Israel slams top Russian diplomat for suggesting Hitler might have been Jewish: 'Jews did not murder themselves'

• Top Israeli officials slammed Sergey Lavrov for suggesting that Hitler may have been Jewish.
• Lavrov, Russia's top diplomat, made the debunked suggestion during an interview over the weekend.

Top Israeli and Ukrainian officials slammed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday for his false suggestion that Adolf Hitler might have been Jewish, causing a diplomatic rift with a country that has so far refused to sanction Russia.

"Such lies are intended to accuse the Jews themselves of the most horrific crimes in history that were committed against them," Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called Lavrov's comments "unforgivable" and an example of "the lowest form of racism." Reuters reported that Israel summoned Russia's ambassador to Israel for formal admonishment, a sign of outrage over Lavrov's statement.

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

Lavrov's comments came during an interview Rete 4 channel, an Italian news outlet, over the weekend. He was asked to defend Russian President Vladimir Putin's ahistorical and false suggestion that Russia could defend its war in Ukraine under the banner of "de-Nazifying" the country. The interviewer also pointed out that Ukrainian 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," Lavrov said, speaking through an Italian interpreter, Reuters reports.

The claim that Hitler, the leader of the Holocaust that killed six million Jews, is Jewish himself is a debunked conspiracy theory traced back to claims Hitler's personal attorney made in a memoir published after both men had died. Historians who have looked into Hitler's lineage have found no proof of it.

Ukrainian officials also harshly condemned Lavrov's comments.

"FM Lavrov could not help hiding the deeply-rooted antisemitism of the Russian elites," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter. "His heinous remarks are offensive to President @ZelenskyyUa, Ukraine, Israel, and the Jewish people. More broadly, they demonstrate that today's Russia is full of hatred towards other nations."

Israel has taken a far more cautious approach to the Ukraine war than its Western allies thus far. The Israeli government has offered rhetorical and humanitarian support to Ukraine, while taking in Ukrainian refugees and condemning Russia's invasion in the UN. But Israel has also refused to sanction Russia or provide weapons to Kyiv.

Israel's reluctance to take a hardline stance against Moscow on the Ukraine war is tied to its security concerns in Syria, where it coordinates with the Russian military to conduct strikes on Iranian targets.

Israel is a rare example of a country with relatively amicable relations with both Kyiv and Moscow, and since the Ukraine war began Bennett has offered to help broker peace talks.

Lavrov drawing Israel's ire with his Hitler comments risks alienating one of the few countries with strong ties to Washington that has not joined the West in imposing crippling economic sanctions on Russia.