Outrage over Abbas's antisemitic speech on Jews and Holocaust
BBC By Yolande Knell
BBC News, Jerusalem
German and Israeli officials have condemned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for comments he made about Jews and the Nazi Holocaust in a speech.
Mr Abbas said Adolf Hitler ordered the mass murder of Jews because of their "social role" as moneylenders, rather than out of animosity to Judaism.
Israel's ambassador to the UN accused him of "pure antisemitism".
"History is clear," Germany's Ramallah mission said. "Millions of lives were erased - this cannot be relativized."
"We strive to promote a dignified and accurate memory of the victims."
The German ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, added: "The Palestinians deserve to hear the historical truth from their leader, not such distortions."
Hitler used the Jewish people as a scapegoat for Germany's ills. He also considered them an inferior race which had to be exterminated.
The Palestinian president, who is 87, has previously been denounced by Jewish groups as a Holocaust denier for his doctoral thesis on the Nazis and Zionism.
