Israel demands apology after Lavrov said Hitler had Jewish roots

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JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel denounced Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday for suggesting that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had Jewish origins and called his comments anti-Semitic and dangerous.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry Yair Lapid said the Russian ambassador would be summoned for “a tough talk” about the claim, which Lavrov made in an interview with Italian television on Sunday.

“It is an unforgivable and outrageous statement, a terrible historic mistake, and we expect an apology,” Lapid told the YNet news website.

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There was no immediate comment from the Russian embassy.

During an interview with Italy’s Rete 4 channel, Lavrov was asked how Russia could say it needed to “denazify” Ukraine, when the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was Jewish.

“When they say ‘What kind of Nazification is this if we are Jews? Well, I think Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it doesn’t mean anything,’” Lavrov said, speaking through an Italian interpreter.

“For a long time we have been hearing Jewish scholars say that the biggest anti-Semites are the Jews themselves,” he added.

Israel has repeatedly expressed its support for Ukraine. But wary of straining relations with Russia, a powerhouse in neighboring Syria, he initially avoided direct criticism of Moscow and has not imposed formal sanctions on Russian oligarchs.

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Lapid last month accused Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine and Israel agreed to supply helmets and vests to Ukrainian rescue services, signaling a change in his position on the supply of such equipment.

Dani Dayan, president of Yad Vashem, Israel’s memorial to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, said the Russian minister’s remarks were “an insult and a heavy blow to the victims of true Nazism.”

Speaking on Kan radio, Dayan said Lavrov was spreading “an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory with no basis in fact.”

The identity of one of Hitler’s grandfathers is unknown, but there has been some speculation, never supported by any evidence, that he might have been Jewish.

Lapid said that claiming that Hitler was of Jewish descent was like saying that Jews had committed suicide, adding that accusing Jews of being anti-Semites was “the lowest level of racism.”

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He also dismissed Lavrov’s claim that pro-Nazi elements dominated the Ukrainian government and military.

“Ukrainians are not Nazis. Only the Nazis were Nazis and only they dealt with the systematic destruction of the Jewish people,” said Lapid, whose grandfather died in the Holocaust.

The Ukrainian president has also run into criticism in Israel for drawing analogies between the conflict in his country and World War II.

In a speech to the Israeli parliament in March, Zelenskiy compared the Russian offensive in Ukraine to Nazi Germany’s extermination of European Jewry during World War II.

Yad Vashem called his comments “irresponsible,” saying they trivialized the historical facts of the Holocaust. (Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Valentina Za in Milan Writing by Crispian Balmer Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Bernadette Baum)