German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was quick to condemn the statement of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who accused Israel of “committing 50 holocausts.” But if Scholz is truly disgusted by Holocaust distortion, he should immediately announce that Germany will cease all its aid to the Palestinians until they publicly commit to eradicating all forms of Holocaust distortion and misappropriation.

I am disgusted by the outrageous remarks made by Palestinian President Mahmoud #Abbas. For us Germans in particular, any relativization of the singularity of the Holocaust is intolerable and unacceptable. I condemn any attempt to deny the crimes of the Holocaust.

— Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz (@Bundeskanzler) August 17, 2022

As Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has conclusively shown, Abbas and other Palestinian Authority (PA), PLO, and Fatah leaders regularly distort the Holocaust, accuse Jews and Israel of acting like the Nazis, and invoke Nazi terminology to describe the alleged actions of Israelis towards the Palestinians.

Abbas’ Fatah Movement even made an antisemitic educational documentary depicting the Holocaust, in which they claim that the Jews placed themselves in ghettos “out of arrogance and disgust for non-Jews,” and that in these ghettos, they “schemed to exploit the others’ material and human resources.”

The Jews, according to Abbas’ Fatah faction, were hated “because of their racism and their filthy behavior.” Fatah added that during the Holocaust, the rich Jews “led the project to enslave humanity and exploit it, while trading in the blood of their own people, enjoying their weakness, and creating ties with those [Nazis] who burned them, in order to turn them into a tool of production and to accumulate wealth”:

Narrator: “In Europe, the [Jewish] tribe established camps and residential areas, crowded ghettos in order to separate from other people out of arrogance and disgust for non-Jews, who do not reach their status, and who according to their [Jews’] worldview are snakes and sons of snakes. There [in the ghettos] they schemed to exploit the others’ material and human resources… The people of the world began to hate the [Jewish] tribe’s ghettos and the warehouses for export of hate and exploitation. [The Jews] were hated because of their racism and their filthy behavior … Zionism was born from the womb of exploitation, while taking advantage of this hatred [towards the Jews] and turning it once again into a colonialist tool. The rich people of the [Jewish] tribe led the project to enslave humanity and exploit it, while trading in the blood of their own people, enjoying their weakness, and creating ties with those [Nazis] who burned them, in order to turn them into a tool of production and to accumulate wealth… Seventy years have passed since the artificial state’s [Israel’s] establishment, and all the theories of modernization and development have not removed the idea of superiority, the idea of [racial] purity, and the idea of enslaving the peoples from the [Jewish] tribe’s mind. They [the Jews] have not removed from their consciousness the view of the other as inferior and the right to spill the blood of the nations… They again swear to themselves: ‘There is no law and no order. There is no equality and no justice. We [Jews] are a nation that is above the [other] nations. We are the people that was chosen by God — we use holy violence. Only we are people, and all the others are our animals.‘”

[Official Fatah Facebook page, July 15, 2019]

A small sample of the scores of instances documented by PMW in which the PA/PLO/Fatah or their leaders misappropriated, distorted, and invoked the Holocaust to attack Israel can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Despite the multiple similar “outrageous remarks” made by the PA/PLO/Fatah organizations and their leaders in the past, Germany is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, donors of aid to the PA/PLO.

According to the EU aid tracker, from 2011 through 2020, Germany was the biggest EU donor country to the Palestinians, donating over 1.3 billion euros.

In fact, according to the EU, annual German aid to the Palestinians via the EU mechanisms grew from 83.44 million euros in 2015 to 197.6 million euros in 2020.

And the German aid to the PA/PLO/Fatah and the Palestinians keeps flowing.

In addition to the aid Germany gave the PA/PLO via the EU system, Germany has also donated tens of millions of additional euros since the beginning of 2021.

Just last month, PA Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad Al-Malki announced a new agreement between the German government and the PLO totaling 20 million euros:

Official PA TV newsreader: “During their meeting, [PA Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad] Al-Malki and the representative of Germany in Palestine signed a 20 million euro financial cooperation agreement between the PLO and the government of the Republic of Germany.”

[Official PA TV News, July 24, 2022]

In September 2021, Germany committed to donating approximately 100 million euros to the PA:

The Palestinian [PA] government and the German government signed an agreement of cooperation yesterday [Sept. 15, 2021], in whose framework Germany committed to donating approximately 100 million euros to the Palestinian government to fund projects in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including Jerusalem, over the next two years.

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 16, 2021]

In August 2021, Germany, together with others, gave a 25 million euro grant to the PA education sector:

[PA] Minister of Education Marwan Awratani signed a 25 million euro grant with German [KfW] Development Bank in Palestine Office Director David Kunze, which is being given by Germany in partnership with Ireland, Finland, and Norway, in order to aid the [PA] education sector…

[PA] Prime Minister [Muhammad Shtayyeh] said that ‘This agreement will fund the construction and renovation of schools, pre-school education, the provision of equipment to the schools, and building the educational team’s capabilities.’”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 27, 2021]

In April 2021, Germany, together with others, concluded a number of agreements with the PA in the amount of $52 million:

PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh: “Today a number of agreements were signed worth $52 million that were given — many thanks — by our international partners: France, Germany, and the World Bank.”

[Official PA TV News, April 1, 2021]

According to a post on the Facebook page of the PA Prime Minister’s Office, Germany committed to give the PA aid totaling approximately 56 million euros for 2021.

The German aid to the Palestinians carries substantial influence and if the Germans, and in particular Chancellor Scholz, are truly disgusted by the manner in which the PA/PLO/Abbas’ Fatah distort and misappropriate the Holocaust, they should condition future German aid to the PA on the complete eradication of these heinous expressions.

Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, Adv. is the Head of Legal Strategies for Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.

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