No Surprise, Since PA’s
Prime Minister is Holocaust-Denier
NEW YORK- The official Palestinian Authority newspaper has asserted that Zionist leaders collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust in order to kill anti-Zionist Jews and force other Jews to immigrate to Palestine. Such libels are an egregious violation of the Road Map’s prohibition against incitement.
An article in the PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on June 24, 2003, stated:
“If coming back to the suffering and tribulations [caused] by the Nazis, we would read hair-raising things about the entanglement of the Zionist leaders in the “sacrifice” of many Jews in order to kill two birds with one stone: to be rid of those who disagreed with them [meaning Jews opposed to Zionism] on the one hand and, on the other, to push all the Jews to immigrate to Palestine, since Europe had become an unbearable Hell.
“I would like to say that, based on the above, the Jewish — or more accurately Zionist — willingness to sacrifice Jews for the above mentioned cause is a known historical tradition.”
(Translation courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch.)
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) points out that the PA’s latest Holocaust slur should come as no surprise, since PA Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is himself a Holocaust-denier who has accused Zionist leaders of collaborating with the Nazis. Mazen is the author of a 1983 book called The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement, in which he stated that the Nazis may actually have killed “only a few hundred thousand” Jews, not six million; that Zionist leaders collaborated with the Nazis and gave “permission to every racist in the world, led by Hitler and the Nazis, to treat Jews as they wish, so long as it guarantees immigration to Palestine. Zionism not only gave this permission but was seeking more victims in order to maintain equality with the sacrifices of other nations during the war”; and that “the interest of the Zionist movement is to inflate this figure [from several hundred thousand to 6 million] so that their gains will be greater.” (Jerusalem Post, Jan. 26, 1995)
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said: “At the very moment that some are claiming Abu Mazen’s and his PA regime are moderate and interested in negotiations, Mazen’s official PA newspaper is promoting the most vicious slander about Zionism, Jews, and the Holocaust. If Mazen wants peace, why is he promoting hateful lies about the Jewish people and Jewish history?”
The Bush administration’s Road Map plan specifically requires that “all official Palestinian institutions end incitement against Israel.” The plan also states that the incitement had to end by May 31, 2003—nearly four weeks ago.
ZOA president Klein added: “Abu Mazen claims that he doesn’t have a sufficiently large security force to combat terrorism. But he doesn’t need a security force to order his own newspaper to stop its vicious anti-Jewish incitement. All he needs to do is give the order. Why won’t he do it?”
The ZOA notes that a February 2003 poll by McLaughlin & Associates found that 64% of Americans believe that “world leaders should refuse to meet with Abbas and treat him the same as others who deny or minimize the Holocaust.” Only 20% of Americans believe that world leaders should meet with Abbas.
PA spokesmen and official PA publications have repeatedly called the Holocaust a hoax or belittled the Holocaust by comparing Israel to the Nazis. For a free copy of the ZOA’s report, Holocaust Denial and Distortion by Palestinian Arab Leaders, please call the ZOA at 212-481-1500.