On August 25, Mahmoud Abbas delivered himself of some remarks about Hitler, the Holocaust, and Jews, in which he explained that Hitler hated Jews not because he was, heaven forfend, an “antisemite” — a person whom Abbas claims hates Jews just because they are Jews — but because he hated their “social role” in dealing with “money and usury.” Hitler, you see, had his reasons, so let’s not continue to call him an antisemite, shall we?
This demented rant caused an uproar. The US Envoy on Antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt, condemned his speech. So did the EU. So did every Jewish organization in the United States. So did the European Jewish Congress. And the World Jewish Congress. And CRIF, the organization of French Jewry. Why, even Jeremy Ben-Ami’s notoriously anti-Israel J Street condemned Abbas’ speech. No Arab state defended Abbas. But among the Palestinians, there was a circling of the wagons, and Abbas was stoutly defended by several of his colleagues. More on this doubling down can be found here: “Abbas Spokesman Doubles Down on Palestinian Leader’s Antisemitic Speech Despite Global Condemnation,” by Andrew Bernard, Algemeiner, September 8, 2023:
The spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas doubled down on the legitimacy of his boss’s recent speech, which has drawn international outrage for its litany of antisemitic conspiracy theories and claims that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler did not hate the Jews as a people.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh claimed on Thursday that Abbas’ “position on this issue is clear and documented” and that the Palestinian president condemns the Holocaust. He added that Abbas’ remarks “on the Jewish issue” were based on quotes “from the writings of Jewish and American historians and writers and others” and “not considered a denial in any way of the Holocaust.”
Abbas has both denied, and then minimized, the Holocaust, claiming that “at most 800,000 Jews may have died,” and many of those deaths may have been caused by such diseases as typhus. Whatever pro forma and laconic “condemnation” of the Holocaust he may have offered in the past, Abbas has now justified it because, in his view, it was an understandable reaction by Hitler to the “social role” of Jews in dealing in “money and usury.”
However, neither Abbas nor his spokesman issued an apology, instead reserving blame for those who criticized the speech.
“We express our strong disapproval and condemnation of this frenzied campaign just for quoting academic and historical writings,” Rudeineh said, according to Palestinian media reports.
There has been no “frenzied campaign” against Abbas. There have been many dignified statements, from around the world, by Jews and non-Jews, expressing moral disgust with Abbas for denying the reality of the Holocaust, offering an apologia for Hitler, justifying hatred of Jews for their “social role,” and denying that antisemitism was the cause of the Holocaust. And Abbas also adduced some bizarre theories, insisting that “Ashkenazi Jews” were not Jews at all, but Khazars from Central Asia, and had no connection to the Middle East or to “Palestine.”
Abbas has received global condemnation for a recent antisemitic speech that he delivered late last month to the Revolutionary Council of Fatah, the political party he leads. The address — which the Middle East Media Research Institute flagged and posted video of last weekend — was riddled with antisemitic conspiracies and claims that antisemitism was not a cause of the Holocaust. Among the controversial comments, Abbas claimed that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler did not hate Jews as a people but rather because of their dealings with money as usurers.
“They say that Hitler killed the Jews for being Jews, and that Europe hated the Jews because they were Jews,” Abbas said. “Not true. It was clearly explained that [the Europeans] fought [the Jews] because of their social role, and not their religion. Several authors wrote about this. Even Karl Marx said this was not true. He said that the enmity was not directed at Judaism as a religion, but to Judaism for its social role.”
Were the 1.6 million Jewish children who were murdered by the Nazis involved in “money and usury”? Were all those Jewish farmers, doctors, scientists, professors, lawyers, writers, painters, actors, statesmen occupied with “money and usury”? What answers can Abbas give?
Abbas went on to claim that Hitler said he “fought” the Jews because “they were dealing with usury and money,” adding that the dictator of Nazi Germany “hated” Jews because they were engaged in sabotage.” He also said that the Holocaust “was not about Semitism and antisemitism.”
So which was it? Did Hitler hate Jews because they dealt in “usury and money,” or because they engaged in “sabotage” — a reference to the charge by rightist Germans after the First World War that Germany had lost because “Jews stabbed us in the back”? And why would German Jews, who owned German stocks, had money in German banks, and owned German real estate, want to bring about the defeat and ruin of the German state, which would mean their ruin as well?
Rudeineh wasn’t the only Palestinian official to lambast critics of Abbas rather than Abbas himself over the speech.
