As Israel commemorates Holocaust, PA Antisemitism thrives: Israel's "love of money" prevents them from fighting Coronavirus - says PA spokesman
As Israel commemorates the millions of victims of the Holocaust on the annual national Holocaust Remembrance Day today (Yom HaShoah), and despite global efforts for decades to eliminate Antisemitism, it is alive and well in the Palestinian Authority.
The same demonization of Jews as was customary during the Middle Ages and which was repeated by Hitler and the Nazi regime is still practiced by PA leaders – today!
Even now, during the global fight against the Coronavirus epidemic, the PA disseminates antisemitic stereotypes. The PA Government spokesman, Ibrahim Melhem, said that Israelis “love money” and therefore Israel prefers to keep the economy running instead of dealing with the virus:
Official PA Government Spokesman Ibrahim Melhem: “The settlements are incubators for the [Coronavirus] epidemic, and also the workplaces in Israel, hotels, buses, gas stations, and direct mutual contact with Israelis. Israel is having trouble because Israelis are not observing the preventative measures because they love money and want to continue to turn the wheels of production.”
[Official PA TV News, April 14, 2020]
Palestinian Media Watch continuously exposes antisemitic statements similar to this made by Palestinian leaders. This is not the first time the PA Government spokesman has promoted this antisemitic smear about Jews. A few weeks ago, he said thatIsraelis prefer profits to saving Israeli lives from the virus:
Official PA Government Spokesman Ibrahim Melhem: “Why is the number of infected [with Coronavirus] high among the Israelis? Because they prioritize money. They don’t want to stop the wheels of production, and so they are sacrificing the infected among their people in order to make more money. The heads of the cartels and the wealthy, and with them [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu, do not want to paralyze the financial life because they are doing the math: Money.”
[Official PA TV, Palestine This Morning, March 29, 2020]
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day this year, PMW published a special report on Palestinian Authority Antisemitism entitledJews must be fought for Allah on behalf of all humanity, which explains the intricacies of this PA hate ideology and its horrific conclusion: That exterminating Jews is beneficial to all humanity. The following is the introduction to the report:
Introduction
This week’s World Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem on the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp by world leaders from 50 countries was a moving commemoration of the past but must now be translated into action for the future. If the victims are remembered and the survivors honored, but the world doesn’t implement the lessons that must be learned, we are inviting a recurrence of history’s worst horrors.
One fundamental lesson of the Holocaust is that the world must be vigilant to expose and eliminate all demonization that leads to justification of murder, whether directed against Jews or any other group. One of the great failures of the international community has been its tolerant attitude towards the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) systematic demonization of Jews, and Antisemitism is now endemic among Palestinians. According to an ADL Global 100 poll a few years ago the Palestinians are the most antisemitic people in the entire world. 93% of Palestinians believed that at least 6 of the 11 negative stereotypes tested were "probably true," higher than Iraq at 92% and Yemen at 88%. For example, 91% of Palestinians believe “Jews have too much power in the business world,” 72% believe “Jews think they are better than other people,” and 88% of Palestinians say “Jews have too much control over global affairs.”
The pervasive Palestinian Antisemitism is the direct result of the PA’s teachings. Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Movement recently produced a propaganda video purportedly about Jewish history in Europe that it publicized on Fatah’s official Facebook page. It teaches that Jews see themselves as superior: “We [Jews] are a nation that is above the [other] nations… only we are people, and all the others are our animals,” and others as inferior: “Non-Jews... according to their worldview are snakes." The Jews, Fatah explained, “led the project to enslave humanity,” and allied with Nazis to burn Jews "to accumulate wealth." The Jews themselves established "ghettos in order to separate from other people out of arrogance and disgust for non-Jews." It was in the ghettos, the documentary further lied that the Jews schemed against the non-Jews, leading to European Antisemitism: "[Jews] were hated because of their racism and their filthy behavior." (All sources appear below.)
