The Israeli Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador for “a tough talk” following Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks on Hitler’s Jewish roots, the Haaretz newspaper reports.
In an interview with Italian broadcaster Mediaset, Lavrov was asked how Russia could say that it needs to “denazify” Ukraine when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is of Jewish descent. According to the Russian transcript of the interview published by the Russian Foreign Ministry, Lavrov responded: “There is nazification, militants from the Azov, Aidar battalions and other units wear swastikas, symbols of Waffen-SS Nazi battalions on their clothes, have swastika tattoos, they openly read and promote Mein Kampf. He [Zelensky] asks how there can be denazification if he is Jewish.
I may be wrong, but Hitler had Jewish blood too. It means nothing. The wise Jewish people say that Jews tend to be the biggest anti-Semites themselves. There’s an idiot in every family, as we say,”
Lavrov stated.
Photo: Italian broadcaster Mediaset
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid was among those who condemned Lavrov’s remarks. “Foreign Minister Lavrov’s remarks are both an unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error. Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust. The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of antisemitism,” Lapid wrote on Twitter.
Dani Dayan, chairman of Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial also strongly condemned Lavrov’s remarks. “The remarks of Russian FM Lavrov are absurd, dangerous and deserve of condemnation. Lavrov is propagating the inversion of the Holocaust - turning the victims into the criminals on the basis of promoting a completely unfounded claim that Hitler was of Jewish descent,” he said on Twitter.
