Baltimore Sun

Israel slams Russia over Lavrov’s Nazism remarks

Foreign minister says Kremlin needs to issue an apology

- By Tia Goldenberg

TEL AVIV, Israel — 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 cautious position between Russia and Ukraine and remain in Russia’s good stead for its security needs in the Middle East.

Asked in an interview with an Italian news channel about Russian claims that it invaded Ukraine to “denazify” the country, Sergey 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 antisemite­s were Jewish,” he said, speaking to the station in Russian, dubbed over by an Italian translatio­n.

In some of the harshest remarks since the start of the war in Ukraine, 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.”

Later, Lapid said Israel makes “every effort” to have good relations with Russia. “But there’s a limit and this limit has been crossed this time. The government of Russia needs to apologize to us and to the Jewish people,” he said.

An Israeli official confirmed late Monday that Russia’s ambassador, Anatoly Viktorov, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a diplomatic matter, said that Israel “stated its position” and that the sides agreed not to elaborate.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who has been more measured in his criticism of Russia’s invasion, 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.”

In Washington, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the U.S., condemned Lavrov’s comments as “sickening.”

Schumer, D-N.Y., said Russia is fooling no one by trying to justify its brutal invasion of Ukraine with a “deranged conspiracy theory” against the Jewish people.

“I have only one word for this: sickening,” Schumer said in the Senate.

Israel’s Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem called the remarks “absurd, delusional, dangerous and deserving 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,” it said in a statement.

“Equally serious is calling the Ukrainians in general, and President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy in particular, Nazis. This, among other things, is a complete distortion of the history and an affront to the victims of Nazism.”

In Germany, government spokesman Steffen Hebstreit said the Russian government’s “propaganda” efforts weren’t worthy of comment, calling them “absurd.”

Nazism has featured prominentl­y in Russia’s war aims and narrative as it fights in Ukraine.

In his bid to legitimize the war to Russian citizens, President Vladimir Putin has portrayed the battle as a struggle against Nazis in Ukraine, even though the country has a democratic­ally elected government and a Jewish president whose relatives were killed in the Holocaust.

Ukraine also condemned Lavrov’s remarks.

“By trying to rewrite history, Moscow is simply looking for arguments to

justify the mass murders of Ukrainians,” Ukrainian presidenti­al adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Lavrov’s remarks exposed the “deeply-rooted antisemiti­sm of the Russian elites.”

World War II, in which the Soviet Union lost an estimated 27 million people and helped defeat Nazi Germany, is a linchpin of Russia’s national identity. Repeatedly reaching for the historical narrative that places Russia as a savior against evil forces has helped the Kremlin rally Russians around the war.

 ?? MAXIM SHIPENKOV/POOL PHOTO ?? Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called Nazism comments by Russia’s Sergey Lavrov, above, “unforgivab­le and scandalous and a horrible historical error.”
MAXIM SHIPENKOV/POOL PHOTO Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called Nazism comments by Russia’s Sergey Lavrov, above, “unforgivab­le and scandalous and a horrible historical error.”

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