Lavrov's remarks "an insult and a severe blow to the victims of the real Nazism".
Speaking on Israel's Kan radio, Dayan said Lavrov was spreading "an antisemitic conspiracy theory with nobasis in fact".
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