Mahmoud Abbas has long been secretary-general of the PLO’s ruling executive committee, which made him deputy to Yasser Arafat, and the PLO chairman’s possible successor. Now he has been officially presented and approved as Arafat’s new Prime Minister.

Abbas is co-signatory to Oslo I and II. He purportedly represents “the moderate side” of the Arab world.

He is also a historical revisionist, and a Holocaust denier.

In his Arabic book, The Other Side: the secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism, Abbas refutes “the Zionist fantasy, the fantastic lie that six million Jews were killed.”

Instead, this man with whom Israel’s next government may find itself negotiating the future of Israel the Jewish state born out of that very Holocaust - suggests a cynical and macabre connection between the Nazis and the Zionists, and claims that ‘only’ 890,000 Jews were killed by Hitler - these as the victims of a Zionist-Nazi plot.

The British had the spine to refuse to meet with Hitler’s deputy, Rudolph Hess, when he flew to England to negotiate peace with Britain, and thus to stop the advance of the Allied forces. The Americans would not dream of agreeing to negotiate with a deputy approved and appointed by Saddam Hussein. Why then should the Israelis crawl like beggars to a man who has been at the side of Arafat for years, is financially beholden to him, and is an accomplice in his murderous terrorism that has already killed so many Israelis?

Will Mr. Ariel Sharon, who had the moral fortitude to refuse to shake Arafat’s hand, now negotiate with his long-standing deputy, and give him his Palestinian state in the heart of the land of Israel?

Addendum

Jewish Studies scholar Rafael Medoff writes:

The Japanese publisher Bungei Shunju shut down one of its magazines for printing an article denying the Holocaust.

International pressure compelled Croatian President Franjo Tudjman to publicly retract statements in his book doubting that the Holocaust had taken place. Austrian Freedom Party leader Jorg Haider was ostracized by the international community for his remarks praising members of the SS, as was French politician Jean Marie Le Pen, for questioning the existence of the gas chambers and belittling the significance of the Holocaust. A recent poll found 64 percent of Americans believe world leaders should likewise refuse to meet with Abbas.

Yet some in the media have treated Abbas with kid gloves, to say the least. The official BCC News Profile of Abbas reports: "A highly intellectual man, Abbas studied law in Egypt before doing a Ph.D. in Moscow. He is the author of several books." The New York Times recently characterized Abbas as "a lawyer and historian . . . He holds a doctorate in history from the Moscow Oriental College; his topic was Zionism." Neither the BBC nor the Times offered any further explanation as to the contents of Abbas' writings.

Bestowing the title "historian" upon Mahmoud Abbas awards his writings a stature they do not deserve, and deals a grievous insult to every genuine historian.

If Abbas is elevated to the post of prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, not only the media but the entire international community will be confronted with the question of whether Abbas deserves to be treated any differently from Tudjman, Haider and Le Pen.

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