Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reacts during a news conference after his meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Moscow, Russia, April 26, 2022. Maxim Shipenkov/Pool via REUTERS

Israel demanded an apology from Moscow after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov publicly claimed that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler “had Jewish blood” and accused Jews of being some of the worst antisemites.

In an interview with an Italian television program, Lavrov on Sunday night was asked how Russia can justify its professed aim of “denazifying” Ukraine, given the Jewish faith of the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

“How can there be Nazism in Ukraine if he is a Jew? I may be mistaken but Adolf Hitler had Jewish blood, too,” Lavrov claimed. “This means absolutely nothing. The wise Jewish people say that the most ardent antisemites are usually Jews.”

The Israeli foreign ministry summoned Russia’s ambassador for an explanation, as Prime Minister Naftali Bennett denounced Lavrov’s words as “untrue.”

“The goal of such lies is to accuse the Jews themselves of the most awful crimes in history, which were perpetrated against them, and thereby absolve Israel’s enemies of responsibility,” Bennett stated. “No war in our time is like the Holocaust or is comparable to the Holocaust.”

“The use of the Holocaust of the Jewish people as a political tool must cease immediately,” he urged.

Since the start of Russia’s invasion, President Vladimir Putin has falsely depicted Ukrainian leaders, including Zelensky, as Nazi sympathizers as part of a propaganda campaign to justify the war.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Monday called his Russian counterpart’s remarks both “unforgivable and outrageous” and said they are a “terrible historical error.”

“Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust,” Lapid stated. “The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of antisemitism.”

Lapid called for the Russian government to apologize to the state of Israel and to the Jewish people.

“We make every effort to maintain good relations with Russia but this time they crossed the line,” he added.

Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum chairman Dani Dayan condemned Lavrov’s remarks as “absurd, delusional, dangerous and deserving of condemnation.”

“Lavrov is propagating the inversion of the Holocaust — turning the victims into the criminals on the basis of promoting a completely unfounded claim that Hitler was of Jewish descent,” Dayan stated. “Equally serious is calling the Ukrainians in general, and Zelensky in particular, Nazis. This, among other things, is a complete distortion of the history and an affront to the victims of Nazism.”

The Russian diplomat’s comments also drew outrage from European officials and Jewish community leaders, with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accusing Lavrov of exposing “the deeply-rooted antisemitism of the Russian elites.”

“His heinous remarks (…) more broadly demonstrate that today’s Russia is full of hatred towards other nations,” Kuleba tweeted.

Ruth Dureghello, head of Rome’s Jewish community, said Lavrov’s remarks “rewrite history in a similar way to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion — the foundation of modern antisemitic literature created in Tsarist Russia.”

She also harshly criticized Italy’s Rete 4 television channel and Lavrov’s interviewer for leaving the foreign minister’s assertions unchallenged.

“This is not acceptable and cannot be passed over in silence,” Dureghello demanded. ” If history is allowed to be completely distorted, the result will be a weakened democracy without the antibodies necessary to protect itself.”