05 May 2022; MEMO: Russia has rejected Israel's demand for an apology after Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's remark about Adolf Hitler having "Jewish" roots, Al-Watan Voice reported on Wednesday. Lavrov made his comment on Sunday in an interview with Italian television.
During the interview on Rete 4, Lavrov was asked how Russia could say it needed to "de-Nazify" Ukraine, when the country's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Jewish.
"When they say 'What sort of nazification is this if we are Jews', well I think that Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it means nothing," explained Lavrov through an interpreter. "For a long time now we've been hearing the wise Jewish people say that the biggest anti-Semites are the Jews themselves."
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that, "Such lies are intended to accuse the Jews themselves of the most horrific crimes in history that were committed against them. The use of the Holocaust of the Jewish people for political purposes must stop immediately."
According to Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, "The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of anti-Semitism."
This, however, has not stopped Britain's Labour Party, for example, from investigating "anti-Semitism" allegations against "42 Jewish members", explained Jewish Voice for Labour last December. The well-publicised case against 82-year-old Diana Neslen was only dropped in February after she threatened to sue the party. Those investigated generally held anti-Zionist views, which tends to confirm the belief that anti-Semitism has been weaponised against critics of the Zionist state of Israel.
