Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas compared the State of Israel to Nazis on Monday at the United Nations (UN), saying the country lies “like Goebbels” about its prosperity over 75 years of its existence.
Abbas, 87, now in the 19th year of his four-year term, spoke at a UN event commemorating what Palestinians call the “Nakba,” or “Catastrophe,” referring to the establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948.
The UN partitioned the British Mandate of Palestine in 1947 into an area for a Jewish state and an Arab state, reflecting the demographics in different parts of the land. The Palestinian Arabs rejected the plan and began attacking Jewish communities. When Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, the Palestinians and several surrounding Arab states attacked it, hoping to eliminate the Jewish State rather than creating their own.
Israel resisted the invasion, and several hundred thousand Palestinians were displaced — many fleeing at the behest of Arab leaders, even after Israel had asked them to stay and live as citizens with equal rights.
In 1993, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed the Oslo Peace Accords, establishing the autonomous Palestinian Authority in Gaza and parts of Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank).
Abbas, who despite a history of Holocaust denial is often described in the West as a “moderate,” was elected in 2005 to replace the late terrorist Yasser Arafat.
His remarks to the UN were reported by the Times of Israel:
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas likens Israel to Nazi Germany by saying the country lies like the Third Reich’s chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
“Israeli and Zionist claims continue by saying that Israel made the desert bloom. As if Palestine was a desert and they made the desert bloom,” Abbas tells a UN event commemorating the Palestinian Nakba, or catastrophe, which accompanies Israel’s founding in 1948.
“These are lies,” he continues. “They continue to lie, like Goebbels, and they continue to lie until people believe their lies and they continue therefore their false claims by saying that Israel made the desert bloom. Palestine was never a desert.”
Comparing Israel to Nazis is considered a form of antisemitism. Israel was established shortly after the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust. Joseph Goebbels was the chief propagandist of the Nazi regime.
Abbas also urged the UN to expel Israel as a member state, and claimed that Israel was started by Britain, who “wanted to get rid of their Jews.” In fact, Britain restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine for many years.
President Donald Trump cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority due to its support for terrorists and their families. He signed the Taylor Force Act in 2018, barring U.S. taxpayers dollars from being used to fund the Palestinian Authority as long as it subsidizes terror. (Abbas has refused to change his policies of paying stipends to Palestinian terrorists jailed in Israel, and pensions to the families of Palestinian terrorists killed by Israel.) He also cut off funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency, a refugee program exclusively for Palestinians that has incubated terrorist ideology.
But President Joe Biden has tried to evade the law, usually by funding Palestinian organizations instead of the Palestinian Authority directly. One recent grant from the Biden administration sponsors Palestinian groups that reflect “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” He also restored funding to UNRWA.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) helped Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)) host a “Nakba” event in a Senate conference room last week after Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) canceled Tlaib’s event in the U.S. House.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.