Sharjah 24 – AFP: Moscow on Tuesday accused Israel of supporting "the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv," doubling down on an allegation from the Russian foreign minister that Adolf Hitler may have "had Jewish blood" which sparked international outrage.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Monday condemned his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov for making an "unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error" and summoned Moscow's ambassador for "clarifications".
"We have paid attention to Foreign Minister Yair Lapid's anti-historical remarks, which largely explain the current government's decision to support the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv," said the Russian foreign ministry in a statement on Tuesday.
"History unfortunately knows tragic examples of cooperation between Jews and Nazis," it said.
Lavrov, speaking to Italian outlet Mediaset's Rete 4 channel in an interview released Sunday, claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "puts forward an argument of what kind of Nazism can they have if he himself is Jewish".
Lavrov, according to a transcript posted on the Russian foreign ministry website, then added: "I could be wrong, but Hitler also had Jewish blood".
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also denounced Lavrov's claims that he said effectively "accuse the Jews themselves of the most awful crimes in history", perpetrated against themselves.
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