The European and American position on President Mahmoud Abbas’ speech, which was taken out of context, is reprehensible and unjust,” said Rawhi Fattouh, chairman of the Palestinian National Council, according to Israeli and Palestinian press reports. “He [Abbas] explained that there is a suspicious misinformation campaign led by manufactured media, and false propaganda based on quotes by foreign writers and historians, and that the position of President Mahmoud Abbas is known, consistent, and clear and does not accept doubt or interpretation that he is against the Nazi Holocaust, and that he rejects antisemitism [sic].”…
Nothing was taken “out of context.” You can read every word Abbas spoke here.
Abbas’ comments also drew a rare rebuke, albeit an indirect one, from the United Nations Secretariat, with Under-Secretary-General Miguel Moratinos saying that he condemned “all expressions and manifestations of antisemitism including denial of the Holocaust or distortion of historical facts regardless of the motivation and by whomsoever iterated.”
Moratinos cited Abbas by name only in referencing that he “acknowledge[d] the statement issued by the office of Palestinian Pres. Mahmoud Abbas clarifying his position on this matter.”
Abbas is currently slated to address the UN on Sept. 21 at the opening of the general debate of the 78th session of the General Assembly.
Will he receive a friendly reception at the General Assembly? Or will ambassadors do the right thing, and walk out, beginning with Linda Thomas-Greenfield, as soon as Abbas mounts the podium?
Even the UN — in the person of Under-Secretary-General Miguel Moratinos — has condemned Abbas’ remarks. Now one hopes that the Secretary-General himself, Antonio Guterres, will break his studied silence and add his voice to the chorus of outrage.
The Palestinians rallying around Abbas, such as Nabil Abu Rudeineh, now find themselves tarnished with the same brush, for they have defended his Holocaust-minimizing, his denial of Hitler’s antisemitism, his insistence that the Jews themselves are to blame for the hatred they engender. Why, they even find themselves defending Abbas’ crazed insistence that Ashkenazi Jews are not really Jews, but Khazars, who have no business being in the Middle East. Abbas is 87 years old, and about to exit the world stage, most likely in a casket, but he’s pulling down his defenders with him. They deserve such a fate.
Ex-muslim says
I am shocked about all these human rights violations. Why does not Israel and the UN does not sue the PA and Abbas and every muslim cleric who promotes terrorism and hatred. Islam is such a weak cult and is getting stronger because of the weakness of the West and the baseness of the radical leftists. We live in such an awkward and scary world.
abu taleb says
If Islam is such a weak cult, how come there are still a lot of muslims.
I believe, a strong response by the west to Islamic countries may only curb the Islamic terrorism but won’t lead to an avalanche of apostasy because of the way Islam build its culture.
Iran for example, the sanction toward Iran before Obama era did not lead to apostasy of its people, it is the Iran government’s cruel treatment toward its people that lead to aspotasy.
I think, the work of people who reveals the true Islam like Mr Spencer here together with the ex muslims is the key to the defeat of Islam.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I believe Abbas has planned it. His popularity was in free fall thanks to his corruption, & so, he planned a series of holocaust denial statements which he knew would provoke the EU. They did, & now he looks like a hero for standing up for
Pali honorholocaust glorificationGood cynical move by him. Which is why I believe that the Palis should all be expelled to Qatar: let the al Thanis, who bankroll the muslim brotherhood and dawa operations, manage them
Richard Martin says
Abbas has always been a virulent anti-Semite. His book is proof of his rejection of the reality of the Holocaust. He writes that at most 800,000 died and many of them by disease. But when he realized that most civilized nations strongly condemn the Holocaust of 6 million plus Jews, he began to soften his anti-Semitism. In the Arab world the worse anti-Semitic peoples were the Egyptians and Palestinians. The PA even edited their own version of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. That book was available at newsstands in Egypt. Apparently it was very popular among Palestinian-Egyptians as well. The foremost “Palestinian” spokesperson for both the Holocaust and the destruction of Jews was the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husayni who was a fervent Nazi who was an advisor to Hitler and lived in Nazi Germany where he made broadcasts into the Arab world. He actually chastised powerful Nazis for considering exchanging Jewish children for German POWs and succeeded in convincing them to not do the exchange and send the children to their deaths instead. He was more fanatical than German Nazis. The present Mufti, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein appointed by Abbas holds strong anti-Semitic views and praises “martyrs” who kill Jews, denies Jewish History and referred to the Jewish presence in the land of Israel as a “colonialist cancer.” Same old same old. Palestinians are rabid anti-Semites today as well.