NEW YORK- Following in the footsteps of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), a Holocaust-denier, a senior Hamas leader has authored an article calling the Holocaust a hoax.
Writing in the August 21, 2003 issue of the official Hamas weekly Al-Risala, Dr. Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rantisi, a senior Hamas leader, asserted
“The Zionists … have succeeded in misleading the West and making it believe in the false Holocaust … The Zionists were behind the Nazis’ murder of many Jews, and agreed to it, with the aim of intimidating them [the Jews] and forcing them to immigrate to Palestine. Every time they failed to persuade a group of Jews to immigrate [to Palestine], they unhesitatingly sentenced [them] to death. Afterwards, they would organize great propaganda campaigns, to cash in on their blood. The Nazis received tremendous financial aid from the Zionist banks and monopolies, and this contributed to their rise to power … The crimes perpetrated by the Nazis against humanity, with all their atrocities, are no more than a tiny particle compared to the Zionists’ terror against the Palestinian people.” (Translation courtesy of MEMRI.)
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) points out that for the PA to permit Hamas to publish such articles in a clear violation of the Bush Road Map’s prohibition against anti-Jewish incitement. Indeed, for the PA to permit Hamas to publish any kind of newspaper is a violation of the Road Map’s requirement that the PA dismantle Hamas.
On the other hand, it is no surprise that the PA permits Hamas to spread Holocaust-denial, since Abu Mazen himself 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.)
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