Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Monday said Lavrov's comments claiming Hitler had Jewish blood, are "unforgivable and an historic mistake."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Italian media on Sunday that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky's Jewish origin does not negate the fact that there are Nazi elements in his government, adding that Hitler had also had Jewish blood.
2 View gallery
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid responds to comments made by Russia's Sergey Lavrov on Hitler having Jewish blood, on Monday
(Photo: Shaul Golan)
"This is an unforgivable and outrageous statement and a terrible historic mistake and we expect an apology," Lapid said in an interview on Ynet.
"Jews did not kill themselves in the Holocaust," Lapid said. "My grandfather was killed by Nazis. to say that Hitler was of Jewish origin is like saying that Jews killed themselves and we cannot forgive such a comparison," he said.
"It enrages me not only as foreign minister but also as a son of my father's who was put in the Budapest ghetto. He was not put there by Jews. He was put there by Nazis," he said.
"The Nazis persecuted the Jews and killed six million of them. Ukrainians were not Nazis. Only the Nazis were Nazis and they had conducted a systematic eradication of the Jewish people," he said.
Lapid said he expected the Russian ambassador to apologize for the comments made by the Russian minister's comments.
The ambassador has been called to the Foreign Ministry to clarify the statements.
"First of all, the Russians should correct their mistake and open history books," Lapid said.
In the Sunday interview, the Russian Foreign Minister also said that some of the worst anti-Semites were Jews.
"Lavrov's words are unfounded, strange and dangerous and must be condemned," the chairman of the Yad Vashem Museum, Danny Dayan said in response.
Lavrov claimed Zelensky was inconsistent in his positions and that the Ukrainians were sabotaging ceasefire negotiations adding that Zelensky could bring about peace if he stopped giving criminal instructions to his Nazi forces.
Putin cited de Nazifying Ukraine as one of the aims of his invasion of that country in February, claiming part of the Ukrainian government was held by Neo Nazi elements.
Asked whether Israel had lagged in its support for Ukraine, the minister said Jerusalem had condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the U.N. and voted for its suspension from the international body's human rights council.
"We were very clear," he said. "Israel is the only country that operates a hospital inside Ukraine. and we have invested greatly in humanitarian assistance," he said adding that Israel does have national security considerations, just as other countries have," Lapid said.
"Sometimes you make decisions based not only on interests but on values, certainly in respect to the Holocaust or comments such as those made by the Russian minister," Lapid said.
"We are among the countries that believe Russia should not have invaded Ukraine," he said.