Israel: Duterte must clarify ‘unfortunate’ Hitler remarks

The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem condemned what it called an “unfortunate expression” by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who likened his deadly war on crime to Adolf Hitler’s efforts to exterminate the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust.

The Foreign Ministry said Israel is sure the president would take the opportunity to clarify his remarks, Israel Radio reported Saturday.

Duterte on Friday made televised comments drawing parallels between his campaign to wipe out his country’s drug problem and Hitler’s genocidal drive.

“Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now there are three million drug addicts [in the Philippines]. I’d be happy to slaughter them,” Duterte told reporters in his home city of Davao. Nazi Germany slaughtered some six million Jews by the end of World War II.

“At least if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have,” Duterte said, then paused. “But you know, my victims, I would like to be [sic] all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition.”

Following a fierce international backlash, Duterte’s spokesman released a statement Saturday insisting the president did not want to be compared with the Nazi leader, but confirmed he was prepared to kill three million people in his crime war.

“We do not wish to diminish the profound loss of six million Jews in the Holocaust,” presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said in a statement.

“The president’s reference to the slaughter was an oblique deflection of the way he has been pictured as a mass murderer, a Hitler, a label he rejects.”

Nevertheless, Abella confirmed Duterte had intended to say he wanted to kill millions of people in the Philippines to achieve his mission of eradicating illegal drugs.

“Duterte was referencing to his ‘willingness to kill’ three million criminal drug dealers – to save the future of the next generation and the country,” Abella said.

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Friday criticized Duterte’s remarks on Hitler, calling them “deeply troubling.”

An outraged German government on Friday told the Philippine ambassador in Berlin that the comments were “unacceptable.”

The German foreign ministry said in a statement that it had asked the Philippine envoy “to come to the ministry for a discussion on this issue.”

“Any comparison of the singular atrocities of the Holocaust with anything else is totally unacceptable,” ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer told reporters earlier and reiterated this in the statement.