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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, shown
Saturday during a meeting with the Palestinian Central Council in Ramallah, has
labeled the Holocaust "the most heinous crime known by mankind in modern
times." (Majdi Mohammed / Associated Press / April 26, 2014)
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LA TIMES
By Batsheva Sobelman
April 27, 2014, 9:34 a.m.
JERUSALEM -- At a time when the Middle East peace
process appears stymied, Israel received an unexpected olive branch when Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas denounced the Holocaust and
expressed sympathy with its victims.
“What happened to the Jews in the Holocaust is
the most heinous crime known by mankind in modern times,” said Abbas, according
to a statement published Sunday by the Palestinian government news
agency WAFA.
Abbas expressed sympathy for the families who
died at the hands of the Nazis and
called the world to “safeguard the oppressed and weak wherever they are found.”
The Palestinians, “still oppressed and denied freedom and peace,” are the first
to stand up for those facing such crimes, he said.
The Palestinian leader made his comments in
response to a question last week during a meeting with Marc Schneier,
an American rabbi promoting interfaith understanding.
Abbas’ comments were made public Sunday as Israel
is set to mark Holocaust
Remembrance Day starting Sunday evening. It was the strongest
language about the Holocaust ever used by the Palestinian president, who has
been branded as a Holocaust denier by Israeli officials in the past.
One Palestinian educator's efforts to increase
awareness of the subject met with sharp criticism, underscoring the sensitivity
of potential Palestinian acknowledgment.
Last month, professor Mohammed Dajani of Al-Quds
university in Jerusalem took a group of students to visit the site of the
Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, causing an online uproar that
prompted the university to make clear the trip was not an official activity.
Despite the criticism, Dajani stood by his
decision. It was a "moral imperative" to recognize the Holocaust as
an historic fact and important to learn it to "understand the psyche"
of the other side, he told Israeli media.
To read more, please go to: TIMES OF ISRAEL
BY MARISSA NEWMAN
April 24, 2014, 11:01 pm Updated: April 25, 2014
New PA government to
recognize Israel, Abbas reportedly says.
UN envoy claims PA president
told him joint leadership would renounce violent struggle and adhere to
previous agreements.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said
that the unity agreement between his Fatah movement and Gaza’s Hamas rulers
will be founded on the PLO’s commitments, including recognition of Israel,
renunciation of violence, and acceptance of previous agreements, the United
Nations’ peace envoy said Thursday night after meeting with Abbas.
To read more, please click here:
In a conversation with Robert Serry in Ramallah,
Abbas said that the agreement would be implemented under the PA president’s
leadership “and on the basis of the PLO commitments,” Serry’s office said in a
statement.
“President Abbas emphasized that these
commitments include recognition of Israel, nonviolence, and adherence to
previous agreements. President Abbas also reiterated his continued commitment
to peace negotiations and to nonviolent popular protests,” the statement said.
Earlier Thursday, Jibril Rajoub, a Fatah leader,
told AFP that “the next national consensus government will proclaim loud and
clear that it accepts the Quartet’s conditions.”
The Middle East Quartet — the European Union, the
United Nations, Russia and the United States — has long demanded that Hamas
recognize Israel and existing agreements between Israel and the PLO, and
renounce violence.
Sheikh Hassan Yousef, one of Hamas’s founders and
still a prominent figure in the West Bank, told The Times of Israel on Thursday
that reconciliation with Fatah ”will serve everyone: the Palestinians and
even the peace process.
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