Why is Germany paying Palestinian Authority teachers to teach Holocaust denial that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said “disgusted” him, and is “outrageous… intolerable and unacceptable?” 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz: 
“I am disgusted by the outrageous remarks made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas [saying Israel committed “50 holocausts”]. For us Germans in particular, any relativization of the singularity of the Holocaust is intolerable and unacceptable.”

Head of PA Teachers’ Union – representing 60,000 teachers – funded by Germany and the EU, on “holocausts” Israel is committing:  

• “Massacres have happened to the Palestinian people that were worse than the Holocaust” 
• “The Palestinian holocaust has not ended… daily measures are a holocaust that renews every day… it attempts to do to our Palestinian people what they did to [the Jews] in Germany” 
• “The Palestinian people has also been subjected to massacres, more than the Jews in Germany experienced” 

• “[Abbas] is the most knowledgeable person on the thinking of the occupation (i.e., Israel) and the thinking of Zionism, because he wrote [a thesis] about the comparison between Zionism and Nazism” 
• “Abbas… wrote about Nazism and Zionism, that they are two sides of the same coin” 

The hate speech above was disseminated on PA TV by Saed Erziqat, head of PA’s General Union of Palestinian Teachers and is far more odious than PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ libel that “Israel committed 50 holocausts.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was “disgusted” by Abbas’ “outrageous… intolerable and unacceptable,” statement. Now Abbas’ hate-speech has been repeated and compounded by a top PA educator on official PA TV, and was included in a letter written on behalf of 60,000 Palestinian teachers, whose salaries are paid by Germany and the EU. This is what Palestinian teachers are taught to believe and is what Palestinian children are learning from their teachers, that Germany is funding.

Ironically, German and the EU are funding PA teachers specifically because the donors don’t want their money to go to PA hate and terror promotion. After Palestinian Media Watch presented US and European donors to the PA with documentation that the PA was using their donor money to pay salaries to terrorist prisoners, many donor countries stopped funding the PA’s general budget in order not to fund the terror salaries. Among the projects the EU and Germany chose to fund instead were the salaries of the PA teachers, thinking this was a secure, non-terror and non-hate related contribution.

But now Saed Erziqat, the head of the PA’s General Union of Palestinian Teachers that represents 60,000 educators, has revealed that the teachers’ union has adopted a hate ideology of Holocaust “relativization” and Antisemitism. Erziqat came to the defense of Abbas’ “50 holocausts” libel. The teachers’ union leader repeatedly compared Israel to Nazis, saying that what Israel has done to the Palestinians is “worse than the Holocaust itself”:

Secretary-General of the General Union of Palestinian Teachers Saed Erziqat: “A blessing to His Honor [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas, He is the one who wrote about Nazism and Zionism, that they are two sides of the same coin… When His Honor the President spoke [in Germany] about [50 Palestinian] holocaust[s] he did not deny what happened to the entity- and the Jews in Germany, rather he attempted to show that the Palestinian people has also been subjected to massacres, more than the Jews in Germany experienced… We in the Palestinian Teachers’ Union sent a letter to the German teachers’ union that there are massacres that have happened to the Palestinian people that were worse than the Holocaust itself.”

Host: “And it is happening now, not in 1945.”

Erziqat: “Yes. Also, the Palestinian holocaust has not ended. The occupation’s (i.e., Israel’s) daily measures are a holocaust that renews every day… It attempts to do to our Palestinian people what they did to [the Jews] in Germany… He [Abbas] is the most knowledgeable person on the thinking of the occupation and the thinking of Zionism, because he wrote [a thesis] about the comparison between Zionism and Nazism. Therefore, he is the person who most understands the importance of [this] narrative to the world.”

[Official PA TV program Topic of the Day, Aug. 20, 2022]

Last month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s condemnation of Abbas’ libel at their joint press conference in Berlin, was clear and unequivocal:

“I am disgusted by the outrageous remarks made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. For us Germans in particular, any relativization of the singularity of the Holocaust is intolerable and unacceptable.”

[Chancellor Scholz’s Twitter account, Aug. 17, 2022]

Palestinian Media Watch has written to the German Foreign Ministry and to the EU demanding that they cease all funding and cooperation with the PA Ministry of Education until the antisemitic head of its teachers’ union is removed from his position of influence over Palestinian teachers. In addition, the union must likewise condemn the libels and antisemitic hate speech disseminated in its name, retract the letter sent to the German teachers’ union and declare that it rejects all the libelous Nazi comparisons to Israel. Moreover, to prevent a recurrence, it would be wise for European and German donors to demand the inclusion of accurate Holocaust education in the PA curriculum.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) has defined Nazi – Israel comparisons as an example of Antisemitism: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”  Germany is among the countries that have adopted the IHRA’s definition.

If Germany continues to unconditionally fund the PA teachers, it will make a mockery of the German Chancellor and make his condemnation of Abbas devoid of meaning. It would make Germany’s repeated claims of fighting Antisemitism, Holocaust denial, and Holocaust relativization an empty pretense.

Reprinted with author’s permission from Palestinian Media Watch