With more and more people condemning Mahmoud Abbas’ antisemitic remarks, the palestinians have gone into damage control mode. Which apparently means scraping the bottom of the excuse barrel.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas does not personally maintain that Jews were massacred in Europe for centuries because of their “social role related to usury and banks,” a senior Palestinian official said on Wednesday.
In a long speech on Monday in front of a top Palestine Liberation Organization body in Ramallah, Abbas said Jews were not killed in Europe over the years because of their religion, but rather “their social role related to usury and banks.” The PA president said he was referencing the writings of Karl Marx and two other Jewish authors.
“President Abbas does not personally hold that Jews were killed because of their social role related to banks. He was merely stating the opinion of Marx and other Jewish writers,” Mahmoud al-Habash, the PA president’s religious affairs adviser, told The Jerusalem Post.
When asked why Abbas made the statement, if he does not personally believe it, Habash said: “There are two narratives: One narrative is that Jews were killed because of their social role and another is they were killed because of their religion. We are not adopting either of these narratives, but rather leaving it to historians to determine the truth.”
When asked why Abbas only cited one of the “two narratives” for why Jews were killed in Europe, Habash repeated: “Abu Mazen is not stating his personal perspective, but rather a historical narrative that he has not adopted.”
Let’s just recap that excuse for a second.
You know all that antisemitic stuff Mahmoud Abbas said? It did not represent his personal view at all, but rather those of some Jews, which he just decided to repeat for no apparent reason.
Besides not making any sense, sounds to me like the denial of his antisemitic remarks is itself antisemitic. Meta.
Meanwhile, chief palestinian propagandist Saeb Erekat went one step further, claiming Abbas’ words had been twisted.
Responding to the Israeli criticism, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Abbas’ words had been “twisted” and that he had been citing the views of some historians.
“The president did not deny the massacres the Jews were subject to, including the Holocaust,” Erekat said in a statement published on the official Palestinian news agency WAFA. “President Abbas has stressed frequently his respect for the religion of Judaism, and that our problem is with who occupies our land.”
The only thing twisted here is their belief they can insult our intelligence. Video of Abbas spouting his antisemitic bile is readily available, and any Arabic speaker can confirm the translation. And while he does quote Marx et al, it is clear he is endorsing that narrative.
What’s more, Abbas has been doing the Jew-hating thing for a while.
“I don’t want to discuss religion or history because they are really excellent in faking and counterfeiting history and religion. But if we read the Torah it says that the Canaanites were there before the time of our prophet Abraham and their [Canaanite] existence continued since that time, this is in the Torah itself. But if they would like to fake this history, they are really masters in this and it is mentioned in the holy Quran they fabricate truth and they try to do that and they believe in that but we have been there in this location for thousands of years.”
Unless he was just quoting Karl Marx again.
