“An insult to millions of Holocaust victims”: The European Union criticizes Mahmoud Abbas’ statements

The European Union strongly condemned the statements of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday. The European Union said in a statement that Abbas’ speech “contains extremely false and misleading statements about Jews and anti-Semitism.” And a reminder that “such historical distortions are controversial [et] This is in the interest of those who do not want a two-state solution. They belittle the Holocaust and are an insult to the millions of victims and their families.” The Consulate General of France in Jerusalem also condemned Abbas’s statements, in a statement on X (formerly Twitter), describing them as “totally unacceptable.”

The US government’s Special Envoy to Combat Racism and Anti-Semitism, Deborah Lipstadt, declared on X (formerly Twitter) that she was “appalled by the hateful and anti-Semitic remarks made by President Abbas during the recent Fatah meeting. This speech slandered the Jewish people, she added. It distorted the Holocaust and misrepresented the tragic exodus of Jews from Arab countries. I condemn these statements and demand an immediate apology.”

“Hitler killed the Jews because of their social function, not because of anti-Semitism”

The Palestinian Authority president sparked controversy in a recent speech on August 26, claiming that Adolf Hitler massacred Jews because of their “social role” as moneylenders, not out of any hostility toward Judaism. He also stated that Ashkenazi Jews are “not Semitic”.

“The truth we need to make clear to the world is that European Jews are not Semites,” he said. These statements were reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

This is not the first time that Mahmoud Abbas has made controversial statements about the Jews. Last year, he accused Israel of committing “50 Holocausts,” comments condemned by Israel, Germany and the United States. As a reminder, the Palestinian leader, who studied history in his youth, wrote a controversial memoir in 1983 about the genocide of the Jews, in which he claimed that “only” 890,000 Jews were killed during the Holocaust.