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By: Fern Sidman
In a recent speech, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, uttered virulently anti-Semitic remarks that have ignited a storm of controversy and condemnation from Israeli and European officials, as was reported in the New York Times. His assertion that European Jews were persecuted by Hitler not because of their religion but due to what he called their “predatory lending practices” has essentially exposed his history of anti-Semitic remarks and the role he has played in promoting Holocaust denial.
Abbas’s comments, broadcast on Palestinian television at the at the 11th session of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council, and later translated and distributed by the Middle East Media Research Institute, have cast a shadow over his long and checkered history as a key figure in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, according to the NYT report.
In his August 24th speech, which was televised on September 3rd, Abbas attempted to rewrite history by suggesting that Jews were persecuted not for their religious beliefs but because of their “social role” involving usury and money lending, as was noted by the NYT. This unfounded claim not only distorts historical facts but also perpetuates harmful stereotypes about Jews. It is essential to remember that the Holocaust was a genocidal act targeting Jews primarily because of their ethnicity and religious identity, a historical fact recognized worldwide.
Furthermore, Abbas revived a widely discredited theory that European, or Ashkenazi, Jews have no ancient roots in the Middle East. According to the report in the NYT, he proposed that they are the descendants of the Khazars, a nomadic Turkic tribe that converted to Judaism during the medieval period, implying that they were not victims of anti-Semitism. This theory has been debunked by historical and genetic research, and its promotion only serves to sow discord and misinformation.
According to the MEMRI translation of Abbas’ speech, he also erroneously claimed that Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion had not wanted Jews from Arab countries to immigrate to Israel, but was forced to accept them upon Winston Churchill’s urging, because there were no more Jews left in Europe. He said that Ben Gurion carried out attacks on Jewish institutions in Arab countries in order to persuade them to emigrate. Abbas stated: “the Jews did not want to emigrate but were forced to do so by means of pressure, coercion, and murder.”
Abbas also discussed the Balfour Declaration, saying that the U.S. was a partner to it and that Israel was invented by “Britain and America – not just Britain,” according to the MEMRi transcript. He added that he is “saying this so that we know who we should accuse of being our enemy, who has harmed us and took our homeland away, and gave it to the Israelis or the Jews.”
These comments are not isolated incidents but are part of a pattern of anti-Semitic remarks made by Abbas throughout his career. As was reported in the NYT, in 2018, he made similar comments about usury and Ashkenazi Jews, and in 2022, he shockingly accused Israel of committing “50 Holocausts” against Palestinians.
In his 1984 book, Abbas condemned the Holocaust but also demonstrated a disturbing willingness to engage in Holocaust revisionism, which is not only deeply offensive to the global Jewish community but represents a blatant disregard for historical truth. He did so by citing historians who disputed the widely accepted death toll of as many as six million Jews, as was reported by the NYT.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, responded to Abbas’s latest speech by condemning his remarks and highlighting the connection between such rhetoric and acts of violence. He referred to a recent attack in Jerusalem where a Palestinian teenager attacked innocent Israelis with a meat cleaver, underscoring the dangerous consequences of inflammatory speech.
“This is the true face of Palestinian ‘leadership,’” Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, wrote on social media in response to Abbas’s latest speech, as was reported by the NYT.
“It is no wonder that mere hours ago a Palestinian teenage terrorist hacked innocent Israelis with a meat cleaver,” Erdan added, referring to an attack on Wednesday in the Old City of Jerusalem that wounded at least two people.
The European Union also expressed its strong disapproval, stating that Abbas’s “historical distortions are inflammatory, deeply offensive, can only serve to exacerbate tensions in the region and serve no-one’s interests,” according to the NYT report. The EU emphasized that these remarks play into the hands of those who oppose a two-state solution, which Abbas has repeatedly advocated for.
A Wall Street Journal editorial noted that three days before Abbas’s speech, members of his Fatah party’s military wing attempted to claim credit for the murder of a Jewish preschool teacher, Batsheva Nigri, near Hebron. This chilling act of violence underscores the deeply rooted hostility that continues to plague the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The persistence of such egregious Jew hatred within the Palestinian leadership casts a shadow over any prospects for peace.
At 87 years old, Abbas appears unlikely to abandon his conviction that Jews are interlopers in every part of Israel. This stance is reminiscent of his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, who once shocked negotiators by denying the historical significance of Jerusalem and its connection to the Jewish Temple. These attitudes are deeply entrenched within segments of Palestinian leadership, hindering any meaningful progress toward peace, the WSJ opined in the editorial.
It is essential for the international community, including American liberals who may have been surprised by Abbas’s comments, to recognize the barriers to peace posed by such anti-Semitic viewpoints, the editorial said.
The failure of the Biden administration to publicly condemn the anti-Semitic speech made by Abbas “makes a mockery of the administration’s plan for fighting anti-Semitism,” an American Zionist leader has charged.
Stephen M. Flatow, president of the Religious Zionists of America (RZA), said in a statement sent to the media on Thursday that, “Abbas delivered his vicious anti-Semitic tirade two weeks ago, and Palestinian Authority Television broadcast it four days ago. Why is the Biden administration still silent?”
Flatow noted that Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Abbas on September 5, 2023. Blinken tweeted that he “had an important conversation” with Abbas and “reiterated our support for advancing the freedom, security, and prosperity of the Palestinian people and for a two-state solution.”
“Instead of patting Abbas on the back and offering him a state, Secretary Blinken should have condemned Abbas’s anti-Semitism and demanded that he publicly apologize for his speech,” Flatow said.
President Biden wrote on the first page of The U.S. National Strategy to Counter Anti-Semitism (May 25, 2023): “We must confront anti-Semitism early and aggressively whenever and wherever it emerges…Loud voices are normalizing this venom, but we must never allow it to become normal.”
The RZA leader commented: “The voice of Mahmoud Abbas is one of the loudest spreading anti-Semitic venom. The Biden administration’s silence is allowing it to become normal.”
