Arab MK speaks at Knesset on Holocaust Remembrance Day for first time
'Holocaust denial is a remnant of Nazi ideology. It is a moral failure and its betrayal of the values of truth and justice is a transgression of a fundamental principle in Islam'
By GIL HOFFMAN, TZVI JOFFREJoint List MK Mansour Abbas alongside Blue and White leader Benny Gantz on Holocaust Remembrance Day, 2020(photo credit: KNESSET SPOKESWOMAN - ADINA WALLMAN)
MK Mansour Abbas, head of the religious United Arab List party that is part of the Joint List, eulogized the victims of the Holocaust in a speech to the Knesset on Tuesday, Holocaust Remembrance Day, the first Arab MK to do so. Abbas said that he was uttering a prayer from the Quran in memory of the souls of the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust."As a religious Palestinian Muslim Arab, who was raised on the legacy of Sheikh Abdallah Nimr Darwish who founded the Islamic Movement, I have empathy to the pain and suffering over the years of Holocaust survivors and the families of the murdered. I stand here to show solidarity with the Jewish people here and forever," said Abbas.Abbas said that he would speak about the Holocaust "not from books or from internet quotes, but rather from a moral worldview and internal contemplation on the person inside me and historical insights formed through a number of years.""I bow my head before the heroism of women and men who started the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the decree of death and the feeling of despair to protect the human image," said Abbas. "I also bow my head before heroes from multiple nations, righteous among the nations, Christians, Muslims and other, especially Muslim Arabs in the great mosque of Paris and in and in the Muslim country of Albania that took in and protected Jews throughout the war."Over 1,700 resistance fighters, of which only a few were not Jews, hid in the mosque in Paris, explained Abbas."Holocaust denial is a remnant of Nazi ideology. It is a moral failure and its betrayal of the values of truth and justice is a transgression of a fundamental principle in Islam, the testimony of truth and justice," said Abbas."Politicians or religious men or any person who doesn't manage to shake off racism or hatred of the other or doesn't stop inciting conflict and war should not touch the Holocaust and should not desecrate their sanctity," added the Arab MK.Members of the Joint List who were at the Knesset on Tuesday morning stood in silence among the rest of the MKs present for the two minute siren, sounded to mark a moment of silence for those killed in the Holocaust.
