Netanyahu accuses Palestinian president of anti-Semitism
PALESTINA - Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned as antisemitic remarks by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, after he claimed past massacres including the Holocaust were related to the “social function” of Jews in banking.
“It would appear that, once a Holocaust denier, always a Holocaust denier,” the Israeli prime minister said of Abbas on Twitter on Wednesday. “I call upon the international community to condemn the grave antisemitism of Abu Mazen, which should have long since passed from this world.” Israel’s foreign ministry accused Abbas of fuelling religious and nationalist hatred against the Jewish people and Israel. Netanyahu’s spokesperson said the comments were “pathetic”. US officials also criticised the comments. David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, said Abbas had reached a new low, while Donald Trump’s envoy, Jason Greenblatt, said “peace cannot be built on this kind of foundation”. The European Union’s foreign service also condemned the remarks as “unacceptable”. The European External Action Service said in a statement: “Such rhetoric will only play into the hands of those who do not want a two-state solution, which President Abbas has repeatedly advocated.” Abbas, who has faced accusations of antisemitism before, suggested in an address to a meeting of the Palestinian National Council on Monday night that Jews’ relations with banking and moneylending had led to hostility. “From the 11th century until the Holocaust that took place in Germany, those Jews who moved to western and eastern Europe were subjected to a massacre every 10 to 15 years. But why did this happen? They say: ‘It is because we are Jews,’” he told the hundreds of delegates. He then cited “three books [written by Jews]” as evidence that “hostility against Jews is not because of their religion, but rather their social function”, saying he meant their social function related to banks and interest. He incorrectly contrasted this with Jews in the Arab world, who he argued had not faced persecution. Incidents of antisemitism in Arab countries, as well as Europe, are well-documented. At one point during his speech, Abbas erroneously said Joseph Stalin was Jewish. He later corrected himself, saying he had meant to refer to Karl Marx. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum dismissed the claims as “grossly inaccurate and an insidious type of antisemitism”. “The Nazis believed that Germans were racially superior and that the Jews, deemed inferior, were a threat to the so-called German racial community and had to be eliminated,” the museum said in a statement.
(CNN)