Wiesenthal Center Condemns Palestinian Authority President’s Remarks Blaming The Holocaust On ‘Jewish Behavior’ And For Denying That Jews Have Any Historical Connection To Holy Land

May 1, 2018

The Simon Wiesenthal Center condemned Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas’ remarks in Ramallah where he said that Jews caused the Holocaust because of “social behavior”.

“Mahmoud Abbas’ speech in Ramallah are the words of a classic anti-Semite. Instead of blaming the Jews, he should look in his own backyard to the role played by the Grand Mufti in supporting Adolf Hitler’s Final Solution,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, Founder and Dean of the Wiesenthal Center, and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Center’s Director of Global Social Action.

Hier and Cooper said that the Wiesenthal Center has a copy of Heinrich Himmler’s telegram to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem on November 2, 1943, the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, where the SS head wrote, “The firm foundation of the natural alliance that exists between National Socialist Greater Germany and the freedom loving Moslems of the whole world….It is in this spirit that I am sending you, on the anniversary of the infamous Balfour Declaration, my heartiest wishes for the successful pursuit of your struggle until the final victory,”

Center officials had also exposed Abbas’ 1982 PhD thesis, “The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism”, wherein he questioned whether 6 million Jews perished on the Holocaust. Abbas was forced to acknowledge that historic fact.                                               

Responding to Abbas’ other claim that Jews have no historical connection to  the Holy Land, Rabbis Hier and Cooper pointed to another document in the Wiesenthal Center’s possession, the Supreme Muslim Council’s 1924 guide to the Temple Mount, where they write that the site’s identity with Solomon’s Temple was “beyond dispute” [see right].    

 

 

 

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The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).

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