The Holocaust accusation by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) against Israel is now also calling the Berlin police into action. “The preliminary investigation into the initial suspicion of incitement to hatred under Section 130 of the Criminal Code is being processed in a specialist department of the State Criminal Police Office,” said a police spokeswoman to the “Bild” newspaper (Friday).
Criminal lawyer Udo Vetter told the German newspaper: “As a result, an initial suspicion of downplaying the Nazi tyranny cannot be dismissed out of hand.” At a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the Chancellery on Tuesday, Abbas accused Israel of multiple “Holocausts” against the Palestinians, triggering outrage. “Israel has committed 50 massacres in 50 Palestinian locations from 1947 to the present day,” Abbas said, adding, “50 massacres, 50 holocausts.”
When asked by “Bild”, the Federal Foreign Office said that the German government assumed that Abbas enjoyed immunity because he was in the Federal Republic as part of an “official visit”.
The Augsburg criminal law expert Michael Kubiciel told the newspaper that it was not decisive whether Abbas was in Berlin at the invitation of the Federal Republic. Many people would accept an invitation from government agencies without enjoying immunity. It is therefore crucial that the person was in Germany “as a representative of another state”. Consequently, the question “whether Palestine is a state or not is of crucial importance,” said Kubiciel. Germany did not recognize Palestine as a state.