Significantly, Palestinian demonization of Jews as having brought Antisemitism upon themselves comes from the very top of the PA leadership. It was Mahmoud Abbas himself who explained to Palestinians why Europeans committed massacres of Jews “every 10 to 15 years” for centuries and eventually the Holocaust: “Why did this happen?... The hatred of the Jews is not due to their religion, but rather due to their social role... due to their social role that was connected to usury, and banks and so forth.” Thus Abbas confirmed the antisemites’ deception that Jews brought Antisemitism upon themselves.
Abbas’ appointees in the PA religious and political frameworks likewise disseminate hatred of Jews. Mahmoud Al-Habbash who Abbas appointed to be the head of the Islamic Courts and who served as his personal advisor taught that the conflict with Israel is not about territory but is against the Jews because they are Satan’s ally on earth, disseminating evil and falsehood. Israel is therefore “Satan’s project.”
Palestinian children are taught the same hate ideology. Children recite poems on official PA TV stating that “Our enemy, Zion, is Satan with a tail,” and that Jews were “condemned to humiliation and hardship” and are “the most evil among creations, barbaric monkeys, wretched pigs.”
PA Antisemitism reaches its pinnacle by presenting Jews’ existence as a fundamental threat to all humanity. PA religious figures have worded it in various ways on official PA TV: “These are the Jews... always fighting, always corrupting, always scheming, and always plotting against humanity”; “There is no global corruption that they are not behind”; “Systematically working to incite wars and strife in the entire world”; “Humanity will never live in peace or fortune or tranquility as long as they are corrupting the land… If a fish in the sea fights with another fish, I am sure the Jews are behind it.”
Since Jews are the PA’s designated source of all evil - everything bad that happens in the world can be traced back to the Jews. PA TV’s ‘expert on Israel affairs’ told Palestinian viewers: “ISIS took all of its religious ideas from Judaism." An article in the official PA daily explained that the murderous civil wars of the Arab Spring as well as the Palestinian Hamas – Fatah civil war were all Israel's planning.
At times the PA has explicitly stated its horrific conclusion: The Jewish threat to humanity will only be stopped by exterminating all Jews. One preacher on official PA TV explained it: “These malignant [Jewish] genes and cursed characteristics continue in them. They transfer them from generation to generation. They inherit it from father to son... Humanity will never be able to live together with them… Our prophet [Muhammad] informed us [that] at the end of time the Muslims will fight the Jews… Jews hide behind a stone or a tree, and the stone or a tree will say: 'Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him' ... Allah… count them and kill them one by one, and do not leave even one.”
These are not quotes from 19th-century Czarist Russia or 20th century Nazi Germany. These are the beliefs being taught to Palestinians by Mahmoud Abbas’ appointed officials and disseminated by official PA and Fatah media.
Since killing any and all Jews is presented as “self-defense,” every act of Palestinian murder is packaged as a heroic act with Allah's stamp of approval. After a Palestinian terrorist murdered two Israeli co-workers, Abbas’ Fatah sent the murderer a message on its official Facebook page: “Allah is protecting you and taking care of you.” [Official Fatah Facebook page, Nov. 28, 2018]
Given that the PA has been promoting this antisemitic ideology for years, it is not surprising that polls find that Palestinians are the most antisemitic people in the world.
In light of the many declarations this week both commemorating the Holocaust and supporting the fight against Antisemitism it must not be forgotten that presenting the murder of Jews as self-defense with God’s stamp of approval was not invented by the PA, but was fundamental to Nazi ideology. Hitler worded it this way in Mein Kampf: ”[If] the Jew is victorious over the other peoples of the world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of humanity… By defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”
The international community’s decision to ignore the PA’s Antisemitism has enabled the PA to turn Palestinians into the most antisemitic people in the world. This week’s gathering in Jerusalem must now be translated into concrete action by including on the world’s agenda the fight against PA Antisemitism. The world’s leaders must show a willingness to use all their political and financial weight to eradicate Palestinian Antisemitism, otherwise they will be condemning another generation of Israelis and Palestinians to hate and terror stemming from the debilitating Antisemitism. A mere ceremony giving homage to the past while ignoring the present, and therefore having no positive impact on the future.