Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas gestures during a meeting in Ramallah, in the West Bank, August 18, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman/Pool

Jewish groups, Israeli officials, and foreign diplomats on Wednesday condemned a recent antisemitic speech by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in which he claimed that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler did not hate Jews as a people but rather because of their “dealing with usury and money.”

In an address late last month to the Revolutionary Council of Fatah, the political party headed by Abbas, the Palestinian leader ran through a litany of antisemitic conspiracy theories.

“They say that Hitler killed the Jews for being Jews, and that Europe hated the Jews because they were Jews,” Abbas said. “Not true. It was clearly explained that [the Europeans] fought [the Jews] because of their social role, and not their religion. Several authors wrote about this. Even Karl Marx said this was not true. He said that the enmity was not directed at Judaism as a religion, but to Judaism for its social role.”

The speech was flagged by the Middle East Media Research Institute, which posted video of the speech over the weekend.

Abbas opened his remarks by repeating the discredited “Khazar theory,” which holds that Ashkenazi Jews are the descendants of central Asian converts to Judaism, and thus are not a Semitic people and have no connection to the land of Israel.

Abbas used the theory to suggest that Hitler was not an antisemite.

“Everybody knows that during World War I, Hitler was a sergeant,” Abbas said, apparently promoting Hitler from his actual rank of corporal. “He 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.”

Abbas conceded that Mizrahi Jews were Semites “because they originated in the Arabian Peninsula, and then they traveled to Andalusia, and then they came back.” He then repeated the conspiracy theory that Jews living in the Arab Middle East only came to Israel because Israelis carried out false flag attacks against Jewish communities in Iraq and elsewhere.

Germany’s ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, on Wednesday condemned Abbas’ remarks in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“The recent statement of President Abbas on Jews and the Holocaust is an insult to the memory of millions of murdered men, women and children,” Seibert said. “The Palestinians deserve to hear the historical truth from their leader, not such distortions.”

Jewish groups also condemned the remarks, with left-leaning J Street saying that “Abbas should be universally condemned and he should make an immediate apology.””

In a statement, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) cited Abbas’ record of Holocaust denial and antisemitism dating back to his 1984 doctoral thesis, which was subtitled “The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism” and argued that Zionists and Nazis were equal partners in the Holocaust.

“Palestinian President Abbas’ doctoral dissertation blaming Jews for the Holocaust was dredged up again in his latest unhinged antisemitic rant,” AJC said in a statement. “He defended Hitler’s motivation in murdering six million Jews. Now he says Jews are responsible for all the turmoil in the Middle East. This type of ‘leadership’ only breeds violence, not progress. World leaders committed to peace in that region must stop giving Abbas a free pass, and condemn his hateful rhetoric.”

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan said in a post on X that Abbas had revealed “the true face of Palestinian ‘leadership.'”

“It is no wonder that mere hours ago a Palestinian teenage terrorist hacked innocent Israelis with a meat cleaver in Jerusalem,” Erdan said. “Just as Abbas blames the Jews for the Holocaust, he also blames the Jews for all the Middle East’s issues. While he spreads this pure antisemitism he also pays Palestinian terrorists for murdering Israelis and publicly commends Palestinian terrorism. The world must wake up and hold Abbas and his Palestinian Authority accountable for the hatred they spew and the ensuing bloodshed it causes.”