Israel-Palestine, endless conflict? The Palestinian President is obsessed with Ashkenazi history and regularly slips into revisionism, adding to the sense of an endless day the Palestinian cause is living through.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was heavily criticized and accused of anti-Semitism on Wednesday after delivering an imaginative history lesson to his party’s Fatah Revolutionary Council in Ramallah from August 24-26.
He sat on a podium in front of a banner commemorating the Palestinian martyrs and faced an audience smothered by boredom and halogen lights. He reiterated the controversial theory that Ashkenazi Jews originated exclusively from the Khazars, “a Tatar kingdom converted to the Jewish kingdom.” Religion in the 9th century. An argument that, in his opinion, proves that it is not their religion, but “their place in society … combined with usury and money” that brought Europe’s Jews discrimination against their fellow citizens and the torture of the Shoah.
“Historical truth, not this kind of manipulation”
These statements were condemned by the German ambassador to Israel on Wednesday. “President Abbas’s recent statement about Jews and the Holocaust is an insult to the memory of the millions of murdered men, women and children,” emphasized Steffen Seibert on X (formerly Twitter). Palestinians deserve to hear the historical truth from their leader, not this kind of manipulation.”
President Abbas’ recent statement on Jews and the Holocaust is an insult to the memory of millions of murdered men, women and children. Palestinians deserve to hear the historical truth from their leader, not such distortions.
— Steffen Seibert (@GerAmbTLV) September 6, 2023
On Thursday, the European Union also estimated that this “insult to the victims of the Holocaust” “could only increase tensions in the region … and favor those who reject the two-state solution that President Abbas regularly promotes”.
These condemnations are not a direct response to the retransmission of the event by Palestinian television, but rather to the proliferation on social media of an abridged clip translated by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri). The non-profit organization is close to Israeli interests and specializes in the translation and analysis of media content from the Middle East. Founded in 1997 by a former Israeli intelligence officer, it specifically aims to influence American politicians and the Western press. Lately, despite its name, it also offers a critical look at Chinese and Russian stocks.
Diplomatic outcry
The two Western chancellories did not comment on the second part of the presidential intervention, also translated by Memri, in which Mahmoud Abbas blames the United States and the United Kingdom for “the plundering of our ancestral lands”.
Such evasion, with hints of anti-Semitism, is a vice that Mahmoud Abbas regularly falls into. In fact, this latest diatribe oddly resembles, sometimes word for word, an April 2018 intervention before another Fatah body. After sparking a diplomatic outcry, he apologized.
This only reinforces the feeling of endless daylight that the Palestinian cause is experiencing. Five years ago we sadly celebrated the 25th anniversary of the betrayed dream of Oslo and anxiously awaited the death of this sick octogenarian and heavy smoker who did not want to give up power. Today it still exists and has the semblance of a Palestinian state in itself, its territory and public legitimacy shrinking a little more every day.