The US and EU on Thursday condemned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for a recent speech about the origins of Ashkenazi Jews and Adolf Hitler’s motivations, with the latter saying it fuels antisemitism and insults Holocaust victims.
US Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt slammed the “hateful, antisemitic remarks” made by Abbas in a speech last month to his Fatah party’s Revolutionary Council.
“The speech maligned the Jewish people, distorted the Holocaust, and misrepresented the tragic exodus of Jews from Arab countries,” Lipstadt wrote on X.
“I condemn these statements and urge an immediate apology,” she added.
Lipstadt’s condemnation came as the EU also denounced Abbas’s comments, saying they contained “false and grossly misleading remarks about Jews and antisemitism.”
Abbas repeated a number of antisemitic canards he has uttered over the years, including that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler had Jews slaughtered because of their “social role” as moneylenders, not because of enmity toward Judaism.
“Such historical distortions are inflammatory, deeply offensive, can only serve to exacerbate tensions in the region and serve no one’s interests,” read the EU statement. “They play into the hands of those who do not want a two-state solution, which President Abbas has repeatedly advocated for.
“Moreover, they trivialize Holocaust [sic] and thereby fuel antisemitism and are an insult to the millions of victims of the Holocaust and their families,” continued the European condemnation.
France’s embassy called the speech “clearly unacceptable” and stated that it “unequivocally strongly condemns antisemitism and the denial of the Holocaust in all its forms, as well as its determination to fight tirelessly against these scourges.”
In his speech, Abbas outlined the baseless theory that Ashkenazi Jews are not descended from ancient Israelites but from an ancient Turkish people known as the Khazars, who according to a discredited theory converted to Judaism en masse.
“The truth that we should clarify to the world is that European Jews are not Semites,” Abbas said, according to a translation of his remarks by the Middle East Media Research Institute. “They have nothing to do with Semitism.”
“So when we hear them talk about Semitism and antisemitism, the Ashkenazi Jews, at least, are not Semites,” he added.
Abbas has previously claimed publicly that Ashkenazi Jews are the descendants of Khazars, including in a 2018 speech in which he also charged that Jews’ “social behavior” caused the Holocaust.
“They say that Hitler killed the Jews because they were Jews and that Europe hated the Jews because they were Jews. Not true. It was clearly explained that [the Europeans] fought [the Jews] because of their social role, and not their religion,” Abbas said in August. “Several authors wrote about this. Even Karl Marx said this was not true. He said that the enmity was not directed at Judaism as a religion but at Judaism for its social role.”
“The [Europeans] fought against these people because of their role in society, which had to do with usury, money and so on and so forth,” he continued.
Abbas then appeared to repeat the stab-in-the-back myth that Hitler subscribed to after World War I, blaming the Jews and others for Germany’s loss in the conflict.
“Everybody knows that during World War I, Hitler was a sergeant. He said that he fought the Jews because they were dealing with usury and money. In his view, they were engaged in sabotage, and this is why he hated them,” he said. “We just want to make this point clear: This was not about Semitism and antisemitism.”
“As for the eastern Jews, they are Semites,” he added, referring to Jews from the greater Middle East.
Abbas also launched a fresh diatribe against the Balfour Declaration, the 1917 document issued by the British government declaring support for a “national home” for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, which he charged America was a party to at the time.
“Who invented the [Jewish] state? It was Britain and America, not just Britain,” he claimed. “I am saying this so that we know who we should accuse of being our enemy, who has harmed us and took our homeland away, and gave it to the Israelis or the Jews.”
