August 28, 1997
An official PLO television program has claimed that “the
Jews exaggerate what the Nazis did to them” and that “no more than 400,000”
Jews were killed in the Holocaust. It is the latest in a series of
statements
made by senior PLO officials denying or distorting the Holocaust.
During an August 25, 1997 cultural affairs program on PLO television,
the moderator asked the guest, Palestinian Arab author Hassan al-Agha:
“It is well-known that every year the Jews exaggerate what the Nazis
did to them. They claim there were 6 million killed, but precise scientific
research demonstrates that there were no more than 400,000. Has the
complex which the Jews have as a result of the Nazis’ actions created within them
psychological burdens which they are now releasing against the
Palestinians?”
Al-Agha replied:
“They have profited materially, spiritually, politically and
economically from the talk about the Nazi killings. This investment is
favorable to them and they view it as a profitable activity so they inflate
the number of victims all the time. In another ten years, I do not know what
number they will reach. Last year, for the first time, a statistic appeared
according to which 1 and a half million children were killed by the Nazis.
This number was not previously known…If this number was indeed correct,
then someone would certainly have remembered it…In my opinion, it is an
investment, and as you know, when it comes to economics and investments,
the Jews have been very experienced ever since the days of the Merchant of
Venice.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman, David Bar-Illan,
commented: “It is regrettable that an official outlet of the Palestinian
Authority has stooped to Holocaust denial coupled with an allusion to
Jewish venality and greed. It means that Palestinian propaganda is no longer
limited to anti-Israel incitement, but has crossed the line to undisguised
antisemitism.”
Morton A. Klein, National President of the Zionist Organization of
America (ZOA), who is himself the child of Holocaust survivors, said: “The
PLO’s repeated attempts to deny or distort the Holocaust defame the memory
of the Six Million. In addition, such vicious anti-Semitic propaganda is
prohibited by the Oslo accords. The Clinton administration should insist
that Yasir Arafat publicly apologize for the PLO television program’s slurs
about the Holocaust, and cancel the program permanently.”
The Oslo accords prohibit the PLO from engaging in “hostile propaganda”
against Israel. (Article XXII of Oslo II ; reaffirmed in the
Hebron Accord , 2-b.)
Previous PLO statements regarding the Holocaust include:
- ARAFAT: “ISRAEL’S BIRTHDAY IS PALESTINE HOLOCAUST DAY”
In an address to the PLO’s Palestinian Council in Ramallah on May 10,
1997, the eve of Israeli Independence Day, Arafat said that the
anniversary of the creation of Israel is “Palestine Holocaust Day” and “the Palestinian
people were subjected to the worst holocaust in history.” (Ha’aretz, May 11, 1997) -
PA: “ISRAEL HOLDS US IN ONE BIG CONCENTRATION CAMP”
On April 22, 1996, the PLO’s Palestinian Authority distributed a
document titled “Statement Issued by the Ministry of Information on the
Palestinian Prisoner’s Day.” It said:
“While the Israeli government is speaking about the atrocities
committed against the Jews at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Dachau concentration
camps, the violations against the human rights of the Jewish individual,
and the tragic consequences of the massacres and collective punishment, it is directly involved these days in weaving plots and
causing two major catastrophes to their neighbors.”The document accused Israel of persecuting Palestinian and Lebanese
Arabs, then referred to “the inhumane legacy” of the Holocaust and adds:
“As a Palestinian people we are still experiencing the legacy of this catastrophe,
being applied against them by the ancestors of those Jews who have suffered
one day its consequences. Our homeland was transformed into a big concentration
camp…”
PLO LEADER: ZIONISTS WERE PARTNERS IN NAZI HOLOCAUST
Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the number 2 official in the PLO and
architect of the Oslo accords, authored and has refused to retract a book
claiming that “the Zionist movement was a partner in the slaughter of the
Jews.” The book is entitled The Other Side: The Secret Relationship
Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement. The book also claims that the Nazis may
have really killed less than one million Jews. (Jerusalem Post, Jan.26,1995)
ARAFAT BLAMES THE HOLOCAUST FOR “PALESTINIAN SUFFERING”
In his speech upon accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, Yasir
Arafat referred to the Holocaust and called on “the Jewish conscience” to
“express the suffering of the Palestinian people which resulted from this
historical intersection, and to find an echo for this suffering in the
pained
Jewish soul.” (Near East Report, December 19, 1994)
PLO OFFICIALS COMPARE ISRAELIS TO NAZIS
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency Daily News Bulletin reported on December
2, 1994: “Nabil Ramlawi, the PLO representative to U.N. groups meeting , said that Palestinian resistance to the Israelis was similar to
the European fight against the Nazis during World War II.”On January 24, 1996, PLO official Affif Safiah declared at a Jerusalem
gathering, “Israel must apologize to the Palestinian people for its conduct
in the past, just as Germany apologized to the Jewish people for hunting them
down in Europe.” (Yediot Ahronot, January 25, 1996)On January 4, 1996, by PLO Justice Minister Freih Abu-Medein, who
told Israel Radio: “Israel did not hesitate to receive reparations from the
government of Germany but it refuses to pay reparations to the victims of
the intifada.”On August 7, 1997, PLO Health Minister Riyad al-Zaanoun said that
Israel’s use of blockades to help capture terrorists was comparable to the
actions of the Nazis. “I wonder how Jews who suffered collective
punishment from the Nazis can practice such punishments on the Palestinian people,”
al-Zaanoun said. (Associated Press, August 8, 1997)
PLO JOURNAL SLAMS “THE LIE OF THE GAS CHAMBERS”
The July 1990 issue of Balsam, published by the PLO-affiliated
Palestinian Red Cross, printed an article asserting that “the lie
concerning the gas chambers enabled the Jews to establish the State of Israel,” and
“Jews regard themselves as the landlords of humanity, and the Nuremberg courts
were manned mainly by Jews and their friends.” The article also quoted from the
writings of the prominent French Holocaust-denier, Robert Faurisson.
PLO JOURNAL SAYS JEWS WERE WELL-TREATED BY NAZIS
In its editions dated December 23, 1989 and December 30, 1989, the
Cyprus-based PLO journal El Istiqlal ran a two-part series of articles
under the headlines “Burning of the Jews in the Nazi Chambers is the Lie of the
20th Century in Order to Legitimize the New Nazism,” and “How Did Zionist
Propaganda Cloud Science and Mind? A First Quiet Travel Through the Climate of Fear.”The articles asserted that “while Jews are complaining about their
treatment by the Gestapo, the truth is that they were served healthy food as proven by
the dining rooms observed there” and “Nazi camps were more civilized than
Israeli prisons.”
SENIOR PLO OFFICIAL CALLS HIMSELF “ABU HITLER”
Fuzi Salim Ali Madi, one of the leaders of Arafat’s elite unit, Fatah
Force 17, goes by the name “Abu Hitler” and named his two sons “Eichmann”
and “Hitler.” (New York Times, April 6, 1989)
