Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas took another crack at rewriting history on Monday evening in his address at the start of the four-day Palestinian National Council session in Ramallah.
Abbas said during his address that the Jews were murdered in the Holocaust due to their own “social behavior, [charging] interest, and financial matters,” and claimed “Such pogroms did not take place in Arab nations, which had Jewish communities.”
He also denied – again – the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel.
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt condemned the “ahistorical and pseudo-academic assertions” and said the address showed the “depth and persistency of the anti-Semitic attitudes” Abbas maintains.
“With public speeches like these, it is not surprising that under Abbas’ leadership, the Palestinian Authority has failed to renounce and combat Palestinian anti-Semitic incitement, including narratives that Jews are to blame for the Holocaust and other anti-Semitic persecution, and which deny or diminish the millennial Jewish presence in and connection to the Land of Israel,” he said.
Polling by the ADL on anti-Semitic attitudes in Judea, Samaria and Gaza has found that about 93 percent of the population harbors deep-seated anti-Semitic attitudes – the highest level measured in any society in the world.
