Palestinian Anti-Semitism

On Monday, Commander of the Palestinian Police General Ghazi Jabali reacted with derision to the arrest warrant and extradition request issued against him by Israel the previous day. He said, “This reminds me of Goebbels (Hitler’s propaganda minister) who said ‘tell lies and lies, and in the end they will believe you. ‘The same is true of the Jews. It is a disgrace that they are issuing an arrest warrant against me. Apparently they have learned Goebbels’ methods.”

The extradition request against General Jabali was issued by Justice Minister Tzahi Hanegbi in the wake of Jabali’s involvement with the Palestinian police unit which, according to Israel, was sent by Jabali to kill Jews. At the end of last week, an arrest warrant was issued against Jabali by an Ashkelon court.

Against this background, Jabali’s remarks should have provoked a storm. But anyone who monitors the statements and publications of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in recent weeks would not have been surprised. Charging Israel, Zionism and its leadership with Nazism, as well as denying the Holocaust, have become a daily routine, meshing with theories of nefarious Israeli plots. This educational battle is being waged by the official PA radio and television, as well as the newspapers financed by Yasser Arafat, which have recently adopted a strident, uninhibited and undisguised anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist line.

Resemblance Between Ben-Gurion and Hitler

Last Wednesday, for example, just one day before the suicide bomb attack at the pedestrian mall in Jerusalem, a wide-ranging article appeared in Al-Hayat Al-Jadeedah, the official mouthpiece of the Palestinian Authority. The article, authored by Palestinian writer Nabil Salam, presented a learned historical analysis which concluded: “Since its establishment, the racist Zionist entity has been implementing various forms of terrorism on a daily basis which are a repetition of the Nazi terror. This proves the shared roots of Nazi and Zionist thought. This also explains the cooperation between the Jews and the Nazis during World War II, through which was revealed the forged claims of the Zionists regarding alleged acts of slaughter perpetrated against the Jews during the same period.”

Prior to these observations, the writer assesses the historical development of Judaism and Zionism, asserting they have sought to rule over great financial wealth, and have “influenced the formulation of racist-terrorist theories such as the Nazi theory.” Citing quotations from the Talmud through David Ben-Gurion, the author enlightens his readers with the following conclusion: “There is no difference between Hitler and Ben-Gurion, and if there was a difference at all, it was one of quantity and not one of substance. Anyone who investigates the crimes of the Zionists…discovers explicitly the complementary traits between Zionism, which is a racist terrorist movement, and the Nazi movement.”

The Holocaust as a Profitable Investment

That which was said in abridged form in Nabil Salam’s text was said explicitly and more extensively in an interview with Palestinian writer Ahsan al-Agha during a “cultural program” broadcast two weeks ago on Palestinian television. Al-Agha’s interviewer outlined the factual basis for the conversation: “It is well-known that every year the Jews exaggerate what the Nazis did to them. They claim there were 6 million killed, but precise scientific research establishes that there were no more than 400,000.”

The guest, Mr. al-Agha, who is a teacher in Gaza, replied: “I think we are talking about an investment. They (the Jews) have profited materially, spiritually, politically and economically from the talk about the Nazi killings. This investment is favorable to them and they view it as a profitable activity so they inflate the number of victims all the time. In another ten years, I do not know what number they will reach. Last year, for the first time, a statistic appeared according to which 1.5 million children were killed by the Nazis. This number was not previously known…If this number was indeed correct, then someone would certainly have remembered it…In my opinion, it is an investment, and as you know, when it comes to economics and investments, the Jews have been very experienced ever since the days of the Merchant of Venice.”

The head of the Palestinian Broadcasting Authority is Nabil Amar, a former PLO ambassador in Moscow. Amar serves as an adviser to Yasser Arafat and is a member of the Higher Committee in the talks with Israel. He is also the publisher and chief editor of the newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, whose employees receive their salaries directly from the PA budget. It is therefore not surprising that in tandem with the official radio and television, Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda conveys the line dictated from above. And the line is unmistakable.

For example: three days before the suicide bombing on the Jerusalem pedestrian mall, the newspaper published two instructive articles. The first was an interview with an “Islamic author” by the name of Safi Naz Kassam who offered a number of diagnoses regarding Judaism and Zionism: “There is no people or land named Israel,” she said. “Israel is our patriarch Yaaqoub, peace be upon him, and the children of Israel are the sons of Yaaqoub…. We are the children of Israel…. These people are the children of the Zionist entity, they are the children of the colonialist entity, they are nothing more than thieves. They came and took land which does not belong to them. Therefore, the normalization of relations with them is impossible… even if Palestine remains occupied for hundreds of years.”

And with regard to Zionism, the author states: “These Zionists are not fit to establish a nation or to have their own language or even their own religion. They are nothing more than a hodgepodge.

To complete the reader’s education, the same issue of Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda surveys “research” carried out by Ahmed al-Awadeh under the headline: “The History of the Conflict Between Muslims and Jews.” The research claims that the Jews live by the Talmud and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The conflict between Muslim and Jews is an eternal conflict, similar to the conflict between mankind – the Muslims, and Satan – the Jews, and how unfortunate the Palestinians are that they have to serve as the Muslims’ avant garde in the eternal battle of the Muslims and all the nations against the “nation of Jews.”

The Attackers – Rabin’s Assassins

These anti-Semitic publications, accompanied by breathtaking “factual diagnoses” regarding the character and soul of Jews and Zionists, appear daily in the Palestinian media. They are intended to provide broad popular education to the readers, which serves as the infrastructure for the charges against Israel and its leaders floated by the PA.

In the wake of the most recent suicide bombing in Jerusalem, the allegations became more pointed and turned into an explicit theory regarding a wide-ranging Zionist plot. Last Friday, the day after the bombing, the official PA news agency published the Palestinian leadership’s decisions. It was a gripping document in which a number of instructive items were raised. “All the facts we have, which were supplied by the Israelis,” says the statement, “show that behind these operations stand foreign elements who were aided and assisted by extremist Israeli elements, those who also murdered Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.”

But that is not all. The Israeli government, according to the official Palestinian statement, is aware of this and is attempting to hide the details from the public, as well as the collaboration which the killers received from within the Israeli establishment.

And so the circle is closed and the modus operandi of the government of the Zionist-Jewish entity is revealed, one which is not at all surprising in light of the basic characteristics of Zionism, as they are known to the Palestinians from previous official publications of the Palestinian Authority.