Despite statements in the past to the contrary, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) announced over the weekend that he will be running for reelection. Elections are scheduled for 2010.

The move appears timed with statements from Yerushalayim that a draft peace agreement between Israel and the PA is in the works. That comment elicited statements of disapproval from right-wing and other lawmakers that any deal signed at present by Olmert may not be binding in the next government, with Likud MK Gideon Saar accusing Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of selling Israel’s interests down the tubes to advance their own political careers and personal agendas.

Israel has painted Abu Mazen as a moderate, compared to the extreme Gaza-based Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah to permit Jerusalem a negotiating partner.

In reality, Abu Mazen is a documented Holocaust denier, and has even written his doctoral dissertation on his Holocaust denial theories. He also played a major role in funding the 1972 Munich massacre which resulted in the deaths of the Israeli summer Olympic team. 11 athletes and coaches were killed as well as a German policeman.

His doctoral thesis later became a book, The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism, which, following his appointment as Prime Minister in 2003, was heavily criticized as an example of Holocaust denial.

In his book, Abbas wrote:

“It seems that the interest of the Zionist movement, however, is to inflate this figure [of Holocaust deaths] so that their gains will be greater. This led them to emphasize this figure [six million] in order to gain the solidarity of international public opinion with Zionism. Many scholars have debated the figure of six million and reached stunning conclusions—fixing the number of Jewish victims at only a few hundred thousand.” (Wikipedia)

Abu Daoud, in his autobiography “From Jerusalem to Munich” wrote that the funds for the major attack were supplied by Mahmoud Abbas, AKA Abu Mazen, then chairman of the PLO as well as president of the Palestine National Authority.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)