The Foreign Ministry summoned Russian Ambassador to Israel Anatoly Viktorov after Moscow's top diplomat pushed an unsubstantiated claim that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had Jewish ancestry.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Italian media on Sunday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's Jewish origins do not negate the fact that there are Nazi elements in his government, adding that Hitler had also had Jewish blood.
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Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Russian Ambassador to Israel Anatoly Viktorov and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
(Photo: Shaul Golan, Ido Erez, AFP)
Lavrov's remark raised a hue and a cry among Israeli leaders who deemed it antisemitic.
At the end of the meeting between the Russian envoy and the head of the ministry's Euro-Russia wing Gary Koren, a source familiar with its content said that "the Israeli position has been made clear" and that the parties had agreed that "no further details will be released from the conversation."
The source offered a much more amicable line than comments made by Foreign Minister Yair Lapid earlier Monday.
"This is an unforgivable and outrageous statement and a terrible historic error and we expect an apology," Lapid told the Ynet studio in an interview and called on the Russian side to "correct their mistake and open some history books."
"It enrages me not only as foreign minister but also as a son of my father's [former minister Yosef "Tommy" Lapid] who was put in the Budapest ghetto. He was not put there by Jews. He was put there by Nazis," he said.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who has been measured in his criticism of Russia's invasion of Ukraine so far, also slammed Lavrov's comments.
"His words are untrue, and their intentions are wrong," he said. "Using the Holocaust of the Jewish people as a political tool must cease immediately."
"Lies such as these aim to blame Jews for the horrible crimes committed against them throughout history and by doing so, remove responsibility from their enemies."