Image by Wikipedia

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte apologized for the comparison of his campaign to eliminate drug use in his country to the Holocaust.

Duterte on Friday compared his plan to kill millions of drug dealers and drug users to Adolf Hitler’s extermination of six million Jews during the Holocaust.

“The president recognizes the deep significance of the Jewish experience especially their tragic and painful history,” presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said Saturday in a statement, CNN reported. “We do not wish to diminish the profound loss of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust — that deep midnight of their story as a people.”

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The statement said Duterte drew an “oblique conclusion, that while the Holocaust was an attempt to exterminate the future generation of Jews, drug-related killings as a result of legitimate police operations … will nevertheless result in the salvation of the next generation of Filipinos.”

In his speech on Friday, which was roundly condemned by Jewish groups and Jewish and Israeli leaders, Duterte said: “Hitler massacred 3 million Jews. Now, there are 3 million drug addicts. … I’d be happy to slaughter them,” Duterte told reporters Friday, GMA News reported. Duterte misspoke on the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust, however.

Duterte was addressing critics who have compared him to Hitler for his “war on drugs,” which has left over 3,000 Filipinos dead since he took office in July.

Abella also said that the president “deplores the Hitler allusion of President Duterte’s anti-drug war as another crude attempt to vilify the president in the eyes of the world.”

This is not Duterte’s first controversial statement as president. After President Barack Obama criticized the Philippines government’s mass detention of drug dealers in August, Duterte called him a phrase that has been widely translated as “son of a whore.”

The United Nations and the European Union also both oppose Duterte’s drug war tactics. Many of the related killings have been carried out by vigilante groups, who target names on police lists — which may or may not be accurate — and, according to the Washington Post, leave bodies on the sides of roads with signs that read “pusher.”

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount