Speaking to his compatriots-in-arms, speaking in Arabic, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared that Hitler murdered Jews because they were money lenders.
He excused Hitler, explaining that the mass murderer was trying to solve a social economic problem. Abbas explained away the Holocaust saying that Jews were killed, not because they were Jewish, but because of their Jewish history of money lending.
This distortion of history was put forth by the Palestinian president in an address he gave before the Palestinian Revolutionary Council. Time after time, Abbas’ hate-speech, his awful, anti-Jewish, anti-West remarks are not translated. He speaks to the Arab world. To rile up the Arab world. This speech was no exception.
The behavior, the obvious snub of the Western world, is nothing new for Abbas. On May 4, 2018, in a speech to the Palestinian National Council, Abbas proclaimed that Jews living in Europe were persecuted “every 10 to 15 years in some country since the 11th century and until the Holocaust.”
And this, according to Abbas, is the reason why: “They say hatred against Jews was not because of their religion, it was because of their social profession. So, the Jewish issue that had spread against the Jews across Europe was not because of their religion, it was because of usury and banks … Jews from Arab countries did not want to emigrate but were forced to do so by Israel.”
Abbas is not alone in this obfuscated thinking. It is a prevailing attitude toward the Jew in the Middle East among Arabs and Muslims. It is part of a repetitive educational bent that both rejects the Holocaust and elevates Hitler and Nazism.
Throughout the Arab and Muslim world, there is a culture of disinformation in schools and mosques about Jews and Israel. There is an educational culture that embraces facts that are contrary to some of the most commonly accepted and understood axioms of Western history and culture.
The Holocaust — its existence, its history and its horrors, is but one example.
Mahmoud Abbas’ doctoral dissertation was written in 1982 in Moscow at the Patrice Lumumba University. His official degree was Candidate of Sciences which was the Soviet equivalent to a Ph.D.
Abbas’ dissertation was titled “The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism.” It was published in book form in 1984, republished in 2011 and can be purchased today on the official website of the Palestinian Authority and on Abbas’ webpage.
Abbas claims that the Zionists colluded with the Nazis to murder the Jews of Europe to stimulate a mass exodus to Palestine. He claims that 6 million murdered Jews is an exaggeration, that 800,000 is more likely.
He claims that there were no gas chambers. The only creative element in his work is when Abbas analyzes how the Zionists used the persecution of the Jews of Europe to their benefit.
He won’t let go of his falsehoods and tropes.
In a recent rant about Jews, a rant that was delivered in Arabic and not translated, Abbas said: “The truth that we should clarify to the world is that European Jews are not Semites. They have nothing to do with antisemitism.”
Claiming that Great Britain and the United States created the idea of Jewish statehood, Abbas explained that: “I am saying this so we should 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.” In other words, it was the English and the Americans who took Palestinian homes and Palestinian land, it is they who gave it all to the Jews.
And earlier this year, speaking to his supporters, Abbas put forth the claim that Israel has perpetrated “50 Holocausts against Palestinians.” In laying claim to this absurd comparison, Abbas said: “The Israelis and Zionists continue their false claims that Israel made the desert bloom. Palestine was a desert, and they made it blossom, a paradise. They can’t but lie. But what can we do? They lie and “lie just like Goebbels. They lie, lie and lie until people believe.”
But it is his lies that are so blatant. Even Sarah Idan, the woman crowned Miss Iraq condemned the Palestinian president. Her tweet was simple. She synopsized Abbas’ speech and wrote: “Shame on every leader who gave money to this antisemite.”
The mayor of Paris, Mayor Anne Hidaglo, revoked the highest honor that Paris has to give, from Mahmoud Abbas. She did not mince words, emphasizing that the honor was revoked because of Abbas’ “clear desire to deny the genocide to which the Jewish populations of Europe were victims at the hands of the Nazi regime.”
The mayor of Paris said that Abbas’s comments: “are contrary to our universal values and the historical truth of the Holocaust, so you can no longer claim ... the highest distinction of Paris … I condemn your comments in the strongest possible terms; no cause can justify revisionism and negationism. As you know, the Holocaust is part of the history of Paris,”
The ideas that Mahmoud Abbas repeats over and over in Arabic are endemic to Palestinian society. They are very hard to correct, especially because Arab leaders who are supposedly open and friendly to the West, reiterate them.
Changing an attitude about a firm conviction is very difficult to accomplish. Think back to the argument that the earth is not flat. Galileo, in the 1600s, was not the first. Columbus and his adventures were supposed to prove the spherical nature of the earth and that they would not sail off the edge. Sailors knew this to be true because the horizon was rounded. But they were a small minority.
It will take a very long time for Arab culture to recognize the truth about Israel, the Holocaust and Jews. It will not, cannot happen, until leaders like Mahmoud Abbas stop preaching their canards and falsehoods and start teaching the truth.
Micah Halpern is a political and foreign affairs commentator. He founded "The Micah Report" and hosts "Thinking Out Loud with Micah Halpern," a weekly TV program, and "My Chopp," a daily radio spot. Follow him on Twitter @MicahHalpern. Read Micah Halpern's Reports — More Here.