As the nearly 50 heads of state from around the globe began preparing for their arrival in Israel this week to attend the Fifth World Holocaust Forum—on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the 1945 liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and death camp from the Nazis—the powers-that-be in the Palestinian Authority have been busy trying to figure out how best to channel their anger and envy.
Unfortunately for P.A. head Mahmoud Abbas and his disgruntled Fatah henchmen, however, nobody really cares—least of all U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who will be representing the White House at the somber Jan. 23 “Remembering the Holocaust: Fighting Anti-Semitism” event hosted by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem.
The significance of the major happening is magnified by the recent spike in worldwide anti-Semitism, even in America, where the rearing of its ugly head in heavily Orthodox neighborhoods has been almost as shocking as its explosion on university campuses.
To the dismay of the aging Abbas, who alternates between denying the Holocaust—as he did in his PhD thesis—and accusing the Jewish state of committing Nazi-like crimes against the Palestinians, very few members of the diverse group of dignitaries gathering in the Israeli capital that he does not recognize will be taking a break in their whirlwind visit to pay their respects, or even lip service, to him.
As Palestinian Media Watch reported in an op-ed on Jan. 18, Yahya Rabah wrote, “One shot will disrupt the ceremony and one dead body will cancel [it].”
Rabah reached this par-for-the-course conclusion after attacking the international community for its ostensible hypocrisy in viewing the Holocaust against the Jews as a terrible historical injustice, while allowing Israel to engage in similar behavior toward Palestinians with impunity.
“Of course,” he asserted, “the Palestinians will never accept this equation, and it can be assumed that they will resist the ceremony being held in Jerusalem itself, as Jerusalem is theirs, despite [U.S. President Donald] Trump, who gave it to Israel as part of the filthy deal of the century.”
Rabah failed to mention that if any comparisons are to be made where violence against Jews is concerned, they come from within his own society.
A recent post on the official Facebook page of Fatah’s Nablus branch is illustrative.
“I’m coming towards you, my enemy, from every house, neighborhood and street,” the Jan. 6 diatribe begins. “Our war is a war of the streets. I’m coming towards you, my enemy. We’re going down from every house with cleavers and knives. With grenades we announced a popular war. I swear, you won’t escape, my enemy, from the revolution and the people.”
By Ruthie Blum/ www.JNS.org
