Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Monday called Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement that Adolf Hilter “also had Jewish origins” as serious as Ukraine’s President Volodymir. Zelensky.
After this controversial statement, Lapid summoned the Russian ambassador to the country “for a clarification meeting”, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“Minister Lavrov’s comments are an unforgivable and outrageous statement, as well as a terrible historic mistake,” Lapid lamented. “Jews did not commit suicide in the Holocaust. The lowest level of racism against Jews is accusing Jews themselves of anti-Semitism,” he added.
In an interview given over the weekend to the Italian channel Rete4, the first for the Western European press since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, Lavrov insisted on an infiltration of allegedly neo-Nazi sectors in Ukrainian institutions. When told about Zelensky’s Jewish roots, Lavrov replied that Hitler “also had Jewish origins”.
According to the Russian Foreign Minister, Moscow is not seeking regime change in Ukraine. He also claimed that the war unleashed by the invasion aims to “guarantee the security of the population of the east”, which would be “threatened by militarization and nazification”.
Since the beginning of the conflict, while condemning the invasion, Israel has maintained a very moderate stance towards Russia due to their strategic alliance in the Middle East, where they coordinate attacks on pro-Iranian positions in Syria. Israel has also not applied sanctions against Russia and has not delivered weapons to Ukraine, although it has sent humanitarian aid and taken in Ukrainian refugees and also Ukrainians of Jewish origin who are entitled to Israeli citizenship.
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