At a press conference with the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) expressed no regrets over the deadly attack by Palestinian militants on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics half a century ago. Eleven Israeli athletes and a German police officer died after members of the Palestinian militant group Black September took hostages in the Olympic Village on September 5, 1972. At the time of the attack, the group was linked to Abbas’ Fatah party. Asked whether as a Palestinian leader he intended to apologize to Israel and Germany for the attack ahead of next month’s 50th anniversary, Abbas responded by citing allegations of atrocities committed by Israel since 1947.
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“If we want to retrace the past, let’s move on,” Abbas told reporters. “I have 50 massacres to name that Israel has committed.” Standing next to Scholz, Abbas explicitly used the word “Holocaust” in his response, causing the German Chancellor to grimace. Germany has long argued that the term should only be used to describe the crime committed by the Nazis against Jews before and during World War II.
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Although Scholz has not publicly blamed Abbas for using the term “Holocaust”, he previously rejected the Palestinian leader’s description of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as “apartheid.” Scholz also said he did not believe the time had come to recognize the Palestinians as statehood, which Abbas has repeatedly called for.
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