Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was quoted on Monday as saying
that the Zionist movement had links with the Nazis before World War
II.
Abbas was speaking during a lengthy interview with Al-Mayadeen, a
Beirutbased TV station that is affiliated with Hezbollah and Iran.
The
full interview will be broadcast later this week.
Asked about allegations
that he was a Holocaust denier, Abbas said that he had “70 more books that I
still haven’t published” about the alleged link between the Zionist movement and
the Nazis.
“I challenge anyone to deny the relationship between Zionism
and Nazism before World War II,” Abbas said.
The PA president also
claimed that Israel had agreed to his request to allow some 150,000 Palestinian
refugees living in Syria to move to the West Bank.
However, Abbas said
that he turned down Israel’s condition that the refugees sign a document in
which they relinquish their demand to return to their former homes inside
Israel.
The Prime Minister’s Office unequivocally denied that Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu consented to a request for Palestinian refugees from
Syria to be allowed entrance into the West Bank.
The PMO declined to
comment on other statements Abbas made on the Lebanon television station, with
one government official saying only that they were “full of
inaccuracies.”
Abbas, who is currently visiting Saudi Arabia, also told
the television station that he was the target of assassination attempts, but did
not elaborate.
Nabil Abu Rudaineh, a spokesman for Abbas, denied on
Monday night that the PA president had talked about a link between Zionism and
Nazism.
Abu Rudaineh said that Abbas remained committed to the peace
process with Israel.