UPDATED: The PA Blood Libel Repeated by President Abbas was Already Debunked with CAMERA’s Help
June 24, 2016
Today’s New York Times features a forthright and informative article by Diaa Hadid about Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ blood libel to the EU. She writes:
Echoing anti-Semitic claims that led to the mass killings of European Jews in medieval times, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority accused rabbis in Israel of calling on their government to poison the water used by Palestinians.
He made the unsubstantiated allegation during a speech to the European Parliament on Thursday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a statement later that Mr. Abbas had spread a “blood libel” in the speech.
Abbas was repeating the medieval blood libel that was revived last week by Palestinian Authority officials who invented a fictional rabbi named “Rabbi Shlomo Mma” and a fictional rabbinical council called the “Council of Rabbis in the West Bank Settlements” calling for the poisoning Palestinian water sources. Palestinian Media Watch describes how the PA turned an unsubstantiated claim against settlers by a radical activist into the full-blown blood libel, which was subsequently repeated by the PA president to the European Union.
The Jerusalem Post earlier published an article debunking the Palestinian Authority invention, quoting research from CAMERA. According to the Post, there is no evidence of any “Shlomo Mlma or Mlmad or the Coucnil of Rabbis in West Bank settlements.” Rather:
There is a Council of Rabbis in Judea and Samaria, led by Yishai Babad. There is a Rabbi Zalman Melamed of Beit El. Mlmad is similar to Melamed, and Zalman is Yiddish for Shlomo.
Rabbi Zalman Melamed told Gidon Shaviv, a senior research analyst for press watchdog CAMERA, “I did not say that and do not believe any rabbi would say something like that.” Melamed also called the report a blood libel. [emphasis added]
Updated, June 26: Abbas Retracts the Libel
The New York Times reports:
Mr. Abbas’s retraction was sent to reporters early Saturday morning, issued by the P.L.O., of which Mr. Abbas is the chairman. It said that Mr. Abbas “rejected all claims that accuse him and the Palestinian people of offending the Jewish religion.” It added that he “also condemned all accusations of anti-Semitism.”
“After it has become evident that the alleged statements by a rabbi on poisoning Palestinian wells, which were reported by various media outlets, are baseless, President Mahmoud Abbas has affirmed that he didn’t intend to do harm to Judaism or to offend Jewish people around the world,” the statement continued.
More from SNAPSHOTS
President of Bethlehem Bible College Expresses Thanks for Antisemitic Comment
January 30, 2018
Jack Sara, president of Bethlehem Bible College, either can’t recognize antisemitism when he sees it or is OK with it. In a Facebook discussion underneath one of his articles at The Christian Post, a website [...]
Civilian Bounties, Quartz, Haaretz & Lousy Translations
January 29, 2018
Quartz, which describes itself as "a digitally native news outlet, born in 2012, for business people in the new global economy. We publish bracingly creative and intelligent journalism with a broad worldview," today took heat [...]
Where’s the Coverage? Arab Enrollment in Israeli Universities Grows 78%
January 27, 2018
Part of the campus of Tel Aviv University The number of Arab students in Israeli universities has grown an astonishing 78.5% over the last seven years, according to Israel’s Council for Higher Education (CHE). Although [...]
Is The U.S. State Department Hiding a ‘Game Changer’ Report on Palestinian Refugees?
January 25, 2018
The United Nations Refugee and Works Agency (UNRWA) provides aid to approximately 5.3 million Palestinians which they categorize as “refugees”—but the actual number may be as low as 20,000, according to a Washington Free Beacon [...]
Where’s the Coverage? Palestinian Leader Buys $50 Million Private Jet
January 25, 2018
The President of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas, has bought a private jet worth an estimated $50 million. The purchase comes after widely reported “major funding cuts from the U.S.,” as The Times of [...]
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell Takes Heat for Inaccurate Knesset Tweet
January 22, 2018
After NBC anchor Andrea Mitchell posted an inaccurate and inflammatory comment on Twitter about the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, she was quickly corrected by Israeli journalists. In her Monday morning tweet, Mitchell asserted that “the 13 [...]
Updated: AFP Photo Captions Mislead on Gaza ‘Smuggling Tunnels’
January 17, 2018
Update Appended to Bottom of Post: AFP Removes Misleading Reference to 'Smuggling' Tunnels A series of Agence France Presse photo captions earlier this week misleadingly identified the tunnel discovered under the Kerem Shalom crossing, extending [...]
In English, Haaretz Misleads on Ibrahim Abu Thuraya
January 14, 2018
Update, 8:10 am EST: For Second Time, Haaretz English Edition Corrects on Abu Thuraya’s Leg Injury Despite the fact that Haaretz’s earlier this month corrected a photo caption which inaccurately reported on the unclear circumstances [...]
Where’s the Coverage? Israel Prevented ‘Several Dozen’ Terror Attacks in Europe
January 11, 2018
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu The nation of Israel prevented ‘mass’ terror attacks on the continent of Europe, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Jan. 9, 2018. This admission—made at a meeting of Israel-based [...]