Abbas "debunked the Zionist fairy tale, which some call the Jewish Israeli narrative" and instead claimed that " Ashkenazis were not originally Jews but rather converted Khazars"
Excerpt of a column by Muwaffaq Matar, Fatah Revolutionary Council member and regular columnist for the official PA daily, on a meeting held by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas with various Palestinian intellectuals at the PA presidential headquarters in Ramallah on Dec. 23, 2021
Headline: “Zionism and the 13th tribe – ‘The Khazar Empire’”
“[At the meeting he held, PA] President [Mahmoud Abbas] debunked the Zionist fairy tale,which some call the Jewish Israeli narrative…
The president spoke about the 9th century pagan Tatar-Khazar kingdom, which was established in the Caspian Sea area. It underwent attacks and suffered from wars, and therefore its king sought advice to be saved from this situation. His friend, a Jewish man, advised him to convert. The kingdom followed in his footsteps, and it also converted. It remained like this until the 11th century when the kingdom finally collapsed, and [its residents] scattered in neighboring states. These are the Ashkenazis, who were not originally Jews but rather converted (sic., genetic research has proven Jews are not the descendants of Tatars or Khazars and that they share a common origin in Israel, debunking claims of mass Khazar conversion)…
As proof, the president brought the book ‘The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire [and its Heritage]’ by Jewish-Hungarian author and historian Arthur Koestler (the book has been thoroughly debunked by experts -Ed.)…
The Jews never were a people and they never will be (sic.). The Zionist organization will continue to invent its own history and transpose it into the books of human knowledge, and even into the holy books, in all languages. This is in order to achieve the goal of mobilizing and gathering enough human ammunition (i.e., immigrants) to carry out missions of occupation and settlement, which the colonialist world powers and empires imposed on it.”