Israel slams Russia for asserting Hitler 'had Jewish blood'

The Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry on Monday summoned the Russian ambassador after Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested that Adolf Hitler had Jewish roots.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said Lavrov had made "an unforgivable, scandalous statement" and demanded an apology from Moscow.

On Sunday, Lavrov defended Russia's claim that it is seeking to "de-Nazify" Ukraine, saying it did not matter that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was Jewish, because "Adolf Hitler also had Jewish blood."

"The wise Jewish people say that the most keen anti-Semites are usually Jews," Lavrov told Italian TV channel Rete4.

"Foreign Minister Lavrov's remarks are both an unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error," Lapid said. "Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust. The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of anti-Semitism."

"Ukrainians are not Nazis, only the Nazis were Nazis, only they carried out the systematic extermination of Jews," Lapid said.