SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER CALLS ON ABU MAZEN TO DISMISS TV CHIEF AFTER ‘WORST’ ANTISEMITIC AND HOLOCAUST DENIAL BROADCAST

The Simon Wiesenthal Center called on Palestinian Authority President Abu Mazen to fire the head of Palestinian TV after Palestinian Television carried a live noon sermon on Friday during which Sheikh Ibrahim Mudairis called Jews a "spreading cancer" and repeated the canard that Jews exaggerated the actual numbers killed by the Nazis during the World War II Nazi Holocaust.

The Sheik, speaking in a Gaza Mosque in the presence of uniformed PA police said in part:

"The Jews are the cancer spreading all over the world...the Jews are a virus like AIDS hitting human kind...Jews are responsible for all wars and conflicts...." He went on to say, "Do not ask what Germany did to the Jews but what the Jews did to Germany. Through the Zionist movement the Jews incited many nations to start economic war against Germany and boycotted it...True, the Germans killed and burnt Jews but the Jews exaggerate the numbers to gain propaganda advantages and sympathy..." 

The Sheik went on to assert that, "God has predetermined that the Jewish problem will be solved with the extermination of the Jews," and, "God has also predetermined that Christian -Islam interactions will end with today's Christian countries under Islam."

"Even in the days of Arafat, we did not see such a blatant antisemitic and Holocaust-denying canard broadcast on Palestinian TV, whose current chief was personally appointed by Abu Mazen," charged Rabbi Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper, Dean and Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish Human Rights Group.

"This attack comes just days before Abu Mazen’s scheduled meeting with President Bush, and during the week the civilized world commemorated the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. Is this genocidal sermon the kind of peace dividend that the people of Israel can look forward to? The first thing that Abu Mazen should say to President Bush at the White House is that he fired the head of Palestinian Broadcasting and all those associated with the broadcast of this ‘big lie,’" Hier and Cooper concluded. Center officials also called on the US government to link funding of Palestinian entities to their actions, not promises.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe.

For more information please call 310-210-9750 or visit www.wiesenthal.com.

Visuals below are images taken from the sermon given by Sheikh Ibrahim Mudairis in Gaza, and aired on Palestinian TV and broadcast on Israel Channel 2 TV, Ehud Yaari.