Officials from Germany, the US, Israel and the European Union criticize the Palestinian president's statement regarding the Holocaust

JAKARTA - Officials from Israel, Germany, the United States and the European Union have been busy criticizing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' comments regarding Jews and the Nazi Holocaust.

President Abbas says Adolf Hitler ordered the mass murder of Jews because of their "social role" as loan sharks, not because of any hostility to Judaism.

This led many parties to express criticism, from state officials to institutions, such as the Israeli Ambassador to the UN who accused him of "pure antisemitism".

"The history is clear. Millions of lives have been lost – this cannot be relativized," said the German mission in Ramallah, as reported by the BBC 8 September.

"We strive to promote dignified and accurate memories of the victims," ​​he continued.

German Ambassador to Israel Steffen Seibert, added: "The Palestinian people deserve to hear the historical truth from their leader, not such distortions."

Hitler was said to have used the Jews as scapegoats for Germany's 'ills'. He also considered them an inferior race that should be exterminated.

President Abbas's address to the Fatah Revolutionary Council was delivered last month and then broadcast on Palestinian TV. His statement was translated and published by the Middle East Media Research Institute on Wednesday.

"They say Hitler killed Jews because they were Jews, and that Europe hates Jews because they are Jews. No. Clearly explained, they fought them because of their social role and not their religion," said President Abbas.

Later, he explained that he was referring to the Jewish role involving "usury, money, and so on."

Abbas also revived a long-abandoned historical theory that European Ashkenazi Jews are not descendants of ancient Israel, but rather descendants of 8th-century converts to Judaism among the Khazars, a nomadic Turkic tribe.

"The truth we must spread to the world is that European Jews are not Semites. They have nothing to do with Semitism," he said.

"As for Eastern Jews, they are Semites," he added, referring to Sephardic Jews from the wider Middle East.

The content of the latest speech was shared on Twitter by Israel's Foreign Ministry and condemned by Israel's UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan.

"This is the true face of the Palestinian leadership," the envoy said.

"Just as Abbas blamed the Jews for the Holocaust, he also blames the Jews for all the problems in the Middle East," he continued.

“The world must wake up and hold Abbas and the Palestinian Authority accountable for the hatred they spewed and the resulting bloodshed. There must be no tolerance for Palestinian incitement and terror!"

The European Union also condemned the speech, which it described as "false and grossly misleading".

"Such historical distortions are inflammatory, highly offensive, will only exacerbate tensions in the region and do not benefit anyone's interests. They benefit those who do not want a two-state solution, which President Abbas has repeatedly supported," he explained.

"In addition, they trivialize the Holocaust and thereby fuel antisemitism and constitute an insult to the millions of Holocaust victims and their families," the European Union said.

From the United States, Washington's Special Envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt, called for an immediate apology for what she called "statements of antisemitism and hatred" from the Palestinian President, as quoted by Reuters.

"I was shocked by President Abbas's hateful and antisemitic statements at the recent Fatah meeting," said Lipstadt, one of the most prominent researchers on the Holocaust, citing The Guardian.

Separately, President Abbas' spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said the president's remarks "are excerpts from the writings of Jewish and American writers and historians", not a denial of the Holocaust.

Meanwhile, J Street, a liberal and pro-peace US Jewish lobby group also issued scathing criticism, even though it was said with presumption.

"If these reports and transcripts are accurate, Abbas should be universally condemned and he should apologize immediately. There is no excuse for making antisemitic remarks like this and this is not the first offense Abbas has committed," the group said.