US slams Abbas’ anti-Semitic rant as ‘new low’

“Abu Mazen  has reached a new low in attributing the cause of massacres of Jewish people over the years to their ‘social behavior relating to interest and banks,'” Ambassador Friedman stated. 

By: World Israel News Staff

Senior US officials castigated Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas for an anti-Semitic speech he delivered to the Palestinian leadership in which he alleged that the Jews’ own conduct caused anti-Semitism and that Jewish usury caused the Holocaust.

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman stated on Twitter that “Abu Mazen [Abbas] has reached a new low in attributing the cause of massacres of Jewish people over the years to their ‘social behavior relating to interest and banks’.”

“To all those who think Israel is the reason that we don’t have peace, think again,” he added.

Jason Greenblatt, President Donald Trump’s special representative for international negotiations, stated in a tweet that Abbas’ remarks “must be unconditionally condemned by all.”

“They are very unfortunate, very distressing and terribly disheartening,” he said, adding that “peace cannot be built on this kind of foundation.”

He posted his remarks in Arabic as well.

Addressing the Palestinian National Council (PNC), the PLO parliament, in Ramallah on Monday, Abbas dismissed Israel’s existence as “a colonial project intended to plant an odd body in this region [Middle East],” but then claimed he was “not saying here that Israel should be removed. Israel exists, and all I want is a state so that we can live together in peace.”

He also discussed what he alleges are the causes of 20th-century anti-Semitism in Europe, claiming that his views are based on books by Jewish writers. “The conclusion of these books is that animosity toward Jews was not because of their religion, but because of their social activities,” including money-lending, he said, parroting common anti-Semitic tropes.

Abbas touched on a number of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories during what he called a “history lesson,” attempting to prove that the 3,000-year-old Jewish connection to the Land of Israel is false.

Citing Arthur Koestler’s book, The Thirteenth Tribe, which claims that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Khazars, Abbas said European Jews therefore had “no historical ties” to the Land of Israel.

He went on to say that the Holocaust was not the result of anti-Semitism, but rather of the Jews’ “social behavior,  [charging] interest, and financial matters.”

Abbas further claimed that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler facilitated the immigration of Jews to Israel by reaching a deal with the Anglo-Palestine Bank under which Jews who moved to the British Mandate of Palestine could transfer all their assets there.