Photo of Jewish MP holding hands with Abbas “absolutely shameful”

Article content

A photo tweeted by Global Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly Thursday night of her meeting in the West Bank with the territory’s leader has drawn outrage from Israel supporters who noticed the photo also includes the Jewish Liberal cabinet minister Ya’ara Saks holding hands with Mahmoud Abbas, known for antisemitism, Holocaust denial and supporting terror.

“In the West Bank, we met with President Abbas to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the future governance of the Palestinian Authority and the work to advance towards a two-state solution,” Joly wrote in post to X. In the photo, Joly is shaking Abbas’s hand, but Saks, Liberal minister of mental health and addictions, is on the other side of Abbas and appears to be holding hands with him.

Article content

Article content

Abbas has a long history of Holocaust denial and has spread the conspiracy theory that Israel perpetrated the Oct. 7 terrorist attack committed by Hamas. His Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank also pays allowances to families of terrorists killed in attacks out of a “martyr’s fund.”

Article content

Article content

“He denied the Holocaust. He denied October 7. He set up the Martyrs Fund that rewards families of terrorists who kill Jews,” wrote Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman Thursday night on X. “You held this guy’s hand.”

Conservative MP Marty Morantz in a tweet called it “absolutely shameful” to see the Liberals “holding hands with rabid antisemite, (H)olocaust and October 7th denier Mahmoud Abbas.”

And Michal Cotler-Wunsh, the special envoy for combating antisemitism in Israel, tweeted that while Joly and Saks had not made time to meet with her in Israel to discuss the “tsunami of lethal hatred” in Canada, they had “Time to meet PA leader that denies Holocaust; fuels antisemitism; pays to slay Jews.” 

A press release from Global Affairs Canada noted that Joly also met with Riad Malki, her foreign affairs counterpart in the Palestinian government, during her visit to the West Bank on Thursday.

“During the two meetings, Minister Joly raised the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza, including the protection of civilians and the growing threat of hunger and disease for displaced Palestinians,” the release said. “The Minister emphasized that a humanitarian ceasefire is urgently needed to stop the violence, bring hostages home and ensure that civilians in Gaza can access humanitarian relief.”

Article content

Article content

It added: “Minister Joly also discussed the unacceptable sharp increase in extremist settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. (She) reaffirmed Canada’s position that the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank endangers the prospects for a two-state solution and highlighted Canada’s continued calls for perpetrators of extremist settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank to be held accountable.”

Last September, Abbas drew widespread condemnation from American, German and Israeli officials for a speech in which he said Hitler had “fought” Jews for their “social role” as money lenders, and not because of their religion.

He also repeated a discredited theory that European Ashkenazi Jews are the descendants of a nomadic tribe that converted to Judaism during the Middle Ages. “When we hear them talk about Semitism and anti-Semitism — the Ashkenazi Jews, at least, are not Semites,” he said. The argument is often used to suggest that European Jews have no historic ties to Israel.

Abbas’s PhD thesis from a Soviet university promoted the antisemitic libel that Jews had collaborated with Nazis during the Holocaust.

Article content

Article content