Mahmoud Abbas and Holocaust Denial

I keep getting emails asking me about his Holocaust denial. I deal with this in my book, History on Trial, briefly at the end. To summarize, even more briefly: He did engage in denial when he wrote his Ph.D. thesis in the early 1980s in Moscow. More recently he has said that were he writing it now he would not have said what he did [there were only 1,000,000 victims etc.] I wish he had made a more vigorous retraction.

However, the growing focus in Jewish circles on this aspect of his work strikes me as a bit opportunistic. There are far worse deniers in the Arab/Muslim world. There are those who still energetically deny the Holocaust. It seems to me that those who are opposed to any kind of agreement with the Palestinians have jumped on this bandwagon in an attempt to discredit Mahmoud Abbas.

This, of course, is coming from the same folks who thought it appropriate to have settlers wear orange stars..........

Shabbat shalom.