Israel’s foreign ministry calls President Rodrigo Duterte’s remark involving Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust “unfortunate.”
The foreign ministry’s spokesperson Emmanuel Nahshon said on Saturday, October 1, that Israel expected that Duterte “will find a way to clarify his words.”
This statement came after Duterte’s remark on Friday when he said: “Hitler massacred 3 million Jews… There’s 3 million drug addicts. There are. I’d be happy to slaughter them.”
Duterte was referring to the war on drugs he launched against the estimated 3 million drug addicts in the Philippines. This is despite warnings from the United States about his violent remarks possibly affecting aid and statements expressing alarm over the increasing number of extrajudicial killings in the country from the United Nations, the European Parliament, and local and international human rights groups.
The Nazis, under Hitler, killed 6 million Jews during World War II as it launched its campaign to eliminate European Jewry.
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Duterte says sorry
On Sunday, Duterte apologized to the Jews for his remarks on Friday that seemed to compare Hitler’s killing of Jews with the killings linked to his war on drugs.
“There was never an intention on my part to derogate the memory of 6 million Jews murdered by the Germans. I apologize profoundly and deeply to the Jewish community,” Duterte said at the opening of the 37th Masskara festival in Negros Occidental on October 2.
Aside from Israel, Duterte’s remarks invoking Hitler also drew criticism from the United Nations, the Pentagon, the German government, and international rights groups.
Sources: (globalnation.inquirer.net)
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