Soccer Dad

Whoops, we forgot just one tiny little thing

Toward the end of her flattering capsule biography of Mahmoud Abbas, "Abbas, Though Out of Arafat's Shadow, Faces Familiar Obstacles," Molly Moore reports:

Abbas was born in 1935 in the town of Safed, now a part of northeastern Israel about six miles from the Syrian border. His father was a prominent cheese merchant in the town, which was famed for its cheese production. In 1948, after the creation of Israel, the Abbas family fled Safed along with the rest of its 10,000 residents. The family moved to Damascus, where Abbas received a law degree from the University of Damascus. He earned a doctorate in history from Moscow's Oriental College.

I am reasonably sure that not all of Safed's (Tzefat's) residents fled after Israel's war of independence, but I haven't yet found supporting evidence.
What I am sure of, is the subject of Mahmoud Abbas's doctoral thesis. Here's the scoop from alawaba.com an Arab news source:

Subsequently, Abbas entered graduate studies at the Oriental College in Moscow, where he earned a Ph.D. in history. In 1982, Abbas wrote a doctoral dissertation, referring to so-called "Holocaust deniers", claiming secret ties between the Nazis and the Zionist movement. In 1984, a book based on Abbas' doctoral dissertation was published in Arabic by Dar Ibn Rushd publishers in Jordan. His doctoral thesis later became a book, which, following his appointment as Palestinian Prime Minister in 2003, was strongly slammed by some Jewish groups.

In his book, Abbas raised doubts that gas chambers were used for the extermination of Jews, and suggested that the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust was "less than a million."

To normal folk without ideological blinders that would mean that he has a doctorate in Holocaust denial. It's nice of Ms. Moore, to leave out that small detail lest it spoil her approving profile.

MEMRI has excerpts:

"The truth of the matter is that no one can verify this number, or completely deny it. In other words, the number of Jewish victims might be 6 million and might be much smaller – even less than 1 million. [Nevertheless], a discussion regarding the number of Jews [killed] does not, in any way, diminish the severity of the crime committed against them, as murder – even of one man – is a crime that the civilized world cannot accept and humanity cannot accept."

"It seems that the Zionist movement's stake in inflating the number of murdered in the war aimed at [ensuring] great gains. This led it to confirm the number [6 million], to establish it in world opinion, and by doing so to arouse more pangs of conscience and sympathy for Zionism in general. Many scholars have debated the question of the 6 million figure, and reached perplexing conclusions, according to which the Jewish victims total hundreds of thousands. The well-known Canadian author Roger Delarom said on this matter: 'To date, no proof whatsoever exists that the number of Jewish victims in the Nazi concentration camps reached four million or six million. Zionism first spoke of 12 million exterminated in these camps, but then the number decreased greatly, to half, that is, only six million. Then the number decreased further, and became four million, as the Germans could not have killed or exterminated more Jews than there were in the world at that time. In effect, the true number is much smaller than these fictitious millions.' The [American] historian and author Raul Hilberg thinks that this number is no greater than 896,000."[70] Abu Mazen's attribution of this figure to Raul Hillberg's The Destruction of the European Jews is false.[71]

Her husband John Ward Anderson did a bit of creative reporting yesterday, in "Sharon Accuses Abbas of Failing to Stop Attacks" he writes:

Many Israelis express doubt that Abbas's approach will work and say they believe it will take too much time to find out. Their fears were underscored by the attack at the Karni crossing, which many analysts said was a provocative challenge to Abbas's authority and his oft-proclaimed stance against such violence.

"A provocative challenge to Abbas's authority?" Isn't that just a creative way of a terror attack?
Further for Anderson to report that Abbas is "against such violence" one paragraph after reporting:

Also Sunday, the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which Abbas chairs, issued a statement demanding a halt to "all military acts that harm our national interests and provide excuses to Israel, which wishes to obstruct Palestinian stability." Several of the main Palestinian militant groups, including Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, do not belong to the PLO.

is a bit odd. That's a significant qualification to Abbas's objection to violence. He's only against violence that "provide[s] excuses to Israel."
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad

Posted by SoccerDad at January 17, 2005 3:54 AM