Mahmoud Abbas

Mahmoud Abbas (Arabic: محمود عباس) (born November 15, 1935), commonly known as Abu Mazen (ابو مازن), was elected President (Ra'ees) of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) on 9 January 2005 and took office on 15 January 2005.

Mahmoud Abbas

Quotes

2004–2006

• We have at least 12 security apparatuses that cannot be controlled by anybody.
  • Interview in Newsweek (20 July 2004) by Dan Ephron

• The little jihad is over, and now we have the bigger jihad - the bigger battle is achieving security and economic growth.
  • Campaign speech in Gaza City (20 August 2005), quoted in The New York Times (21 August) Hamas Pushing for Lead Role in a New Gaza by James Bennet

• From here, our people begin the march towards establishing an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital
  • Speech at the Gaza City harbour on the occasion of Jewish settler withdrawal (12 August 2005), quoted in BBC News, "Gaza boats mass to mark pullout"

• Today we are visitors to the airport, tomorrow we will come here as travellers.
  • Speech at Yaser Arafat International Airport (19 August 2005)

• I simply want tomorrow to be better than today. I want Palestine to be independent and sovereign... Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.
  • Address to the UN General Assembly (21 September 2006), quoted in BBC News (22 September 2006) "Hamas rejects Abbas unity pledge

2022-present

• If we want to dig further into the past, yes, please, I have 50 massacres that were committed by Israel [...] Fifty massacres, 50 Holocausts, and to this day, every day, we have dead people killed by the [Israeli Defence Forces], by the Israeli army.
  • Comments (16 August 2022) at a joint press conference with German chancellor Olaf Scholz at the end of his state visit to Germany, as cited in "Uproar after Mahmoud Abbas in Berlin accuses Israel of '50 Holocausts'", The Guardian (17 August 2022)
  • After being asked by a German journalist if Abbas intended to apologise for the Munich Olympics massacre on 5 September 1972 which was carried out by Black September, a terrorist group linked to Abbas' Fatah.

• Israeli and Zionist claims continue by saying that Israel made the desert bloom. As if Palestine was a desert and they made the desert bloom [...] These are lies. They continue to lie, like Goebbels, and they continue to lie until people believe their lies.
  • Comments at a United Nations event in New York City (15 May 20-23) commemorating the Nakba (the 1948 Palestinian exodus), as cited in "'An affront to Holocaust victims': Deborah Lipstadt slams Mahmoud Abbas for likening Israel to Joseph Goebbels", Jewish Telegraphic Agency (17 May 2023)

• 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 ... [Hitler] said 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. We just want to make this point clear. This was not about Semitism and antisemitism.
  • From a speech at Fatah's Revolutionary Council (late August 2023), as cited in "The Holocaust Wasn't Fueled by Antisemitism, Hitler Hated Jews for Their Money: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas", Haaretz (7 September 2023)
  • Haaretz reported Abbas ignored Nazi racial theories in his speech.

About Abbas

• One of the less savory aspects of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's biography is that he has a PhD in Holocaust denial–literally. His 1982 dissertation, published as The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism, famously argues that the Zionists collaborated with the Nazis in order to spur more Jewish immigration to Palestine. "The Zionist movement," it explains, "led a broad campaign of incitement against the Jews living under Nazi rule, in order to arouse the government's hatred of them, to fuel vengeance against them, and to expand the mass extermination." The Zionists, the work asserts, were the Third Reich’s "basic partner in crime." It also claims that the figure of six million dead has been exaggerated for political gain, and suggests one million as a more reasonable estimate.
  • Yair Rosenberg "Mahmoud Abbas: Still a Holocaust Denier", Tablet (27 April 2014)

See also

• Ismail Haniyeh