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."
This revocation of the award - which was given by the same Anne Hidalgo -is more effective than a hundred condemnations from a hundred world leaders.
To be sure, it is overdue - Abbas has said many antisemitic things between 2015 and now - and his Holocaust denial PhD. thesis should be enough to make anyone reluctant to ever award him anything. But even so, this revocation is welcome and important.
After all, many prominent people have condemned Abbas before for his previous antisemitic statements, and it meant nothing. Abbas ignoring condemnations makes him look stronger to his people.
But revoking an award directly strikes at the honor/shame mentality. He was proud of that award.
Over the years, Abbas has received a couple of other awards from the West, as well as a few from elsewhere.
In 2017, Abbas received the German Steiger Award. However, it looks like the award is no longer given and its webpage has been deactivated.
In 2013, Abbas received the Mediterranean Award for Peace in Naples. I cannot find too much information about that award.
In 2007, he received the Crans Montana International Economic Forum award. Its website barely mentions it now.
These organizations should revoke those awards now. Even if the awards are meaningless - and most of them are - everything is about symbolism, and the most effective weapon the West has against Palestinian intransigence and antisemitism is shame.
If the organizations that gave these awards were really interested in peace, they themselves should be ashamed to be associated with Mahmoud Abbas, and they should do everything they can to distance themselves from him today.
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