Palestinians reject open letter against Abbas' antisemitism

As mentioned yesterday, a group of Palestinian expatriates issued an open letter over the weekend condemning Mahmoud Abbas' antisemitic statements. but really their letter was more anti-Israel than anti-Abbas, as they accused him of toeing the Zionist line.

We the undersigned, Palestinian academics, writers, artists, activists, and people of all walks of life, unequivocally condemn the morally and politically reprehensible comments made by President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas about the Holocaust. Rooted in a racial theory widespread in European culture and science at the time, the Nazi genocide of the Jewish people was born of antisemitism, fascism, and racism. We adamantly reject any attempt to diminish, misrepresent, or justify antisemitism, Nazi crimes against humanity, or historical revisionism vis-a-vis the Holocaust. 

The Palestinian people are sufficiently burdened by Israeli settler colonialism, dispossession, occupation, and oppression without having to bear the negative effect of such ignorant and profoundly antisemitic narratives perpetuated by those who claim to speak in our name. We are also burdened by the PA’s increasingly authoritarian and draconian rule, which disproportionately impacts those living under occupation. Having held onto power nearly a decade and a half after his presidential mandate expired in 2009, supported by Western and pro-Israel forces seeking to perpetuate Israeli apartheid, Abbas and his political entourage have forfeited any claim to represent the Palestinian people and our struggle for justice, freedom, and equality, a struggle that stands against all forms of systemic racism and oppression. 

This letter, signed mostly by American and British citizens, was not meant for Palestinians to read. It was not translated into Arabic.  It was meant for the West, as the signatories could self-righteously pretend to oppose antisemitism while at the same time attack Abbas, since they prefer Hamas and Islamic Jihad as more reflective of adhering to the Palestinian will. 

The are just as antisemitic as Abbas is, but some of them try a little harder to hide it.  (Some don't!) Many of them have engaged in Holocaust inversion themselves. 

However, we do live in an online age, and it was inevitable that Palestinians would see this letter. And their reaction was anger at opposing antisemitism:

A statement issued by a number of expatriate Palestinian academics and activists, regarding what President Mahmoud Abbas mentioned during a recent meeting of the Fatah Revolutionary Council about the Holocaust, sparked disapproval and condemnation from various Palestinian circles, especially since the statement was fragmentary and consistent with the Israeli and Zionist campaign, and without reference to the occupation, its positions and policies announced by his senior leaders, which are based on the idea of ​​denying the existence of a Palestinian people, in addition to the massacres committed against them.

Former Minister Hassan Asfour commented on this statement by the academics and wrote: “In a strange and surprising way, a group of Palestinian figures, including the names of ‘academics,’ ‘experts,’ and analysts, most of whom hold foreign American and British nationalities, issued a statement attacking the president’s speech about ‘Ashkenazi Jews’ and Germany...a revealing statement. Ignorance of history is not limited only to those who do not read it, but it seems that “understanding has become without teaching from the beginning of the line... Be ashamed and apologize to your people, you pretenders of knowledge.”

Notice that both the letter and the reaction by Palestinians accused their opponents of being on the same side as the Jews. 

It is all theatre.

But it points to a rarely mentioned fact: the Palestinian academics in the West are eager to write papers and speak at panel discussions where they pretend to represent the majority of Palestinian. They claim to support progressive, liberal standards, but they most definitely do not. Their speeches about the Palestinian cause being liberal begin and end with the Jews; they really don't care when the Arab world shows its bigotry or when Palestinians themselves show their illiberal beliefs  - anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-environment, anti-animal rights. 

Like Yasir Arafat before them, they tailor their message to the audience, lying as easily as they breathe, and hoping the world won't see their hypocrisy. 

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