Abbas lied to German Chancellor Merz

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has a long history of lying to Western leaders about problematic PA policies and behaviors.

On December 6, it was German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's turn. In a phone call between the two leaders, official PA TV reported on Abbas' claim to Merz that his government is opposed to Antisemitism.

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas: "[PA] President Mahmoud Abbas received a phone call from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz... [Abbas] emphasized the firm opposition of the State of Palestine to Antisemitism, and to all forms of racism, hatred, and violence, which are contrary to the values of our [Palestinian] people."

[Official PA TV News, Dec. 6, 2025]

If only it were true!

According to a 2014 survey by the Anti-Defamation League, 93% of Palestinians hold Antisemitic beliefs, making them the most Antisemitic society in the world.

Moreover, the PA's institutional Antisemitism, which is propagated through its official media and education system and which comes directly from Mahmoud Abbas himself as well as his senior advisors, ensures the indoctrination of new generations of Palestinians. PMW's important compilation "Palestinian Authority Antisemitism Creates Antisemitic Palestinians" shows precisely why Palestinians are imbued with Antisemitism.

Abbas himself has a long history of Antisemitism. As can be seen in the video above, he infamously stated in 2023 that Hitler had not "killed the Jews because they were Jews," rather "Hitler… fought the Jews because they worked based on usury and money. In other words, they caused ruin."

And this was far from the first time that he had made such comments. In 2018, Abbas said: "The Jewish problem that was common in all the states of Europe – against the Jews – was not due to their religion, but rather due to their social role that was connected to usury, and banks, and so forth."

These are all part of Abbas' lifelong obsession with Holocaust denial and revisionism, beginning with his doctoral thesis, which he continues to defend and regarding which he once declared in a PA documentary that there was a "secret connection between Nazi Germany and the Zionist movement."

Antisemitic hate-speech is often spread by PA officials as well. PA Minister of Religious Affairs Muhammad Mustafa Najem said in the past about Jews that Allah had "turned them into apes and pigs."

This is also the ideology and belief of Mahmoud Abbas' senior advisor, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, who not only repeated the refrain that Allah had cursed the Jews and "made them into apes and pigs" but went a step further and called them "grazing herds of humanoids" as well as "Satan."

With such routine hate-speech on PA television, it should come as no surprise when religious figures, such as PA Shari'ah Judge Abdallah Harb, urge on terror against the Jews, beseeching Allah to "strike the aggressive Jews... count them and kill them one by one, and do not leave even one."

The first step to genuine reform is to admit that you have a problem. And this, in a nutshell, is why PA reform remains an illusion. Abbas' lie to Merz about endemic Antisemitism in the PA is part of a larger pattern of PA obfuscation and outright denial. As long as these are the lies that the PA broadcasts to the world and the hate that it broadcasts to its people, there can be no talk of even a pathway to any sort of Palestinian state.