Israel would like to have a peace partner.
Instead, they got stuck with Mahmoud Abbas, whose corruption and incompetence is matched only by his antisemitism.
The Jewish Journal lists multiple times over the years during which the West's favorite moderate pragmatist made derogatory statements about Israel and Jews:
o In his 1984 book, The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism, Abbas wroteWe find that Zionists believe in the purity of the Jewish race, as Hitler believed in the purity of the Aryan race. Zionism calls to find a fundamental final solution to the Jewish question in Europe by immigration to Palestine. Hitler also called for this and implemented it… Anti-Semitism is persecution and oppression, and this is definitely something desirable to the Zionist movement.o In 2009 and 2010, Abbas rejected the idea of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. First, he declared his refusal to the Palestinian Youth Parliament, “Call yourselves what you want, but I will not accept it… The ‘Jewish State’… I will not accept it.” The following year he told the Hadash party recognizing Israel as a Jewish state was an “unacceptable demand.”o In August 2015, Abbas told Polish journalists, “If they [Jews] say that they made sacrifices in World War II, and we respect what they say, they should not treat us the way they were treated. We must not be a victim of the victim.” According to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)’s Itamar Marcus, Abbas told Polish journalists this in August 2015. Abbas denies the fact of the Holocaust and reduces it to something Jews say that he is willing to "respect."o In a speech he made on Palestinian TV in September 2015 during a wave of violence at the Temple Mount, Abbas said, “The Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is ours, and they have no right to defile it with their filthy feet. We will not allow themT to, and we will do everything in our power to protect Jerusalem.” This further inflamed the violence.o During a speech to the EU in 2016, Abbas claimed, “Certain rabbis in Israel have said very clearly to their government that our water should be poisoned in order to have Palestinians killed.” Because of criticism of his speech, Abbas said such blood libels were “baseless” and that “he didn’t intend to do harm to Judaism.”
Two years later, on April 30, 2018, Abbas spoke before the Palestinian National Council and made a whole slew of antisemitic claims, belittling the Holocaust and denying the Jewish connection to the land.
In response to condemnations, Abbas graciously apologized “if people were offended."
That brings us to 2023 and last month. Abbas is at it again, demeaning Jews and defending Hitler in a speech he gave to senior members of Fatah:
o The Holocaust was the fault of the Jews
o European Jews are descended from the Khazars and so are not Semiteso Jews lived peacefully in Arab countries for centuries, until Ben-Gurion used "pressure, coercion and murder" to force them to flee to Israel.
o Israel is an invention of both Great Britain and the US
The reaction from the West was outrage.
In rare censure, the EU strongly opposes the words of Palestinian Authority president, who told his Fatah Party's Revolutionary Council that Hitler fought the Jews because they were money lenders: 'Such historical distortions can only worsen tensions in the region'
"The UK condemns the recent antisemitic remarks made by President Abbas," a foreign office spokesperson said in a statement.From France:
"The UK stands firmly against all attempts to distort the Holocaust. Such statements do not advance efforts towards reconciliation."
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo on Thursday revoked the prestigious Medal of the City of Paris awarded to Mahmoud Abbas in 2015, according to an open letter she wrote to the Palestinian Authority president on Thursday evening.
In the letter, obtained by Israeli and French media, Hidalgo wrote that she is revoking Abbas' medal, known in French as La médaille Grand Vermeil de Paris, due to his recent comments in which he expressed a "clear desire to deny the genocide to which the Jewish populations of Europe were victims at the hands of the Nazi regime."
Deborah Lipstadt, the US special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, blasts Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, saying his comments distorting the Holocaust are “overtly antisemitic.”
Seriously, did these leaders not hear the antisemitic comments that Abbas has made over the years? Don't they see that this is who Abbas is and this is the reason that any possibility of a two-state solution is far off in the future, if ever?
But looking at these condemnations, they share something in common. Abbas's comments fall into 2 categories: Holocaust denial and denying Israel's legitimacy.
In each condemnation of Abbas's remarks, these political leaders clearly denounce the Holocaust denial, but are silent on Abbas's repudiation of Jewish ties to the state of Israel and renunciation of Israel's legitimacy.
This is what we see from anti-Israel activists: they disavow examples of blatant classic antisemitism -- such as the Holocaust -- and reframe their hate as mere political disagreement with Israel's policies. This division allows Israel critics to deny Israel's right to exist, while still claiming they are not anti-Jewish. A claim that is undercut by the IHRA definition.
[H/T Nevet]
[H/T Nevet]
Even countries in the West go only so far in standing up for Israel, which is why Israel is the only country that has to defend its right to exist.
Which gives Abbas, even now, a partial victory.
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