Archive for May 2, 2018

EU condemns Abbas’s ‘unacceptable’ remarks about Holocaust

May 2, 2018

‘Such rhetoric will only play into the hands of those who do not want a two-state solution,’ the European External Action Service says in statement after PM Netanyahu called on international community to denounce the PA leader’s anti-Semitic comments.

Reuters|Published:  05.02.18 , 15:42

In strikingly blunt language from Brussels, the European External Action Service said in a statement: “The speech Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delivered on 30 April contained unacceptable remarks concerning the origins of the Holocaust and Israel’s legitimacy.

“Such rhetoric will only play into the hands of those who do not want a two-state solution, which President Abbas has repeatedly advocated.”

Palestinian President Abbas (Photo: EPA)
 Netanyahu called for international condemnation of anti-Semitism by Abbas over remarks on Monday in which the Palestinian leader suggested historic persecution of Jews in Europe was caused by their conduct.

“With utmost ignorance and brazen gall, (Abbas) claimed that European Jews were persecuted and murdered not because they were Jews but because they gave loans with interest,” Netanyahu said. “Abbas is once again reciting the most contemptible anti-Semitic canards. Apparently the Holocaust-denier is still a Holocaust-denier.”

The EEAS added: “Anti-Semitism is not only a threat for Jews but a fundamental menace to our open and liberal societies.

“The European Union remains committed to combat any form of anti-Semitism and any attempt to condone, justify or grossly trivialize the Holocaust.”

In his speech Monday, the Palestinian leader repeated conspiracy theories about the Jews’ origins and their ties to the land of Israel.

“The Jewish question that was widespread throughout Europe was not against their religion, but against their social function, which relates to usury and banking and such,” Abbas said on Monday.

Palestinian President Abbas (Photo: Reuters)

He claimed Nazi leader Adolf Hitler offered the Jews money incentives to emigrate out of Europe to Palestine, including the option of taking all of their assets with them and selling their real state in the continent.

“He (Hitler) wanted the Jewish homeland (in Palestine) to be supportive of him,” the Palestinian leader said.

Abbas also spoke about the roots of European Jewry, quoting a historian called Arthur Koestler who wrote about a “13th tribe” of Israel in the “Khazar Kingdom”—a theory that has been dismissed by other Jewish historians.

The Khazar Kingdom, Abbas said, eventually collapsed and its subjects spread throughout Europe. Those subjects, Abbas asserted, are the Ashkenazi Jews.

“They have no relationship to Semitic culture, Abraham, Jacob and others,” Abbas claimed.

 He also compared the treatment of European Jews to that of Jews who lived in Arab nations, saying the latter never suffered from persecution in the 1,400 years they lived there.

 

Palestinians said set to withdraw recognition of Israel

May 2, 2018

Sources tell pan-Arab daily that the PLO will seek to pause all agreements until Jerusalem recognizes a state of Palestine

Today, 1:13 pm

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas gestures as he chairs a Palestinian National Council meeting in Ramallah, April 30, 2018. (ABBAS MOMANI/AFP)

The top-level governing body of the Palestine Liberation Organization is reportedly set to adopt a resolution freezing its recognition of Israel and making it dependent of Israel recognizing a state of Palestine.

Sources close to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat that the Palestinian National Council is expected to pass the resolution during its current gathering, and will also put on hold all other agreements with Israel.

Abbas is reportedly to announce the measures during a speech to the council on Thursday evening.

The sources said the PNC, which is holding a rare gathering this week in Ramallah, will make a number of decisions against Israel. Among other things, the council will allow the filing of war crimes complaints against Israeli figures and organizations, the sources said.

The PNC is the legislative body of the PLO, the official representative of the Palestinian people all over the world, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The PA, headed by Abbas, was created as a result of the 1993 Oslo Accords, in which the Palestinians agreed to recognize Israel. The PA is responsible for governing the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Decisions made by the PNC are usually also adopted by the PA.

In addition to the measures against Israel, the PNC will call for ending money transfers to the Gaza Strip, which the Hamas terror group seized from Abbas’s Fatah party in a violent coup in 2007, the report said. Several attempts at reconciliation between the rival factions have failed to restore PA governance in Gaza.

Abbas told the council that the PA, which has already slashed funding and imposed other sanctions on Hamas, transfers some $115 million a month to the Strip.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas gestures during a Palestinian National Council meeting in Ramallah, April 30, 2018. (ABBAS MOMANI/AFP)

On Monday Abbas provoked condemnation from Israel and the US after he gave a long, rambling speech to the council in which he said that the Holocaust was not caused by anti-Semitism but by the “social behavior” of Jews, including money lending. He touched on a number of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories during what he called a “history lesson” as he sought to prove the 3,000 year-old Jewish connection to the Land of Israel is false.

Abbas also spoke at length about the failed peace process and reiterated his preemptive rejection of the peace plan that the Trump administration is working on, amid an ongoing and deep rift with the US.

The Palestinian leader told the hundreds of delegates that he was sticking to his rejection of any US proposals for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal following the Trump administration’s recognition in December of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and a decision to move the US embassy there in mid-May.

The 82-year-old Abbas warned that he might “take tough steps in the near future in our relationship with our neighbors (Israel) and the Americans.” He did not elaborate, but said they would be important and far-reaching.

Later this week, the Palestinian National Council is to elect a new PLO Executive Committee, an 18-member leadership group that has served in recent years to rubberstamp any decisions by Abbas.

The elections, tightly controlled by Abbas, are expected to install a new group of loyalists in the committee. The council last convened over 20 years ago.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.