Lavrov’s remarks draw Israeli ire

TEL AVIV: Israel on Monday lashed out at Russia over “unforgivable” comments by its foreign minister about Nazism and antisemitism - including claims that Adolf Hitler was Jewish.

Israel, which summoned the Russian ambassador in response, said the remarks blamed Jews for their own murder in the Holocaust. It was a steep decline in the ties between the two countries at a time when Israel has sought to stake out a neutral position between Russia and Ukraine and remain in Russia’s good stead for its security needs in Middle East.

Asked in an interview with an Italian news channel about Russian claims that it invaded Ukraine to “denazify” the country, Sergei Lavrov said that Ukraine could still have Nazi elements even if some figures, including the country’s president, were Jewish.

“So when they say ‘How can Nazification exist if we’re Jewish?’ In my opinion, Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it doesn’t mean absolutely anything. For some time we have heard from the Jewish people that the biggest anti-semites were Jewish,” he said, speaking to the station in Russian, dubbed over by an Italian translation.

Israeli foreign minister Yair Lapid called Lavrov’s statement “unforgivable and scandalous and a horrible historical error”.

“The Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust,” said Lapid, the son of a Holocaust survivor. “The lowest level of racism against Jews is to blame Jews themselves for antisemitism.”

PM Naftali Bennett also condemned Lavrov’s comments.

“His words are untrue and their intentions are wrong,” he said. “Using the Holocaust of the Jewish people as a political tool must cease immediately.”