Mahmoud Abbas made statements in August that could be interpreted as a defense of Hitler’s extermination of the Jews. The PA president served up a series of historical falsifications and claimed that it was not antisemitism that led to the Holocaust, but that “the Jews had engaged in money lending” .
Memri published excerpts of the speech in English translation on 6 September. The next day, MIFF wrote to Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs via X (formerly Twitter): “Listen to this. This is the dictator, who defends Hitler and portrays the United States as an enemy, which Norway finances.”
MIFF also published an article on the same day, echoing strong international reactions.
Until today, MIFF had not registered any reaction from the Norwegian authorities, and we still cannot find any trace of any major Norwegian media having written about the case.
But the Ministry of Foreign Affairs actually reacted with condemnation as early as 8 September.
“Norway condemns any attempt to distort or trivialize the Holocaust, including the recent statements by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Norway remains strongly committed to combating anti-Semitism,” wrote the Foreign Ministry on X.
This week, Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt is in Israel and the Palestinian Authority. There, she gets a good opportunity to follow up on the fight against antisemitism when she has meetings with Palestinian leaders.
