Abbas
and Israel's 'holocausts'
It’s Germany that owes the Palestinians an
apology, not the other way round
By Abdel Bari Atwan
August 29, 2022:
Information Clearing House
--I’ve disagreed with
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas over a whole
range of issues and still do. But I support his
refusal to apologise for the killing of 11
Israeli participants at the 1974 Munich
Olympics, and his use of the term ‘holocausts’
to describe the many massacres to which
Palestinians have been subjected by Israeli
forces over the years.
Abbas, who made his remarks at a
joint press conference with German Chancellor
Olaf Scholz, was not asked about his view of the
Nazi Holocaust, but of the death of the Israeli
athletes on the 50th anniversary of the Munich
incident. His reply, reminding his questioner of
the ‘Israeli holocausts’ perpetrated daily
against the Palestinian people, was poignant and
powerful. He should not retract it or try to
clarify or fudge it to appease criminals whose
record is replete with racism, atrocities, and
war crimes.
The massacre of the Israeli
athletes in Munich was not committed by Abbas or
by the Black September squad that abducted them.
They were killed by Israeli Mossad operatives
and German police who stormed the place where
they were being held. The five kidnappers, who
had wanted to exchange them for Palestinian
prisoners held in the Israeli occupation’s
jails, were all liquidated. But Israel,
supported by Germany’s guilt complex, considers
itself above any law or accountability and feels
free to twist the facts.
Abbas has saved countless Jewish
lives by devoting 60,000 Palestinian security
personnel to protecting Israeli settlers for the
past 30 years, the biggest scandal in the
history of national liberation movements. His
only reward has been to be insulted and abused
by Yair Lapid, Lieberman and other Israeli
leaders.
Lapid described Abbas’ remarks as
disgraceful and unforgivable and accused him of
denying the Holocaust in which six million Jews
including a million children perished. Lapid’s
hands and those of all previous Israeli
governments are soaked in the blood of
Palestinian children, most recently the 16 slain
in just three days in the Gaza Strip. They are
the last people on earth entitled to lecture
anyone about the killing of women and children.
Abbas was excoriated by Scholz
and the German opposition for describing Israel
as a racist Apartheid state. If I were him I
would have replied that the Germans should
apologize to the Palestinian people, not the
other way round, for their blind unconditional
defence of blatant Israeli racism and their
hypocrisy, double standards, and falsehoods when
it comes to the Palestinian cause.
The Nazi Holocaust was the
ugliest crime in modern history and must be
condemned in the strongest terms. But usage of
the term is not a Jewish copyright, and we
should not be prevented from using it to
describe the holocausts to which the
Palestinians and other peoples have been and
continue to be subjected.
Israel has committed countless
massacres against the Palestinian, Lebanese, and
Egyptian people — last but not least the
recently revealed Latroun massacre in which 90
Egyptian soldiers who surrendered after being
surrounded in the 1967 war were burned alive. It
carries out mass killings, holocausts,
blockades, and sieges against the Palestinians
with impunity. It has never abided by a single
UN resolution applicable to it, nor respected
its signature on any agreement with
Palestinians, including the shameful Oslo
Accords that gave it 80% of the territory
historic Palestine in exchange for a bastardised
version of ‘autonomy’.
I wish Abbas had taken such a
bold stance 30 years ago instead of engaging in
futile negotiations and imagining that peace
could be achieved with a murderous, racist
coloniser. Maybe he has experienced a belated
awakening to atone for his sins. Better late
than never. But the Palestinian people realised
long ago that the policy of banking on peaceful
solutions and international resolutions had
failed, and that the only way of regaining their
rights is resistance.
Views expressed in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
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The views expressed in this article are
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