{"id":81709,"date":"2016-10-02T22:02:25","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T02:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=81709"},"modified":"2016-10-02T22:02:25","modified_gmt":"2016-10-03T02:02:25","slug":"philippine-president-apologizes-jews-hitler-remark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/10\/02\/philippine-president-apologizes-jews-hitler-remark\/","title":{"rendered":"Philippine president apologizes to Jews for Hitler remark"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\u201cI<\/a>
\u201cI apologize profoundly and deeply to the Jewish community,\u201d Duterte said. (Photo: Rody Duterte\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA, Philippines\u2014Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte apologized to Jews worldwide Sunday after his remarks drawing comparisons between his bloody anti-drug war and Hitler and the Holocaust sparked shock and outrage.<\/p>\n

The tough-talking Duterte said his apology was intended only for the Jewish community. He lashed out again at Western critics and human rights advocates who have raised concerns over his brutal crackdown, which is estimated to have left more than 3,000 suspected drug dealers and users dead in just three months.<\/p>\n

Duterte said in a speech in the central city of Bacolod that he never had any intention \u201cto derogate the memory of the 6 million Jews murdered by the Germans.\u201d Historians say 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis under Hitler before and during World War II.<\/p>\n

\u201cI apologize profoundly and deeply to the Jewish community,\u201d Duterte said.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Duterte raised the rhetoric over his anti-drug campaign to a new level by comparing it to Hitler and the Holocaust and saying he would be \u201chappy to slaughter\u201d an estimated 3 million addicts in the Philippines.<\/p>\n

In that speech, the brash president said without elaborating that he has been \u201cportrayed or pictured to be a cousin of Hitler\u201d by his critics.<\/p>\n

Moments later, he said, \u201cHitler massacred 3 million Jews … there’s 3 million drug addicts. There are. I’d be happy to slaughter them.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Hitler’s victims were innocent people, Duterte said his targets are \u201call criminals\u201d and that getting rid of them would \u201cfinish the (drug) problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Germany’s government slammed Duterte’s comments as unacceptable, and called in the Philippine ambassador to the Foreign Ministry over the matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is impossible to make any comparison to the unique atrocities of the Shoah and Holocaust,\u201d Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said in Berlin.<\/p>\n

World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder said Duterte’s remarks were \u201crevolting\u201d and demanded that he retract them and apologize.<\/p>\n

\u201cDrug abuse is a serious issue. But what President Duterte said is not only profoundly inhumane, but it demonstrates an appalling disrespect for human life that is truly heartbreaking for the democratically elected leader of a great country,\u201d Lauder said in a statement issued from Jerusalem, where he was attending the funeral of former Israeli leader Shimon Peres.<\/p>\n

The U.S. State Department, which is looking to sustain its long-standing alliance with the Philippines, called the comments \u201ctroubling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWords matter, especially when they are from leaders of sovereign nations, especially sovereign nations with whom we have long and valued relations with,\u201d spokesman Mark Toner told reporters. He repeated U.S. calls for Philippine authorities to investigate any credible reports of extrajudicial killings.<\/p>\n

Also critical was Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, who said it was baffling why anyone would want to compare themselves to \u201cone of the largest mass murderers in human history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robertson said that in today’s context, Hitler would be accused of crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that what Duterte wants? Does he want to be sent to the international criminal court? Because he’s working his way there,\u201d Robertson said.<\/p>\n

Amnesty International said that Duterte \u201chas sunk to new depths\u201d and urged governments around the world to condemn his \u201cextremely dangerous outburst.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amid the criticisms, presidential spokesman Ernie Abella defended Duterte, saying his \u201creference to the slaughter was an oblique deflection of the way he has been pictured as a mass murderer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe likewise draws an oblique conclusion, that while the Holocaust was an attempt to exterminate the future generations of Jews, drug-related killings as a result of legitimate police operations (as opposed to so-called \u201cextra-judicial killings\u201d of criminals, wrongly attributed to him, as these are not state-sanctioned) will nevertheless result in the salvation of the next generation of Filipinos,\u201d Abella said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Duterte has asked for a six-month extension of his drug crackdown, saying he underestimated the magnitude of the problem.<\/p>\n

His supporters and many Filipinos exasperated with widespread crime have welcomed his tough approach, but a growing number of critics, including U.N. officials, the European Union and the United States, have voiced concerns over the widespread killings and human rights violations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA, Philippines\u2014Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte apologized to Jews worldwide Sunday after his remarks drawing comparisons between his bloody anti-drug war …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":81499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,16,95],"tags":[668,12365,3045,2084,343,2444],"class_list":["post-81709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-apology","tag-hitler","tag-holocaust","tag-jews","tag-philippines","tag-rodrigo-duterte","mauthors-jim-gomez","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}