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Reform Movement Troubled by Reports of Abbas
Linking Zionism with Nazism

Rabbi Jacobs: These comments are not befitting a man committed to peace nor any person with even the most cursory understanding of the horrors of the Holocaust.

January 24, 2013, New York, NY – In response to media reports that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made comments linking Zionism and Nazism, Union for Reform Judaism President Rabbi Rick Jacobs issued the following statement:

We are deeply troubled by outrageous comments attributed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as reported in the Lebanese media, linking the Zionist movement to the actions of the Nazi government that resulted in the deaths of six million Jews.

If the comments attributed to Abbas are accurate, this is not the first time he has referenced these abhorrent claims, nor the first time he has tried to then distance himself from them. These comments are not befitting a man committed to peace nor any person with even the most cursory understanding of the horrors of the Holocaust. 

If President Abbas is to be a true leader and advance the cause of peace, he must not only unequivocally retract the comments, but he must refrain from furthering such heinous lies in the future.

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