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Jews Provoked the Holocaust, Palestinian Leaders Say (Again)
PA President Mahmoud Abbas gestures during a meeting in Ramallah, in the West Bank August 18, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman/Pool
JNS.org – Palestinian Arab leaders can’t seem to make up their minds about the Holocaust. Sometimes they say it never happened. Sometimes they say it did happen, but Israel’s behavior is even worse. And sometimes—such as last week—they say the Jews themselves provoked the Holocaust.
Yasser Abu Sido, a senior official of the Palestinian Authority’s ruling party, Fatah, said on an Egyptian television program on Feb. 23 that “Hitler had obvious reasons” for perpetrating the Holocaust.
The Jews’ own provocative behavior was the reason, according to Abu Sido. “They planned to take control of Germany. They started to bring down Germany in terms of the economy and moral values.” That was why “Hitler reacted by making the Jews go on the streets and lick the sidewalks. They know this very well.”
Abu Sido’s blame-the-Jews approach to the Holocaust echoes words spoken repeatedly by P.A. chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
In an April 30, 2018 speech to the Palestinian National Council, Abbas explained the “reasons” why Jews were massacred throughout history, from the pogroms of the Middle Ages to the Holocaust. He began by dismissing the idea that antisemitism had anything to do with it. “Why did this happen? They say ‘it is because we are Jews,’ but that must be false,” he said, because “there were Jews in Arab countries. Why wasn’t there ever one incident against Jews [there] because they’re Jews? Not even once.” (An obvious falsehood.)
The real reason for the Holocaust, Abbas said, was the Jews’ own “social behavior, [charging] interest and financial matters.” Those Jewish actions are what provoked the Nazis, he claimed.
Just last year, the P.A. chairman repeated that perspective in a speech to Fatah’s Revolutionary Council (on Aug. 24, 2023). “They say that Hitler killed the Jews because they were Jews and that Europe hated the Jews because they were Jews. Not true,” Abbas asserted. “[The Nazis] fought [the Jews] because of their social role, and not their religion… The [Nazis] fought against these people because of their role in society, which had to do with usury, money and so on and so forth.”
Somehow, that train of thought coexists peacefully in Abbas’s mind alongside the view he articulated in his infamous PhD dissertation-turned-book, “The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism,” published in 1984. There he argued that fewer than one million Jews were killed by the Nazis, and they were the victims of a secret partnership between David Ben-Gurion and Adolf Hitler. Asked about the book by a Lebanese television interviewer in 2013, Abbas insisted that he stands by what he wrote, and even has written “seventy more books that I still haven’t published” on the topic.
It’s bad enough that mainstream P.A. leaders such as Abbas and Abu Sido believe such crazy things. But what is at stake is more than just a grotesque distortion of history; their rhetoric can help set the stage for further atrocities—because the logic behind the Holocaust comments by Abbas and Abu Sido is remarkably similar to the position that they and their P.A. colleagues have taken regarding the Oct. 7 pogrom.
Abbas and other P.A. leaders have characterized Oct. 7 as a “response to the occupation.” They have said the attack “did not happen in a vacuum.” They have portrayed Gaza as a “prison” from which Hamas was trying to “break free.” Every such justification is another way of saying that Israel’s own behavior was to blame for provoking the attack.
In a sense, Abbas is being consistent: The Jews provoked the pogroms of the Middle Ages. The Jews provoked the Holocaust. And the Jews provoked the murders, gang-rapes and beheadings of Oct. 7. That’s the common thread in all of his thinking on these subjects.
Blaming the Jews for their persecutors’ actions is not just adding insult to the injuries that the pogromists inflicted. It incites further violence by justifying whatever Arab terrorists do to Jews in the future. Such an extreme and irrational perspective—which is promulgated by P.A. leaders, disseminated by the P.A.-controlled media and taught in the P.A.’s schools—may be the single greatest threat to hopes for Arab-Israeli peace.
Originally published by The Jewish Journal.
The post Jews Provoked the Holocaust, Palestinian Leaders Say (Again) first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.