Pope Francis Embraces Holocaust Denier Who Rewards Terrorist “Martyrs”
Pontiff trusts Islamic jihadists to provide stability and protect Christians in post-Assad Syria
Pope Francis embraces Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas recently at The Vatican.
Pope Francis warmly embraced Palestinian holocaust denier and terrorism sponsor Mahmoud Abbas to Rome last Thursday, a day after the Vatican was forced to remove its politicized nativity scene portraying a “Palestinian” Jesus lying on a swaddling “terrorism” scarf.
While in Rome, Abbas also met Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, accompanied by Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the secretary for relations with states and international organizations, the Holy See Press Office informed journalists.
The prelates and Abbas discussed bilateral relations, highlighting the important contribution of the Catholic Church to Palestinian society, and assisting the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including the possibility of a ceasefire and the release of all Israeli hostages.
Following the 30-minute meeting with Francis, the Palestinian president bragged, “Every time I meet the pope, it’s like meeting an old friend.”
“I thanked the Holy Father for his constant words about peace in the Middle East,” Abbas said, “and for the solidarity he always expresses with the Palestinian civilians who are victims of the war in Gaza.”
Rejecting a Two-State Solution
“I asked him to continue to promote the recognition of the State of Palestine in the international community,” added Abbas, who has become synonymous with terrorism in Judea and Samaria. “If peace is to be achieved, there is no alternative to the two-state solution.”
In 2015, the Palestinian president publicly admitted he turned down a chance for a two-state peace deal with Israel in 2008 that would have given him nearly all the land the Palestinians wanted.
Abbas told Israel’s Channel 10 television that he rejected the deal because he was not given the chance to study the map that spelled out then-Israeli Prime Minister’s Ehud Olmert’s offer.
“He showed me a map. He didn’t give me a map,” Abbas claimed. “He told me, ‘This is the map’ and took it away. I respected his point of view, but how can I sign on something that I didn’t receive?”
Doctorate in Holocaust Denial
More worryingly, Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) has a PhD in Holocaust denial. He completed his dissertation in 1982, titled The Connection between the Nazis and the Leaders of the Zionist Movement, and defended at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.
The dissertation argues that the Zionists collaborated with the Nazis in order to spur more Jewish immigration to Palestine. Abbas cited well-known Holocaust deniers, questioned the fact that gas chambers were used to exterminate Jews, and claimed that the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust might number “even less than a million.”
Abbas also claimed that the Zionist movement convinced global opinion leaders that the number was six million in order to achieve “greater gains” after the war when the time came to “distribute the spoils.”
In response, 96 leading Palestinian intellectuals, including historian Rashid Khalidi, political scientist Dana el-Kurd, and prominent businessman Sam Bahour published an open letter condemning Abbas’s antisemitic comments in September 2023.
Palestinians Condemn Antisemitic Statements
“We the undersigned, Palestinian academics, writers, artists, activists, and people of all walks of life, unequivocally condemn the morally and politically reprehensible comments made by president of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas about the Holocaust,” they stated. They said further:
Rooted in a racial theory widespread in European culture and science at the time, the Nazi genocide of the Jewish people was born of antisemitism, fascism, and racism. We adamantly reject any attempt to diminish, misrepresent, or justify antisemitism, Nazi crimes against humanity, or historical revisionism vis-a-vis the Holocaust.
In a televised speech to members of his Fatah political party, Abbas said that Adolf Hitler killed European Jews in the Holocaust not because of antisemitism, but because of their “social role” in society, such as money lending.
“They say that Hitler killed the Jews for being Jews and that Europe hated the Jews because they were Jews,” Abbas said. “No. It was clearly explained that they fought them because of their social role and not their religion.”
European Parliament condemned those remarks after they were translated into English by the Middle East Media Research Institute; Germany and the United States also criticized them. Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, later stripped Abbas of the city’s highest honour.
Incentivizing Terrorism
While neither Pope Francis nor Vatican officials have ever publicly criticized the Palestinian president for his antisemitism or his role in supporting terrorism, Christians United for Israel (CUFI) has.
“He and the Palestinian Authority he runs provide rich financial rewards to terrorists. In 2016, PA payments to terrorists and their families exceeded $300 million,” CUFI revealed. “These payments are not random acts of malice; they are required by law.
“Under Palestinian legislation the PA must pay generous salaries to terrorists who are arrested while attacking Israelis. The longer their sentence — i.e. the more Israelis they kill — the more money they receive.”
In July 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives introduced The PLO and PA Terror Payments Accountability Act to crack down on martyr payments — financial rewards issued to terrorists and their families after committing bombings, stabbings, or other attacks in Israel.
“These ‘pay-to-slay’ policies incentivize acts of terrorism and are often directly proportional to the number of individuals injured or killed during the attack,” the bill stated.
Pope Francis’s Wishful Thinking on Syria
Meanwhile, a day before meeting Abbas, Pope Francis called on the radical Islamic militants who toppled the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to stabilise the nation.
“I hope they find political solutions that, without other conflicts or divisions, responsibly promote the stability and unity of the country,” the pope said in his Wednesday audience at the Vatican.
But top scholars of Islam and persecution watchers told The Stream that Francis’s remarks were delusional since Syrian Christians were already facing the threat of genocide from the Muslim jihadists who have taken over Aleppo, Homs, and other areas of the country.
“Pope Francis has not spoken up for the Christians of Syria, and is virtually certain not to do so,” Robert Spencer, an eminent scholar of Islam, told The Stream. “He remains willfully ignorant regarding the reality and magnitude of the jihad threat, and of how Sharia institutionalizes the harassment and persecution of Christians.”
Spencer, who has authored more than two dozen books on Islam and the Middle East, including the bestselling Muhammad: A Critical Biography, elaborated:
Several jihad leaders have promised that Christians in Syria would not be harmed, but they have already broken this promise, ransacking a Greek Orthodox church in al-Suqaylabiyah. They also beat Christian farmers in a Christian village near Homs. As Sharia prescribes second-class status for Christians, it is very likely that Syrian Christians will suffer a deprivation of rights, at best.
Media Savvy Jihadists Fool Western Leaders
Dr. Martin Parsons, director of The Lindisfarne Centre for the Study of Christian Persecution, told The Stream that the jihadist outfit Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), in which Pope Francis and other Western leaders are putting their trust, is a direct affiliate of al-Qaeda set up under the name of the Jabhat al-Nusra Front in 2011.
“Two weeks ago the official HTS news channel threatened suicide bombings and the capture of Aleppo and Damascus — that probably tells you all you need to know,” Parsons said.
“Over the last decade jihadist groups have become increasingly media savvy. HTS are absolutely no exception to that — in fact, their leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, was originally a media studies student. But their ideology hasn’t changed — they have just learned to say one thing for a Western audience and another to their own supporters.”
In an interview with the European Conservative, Rafael, a Syrian-born Greek Levantine activist who asked that his surname not to be disclosed in order to protect his safety, echoed Parsons’s insights.
“Mainstream media has always claimed [HTS] are ‘moderate rebels’ when in fact we know they are neither moderate nor rebels. They are the same militants that beheaded women and children, just rebranded with new names. These people want a theocratic country,” he said.
“Christians in Syria need urgent help. For now, it seems they are still alive, but the last time the city of Aleppo was besieged, they were targeted and killed. I believe evacuation and humanitarian aid should be the priority at this point.”
Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.