Mahmoud Abbas: Jews Caused Holocaust With Their ‘Social Behavior’

Image by getty images
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the Holocaust was caused by the “social behavior” of Jews, such as money lending, and not by anti-Semitism.
Speaking Monday in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Abbas also said that Jews do not have a historical connection to the land.
“Israel is a colonial project that has nothing to do with the Jews,” he told the Palestinian National Council, and the “Europeans wanted to bring the Jews here to preserve their interests in the region.”
The council is the legislative body of the Palestine Liberation Organization and elects the PLO’s Executive Committee, which makes decisions on all Palestinian issues — in Israel, the West Bank and around the world. New members are expected to be elected to the council during its four-day meeting that began Monday.
Abbas, who called his speech a “history lesson,” also indicated that Adolf Hitler facilitated the immigration of Jews to Israel. He claimed that the German leader cut a deal with the Anglo-Palestine Bank, known today as Israel’s Bank Leumi, allowing Jews who moved to the British Mandate of Palestine to transfer all their assets there through the bank.
The Palestinian Authority leader said, however, that most of Europe’s Jews thought their money was more important than their lives because they stayed put.
Abbas has already faced accusations of Holocaust denial based on his 1982 doctoral dissertation titled “The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism.”
Abbas reiterated that he would not accept an American peace deal in the wake of the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to move its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv later this month.
The Anti-Defamation League condemned Abbas’ speech.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Books The White House Seder started in a Pennsylvania basement. Its legacy lives on.
-
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
-
Fast Forward Yarden Bibas says ‘I am here because of Trump’ and pleads with him to stop the Gaza war
-
Fast Forward Trump’s plan to enlist Elon Musk began at Lubavitcher Rebbe’s grave
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.