12.3.2003 / 8 Adar 5763
Senior government officials ordered the «filing away» of reports that Abu Mazen had denied the Holocaust and supported for terrorist attacks against Israelis.
Arutz-7’s Haggai Huberman reports that senior government officials instructed the IDF Spokesman to remove from the IDF website the report of an interview with Abu Mazen in which he expressed support for terrorist attacks against Israelis. Abu Mazen is set to become the Palestinian Authority’s Prime Minister. The item was on the site as late as this morning, but is no longer. As reported here on Sunday, the IDF Spokesman’s position on the matter was, «Abu Mazen’s comments clearly express the Palestinian Authority’s position on the subject of a cease-fire with Israel. Abu Mazen, as well as the Palestinian Interior Minister, Hani Elhassan, justify the continuation of the armed struggle against Israeli civilians in [Yesha]. His comments also imply that Israeli residents of these regions are a ‘legitimate target’ for the ‘resistance.'»
Abu Mazen told the London-based Arabic paper A-Sharq al-Aussat on March 3 that «all means» were legitimate against Jews living in Yesha. He said the «intifada must continue. The Palestinian people [sic] have a right to oppose, using all means at their disposal…» President Moshe Katzav today condemned Abu Mazen’s statements.
This was not the first time information about Abu Mazen has been censored for political reasons. MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) told Arutz-7 today that prior to the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the U.S. State Department together asked the Simon Wiesenthal Center to conceal its information on Abu Mazen’s Holocaust-denial writings. Eldad said that the Israeli and American diplomats were seeking to «launder» the man who was about to sign a historic agreement with Israel.
Abu Mazen – Arafat’s choice for Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, and the man regarded by much of the world as its great hope for moderation and peace in the Middle East – is the author of a book in Arabic book entitled, «The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism.» The author’s thesis is that the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis is a «Zionist fantasy’ and a «fantastic lie.» According to Abu Mazen, only 890,000 Jews were killed by Hitler, and that they were victims of a joint Zionist-Nazi plot.
«According to information I have received,» MK Eldad said, «Israel’s Foreign Ministry approached the Wiesenthal Center with the request to file away the translation [of Abu Mazen’s work denying the Holocaust] and not to publish it. It was also made known to me that the US State Department made a parallel request. And the fact is that the translation has still not been published.»
MK Eldad said he has yet to receive a reply from the Wiesenthal Center regarding his inquiry on the issue – nor has he yet received one from the Foreign Ministry about his request for confirmation of the facts of the matter.