Mahmoud Abbas gave a speech before the Palestinian National Council at a meeting in Ramallah on Monday the 30th of April 2018. He stated that the Shoah was a result of the “social function” of Jewish people, especially regarding financial matters and qualified his discourse as a “history class”.

For the Palestinian President, Jewish people would have caused the genocide committed during the Second World War by their professional activities. It is a scandalous revisionism which aims to find causes to the Shoah.

“Everyone will have understood […] antisemitism and anti zionism are the expression of the same hatred” stated France Chief Rabbi Haïm Korsia.

B’nai B’rith Europe strongly condemns Mahmoud Abbas’ comments. “These revisionist remarks are an insult to the Jewish people and confirm the antisemitic dimension of his antizionist speech” said B’nai B’rith Europe President Serge Dahan. He urges the European governments to condemn such shameful words for a leader and demands from Abbas to amend his statement.

Serge Dahan invites the European governments to join the condemnations of Abbas’s remarks  expressed by the United Nations and by the European Union, whose spokesperson asserted that the speech “contained unacceptable remarks regarding the origins of the Holocaust and the legitimacy of Israel”.