Mahmoud Abbas’ reprehensible antisemitic statement actively harms the struggle against Israeli apartheid by serving as a distraction from Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and by empowering Zionist claims of Palestinian antisemitism.
Indeed, as approximately 200 Palestinian academics, writers, activists, and people of all walks of life said in a public statement, “The Palestinian people are sufficiently burdened by Israeli settler colonialism without having to bear the negative effect of such ignorant and profoundly antisemitic narratives perpetuated by those who claim to speak in our name.”
In office 14 years after his electoral mandate ended, Abbas is widely viewed as corrupt, lacking in care for the people, and unable and unwilling to promote the Palestinian struggle for justice.
We in Jewish Voice for Peace of Northern New Jersey stand for the inalienable right of Palestinians to live as free people with full human, civil, and national rights, just as we stand united against antisemitic attitudes and statements. We will not allow remarks like these to keep us from our support of the Palestinian people and their struggle for their liberation from Israel’s oppression.