Abbas' antisemitism gives free rein for Palestinian thinkers to justify their own Jew-hatred

It took a little longer than I expected, but Arab media is coming to the defense of Mahmoud Abbas' blaming the Holocaust on Jewish actions and his other antisemitic statements publicized last week.

Mahmoud al-Tamimi, a Palestinian writing in Oman Daily, claims that Theodor Herzl agrees that Jews bring the world's contempt on themselves with their actions. He purposefully misinterprets Herzl's words:

[T]he sins of the Middle Ages are now being visited on the nations of Europe. We are what the Ghetto made us. We have attained pre-eminence in finance, because mediaeval conditions drove us to it. The same process is now being repeated. We are again being forced into finance, now it is the stock exchange, by being kept out of other branches of economic activity. Being on the stock exchange, we are consequently exposed afresh to contempt. 

Herzl is saying, correctly, that Jews were pushed into financial positions because of antisemitism not allowing them throughout history to do anything else. Tamimi changes the meaning into saying that Herzl admits that non-Jews hated Jews because of their social position, without saying that this is a damned if you do, damned if you don't position set up by antisemites.

Another Palestinian writer, Saleh Al-Shaqbawi, writes in Raia al-Youm  that indeed the world hates Jews because of their usurious practices, and then implies that Jews worship money rather than God, his "evidence" that Jews ignored Jerusalem and Zion for 1400 years and instead became wealthy.

Abdel Bari Atwan, Palestinian-British former editor of Al Quds al Arabi who used to be a fixture on the BBC, says Abbas has nothing to apologize for. He simply states that Abbas was right, that Jews are really Khazars, and that criticism of Abbas shows there is no freedom of speech. He claims in his crazed rant that no one complained about Shakespeare's characterization of Jews in The Merchant of Venice, and Jews were silent when Vladimir Putin accused the West of using "the Jew Zelensky to cover up neo-Nazism in Ukraine."

I have not found a single Palestinian pundit or op-ed writer saying a word in Arabic against Mahmoud Abbas' antisemitic statements. A number of Palestinians, mostly Western-based academics, did sign such a letter in English.  That letter is not even translated to Arabic, indicating it is a whitewash for the benefit of the West and not a message for Palestinians to read and consider. (Also note that most or all of the signatories appear to hate Abbas and lean more towards Hamas, whose explicitly antisemitic charter remains in force.)

In the Arabic media that the vast majority of Palestinians read, there isn't even a debate going on: Abbas is obviously right, no matter whether you support or oppose Fatah and the PA.

The West still refuses to believe that the Palestinians are taught and spread antisemitism from childhood It still refuses to note that 93% of Palestinians are antisemitic according to the ADL and 97% of Palestinians have negative opinions of Jews according to Pew. And when those inconvenient facts get mentioned, the oh-so-liberal "progressives" and "academics" justify Palestinian hate for Jews as being an outcome of their hate for Israel, instead of the other way around, even though everyone can easily see that their antisemitism pre-dates the State and Zionism.

Why is it so hard to admit that Palestinians are among the most antisemitic people in the world? Because that would upset the sacred narrative that Israel (and Jews) are at fault for the problems in the Middle East.

Palestinians' supportive reaction to Abbas' speech proves otherwise. Their hate for Jews is the obstacle to peace.  

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