PA Chairman Abbas and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

During an interview to be aired Friday on Al Meyadeen, a Lebanon-based broadcast channel, Mahmoud Abbas has claimed that Zionism and Naziism were complicit prior to World War II.

“I challenge anyone to deny the relationship between Zionism and Nazism before World War II,” Abbas says in the interview, which has been teased ahead of time.

Anonymous pro-Israel blogger Elder of Ziyon, who first picked up on  the story, took issue with the assertion. “This is, of course, a sickening implication. There were contacts before World War II as Zionists tried to save Jews from Germany; for example, the Ha’avara Agreement. Abbas is however trying to spin it as if Zionists and Nazis were cooperating in genocide, which puts him beneath contempt.”

During the interview Abbas also claimed that Israel assassinated Yasser Arafat and was trying to do the same to  Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the PLO.