Canada has condemned a statement by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to the European Parliament in which the Palestinian leader repeated an age-old anti-Semitic canard accusing Israeli rabbis of calling for the poisoning of Palestinian wells.

“Canadian officials raised our serious concerns with Palestinian officials as early as the day after President Abbas’ comments. Canada finds such comments completely unacceptable, and was pleased to see that President Abbas fully and formally retracted these baseless allegations,” said Global Affairs spokesperson Chantal Gagnon.

Canada’s condemnation came within 24 hours after Abbas made the claim in a speech before the European Parliament in Brussels on June 23. Abbas’ speech, which was greeted by a standing ovation by European parliamentarians, also contained a wide-range of inflammatory allegations that accused Israel of massacres and contending that many of its own people considered it a fascist and racist government. He also claimed Palestinian connection to the land dating back to the origins of civilization and that it was a sacred place for Christians and Muslims alike, ignoring the Jewish connection to the land.

“There is an issue that the Israelis are bringing up, and that is the issue of incitement,” Abbas told the parliamentarians. “Despite the fact that the Israeli incitement does not stop, and the actions of the occupation and the settlers do not stop.

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“Just a week ago, some rabbis rose up in Israel and explicitly announced and demanded of their government that it poison the water in order to kill the Palestinians. Is this not clear incitement? Is this not clear incitement, whose goal is to carry out a mass murder of Palestinians? We are against incitement,” Abbas stated.

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which translated Abbas’ Arabic-language speech, noted that “The libel that rabbis called to poison the Palestinians’ water, which had been voiced by the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the PLO in the days prior to Abbas’ speech, did not appear in the written version of Abbas’ speech, which was publicized in the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on June 24. Apparently Abbas decided to add it in at the last moment.”

Abbas later retracted his comments. A statement issued by his office stated: “Palestine is the cradle of the three monotheistic religions, and we are not among those who harm any one of them.

“[PA] President Mahmoud Abbas rejected the Israeli accusations and declarations directed against him and against the Palestinian people, according to which he harmed Judaism, and condemned accusations against him of anti-Semitism.

“After it became clear that the reports that were published in many media outlets about the declarations of a rabbi regarding the poisoning of Palestinian wells were baseless, President Abbas – out of the deep respect he has for all religions, including Judaism – emphasizes that he did not intend to harm Judaism or its believers in general. However, at the same time he condemns the illegal actions and steps of the occupation authorities and its settlers against the Palestinian people, including the incitement against him and against his rights.”

PMW, which monitors Palestinian radio and television broadcasts, along with school curricula and other aspects of Palestinian culture, noted that “since the Palestinian Authority was established it has systematically indoctrinated young and old to hate Israelis and Jews.

“The PA has actively promoted religious hatred, demonization, conspiracy libels, etc. These are packaged to present Israelis and Jews as endangering Palestinians, Arabs, and all humanity. This ongoing campaign has so successfully instilled hatred that fighting, murder and even suicide terror against Israelis and Jews are seen by the majority of Palestinians as justified self-defense and as Allah’s will.”

The PA has promoted various “libels,” PMW stated, including claims that Israel spreads AIDS and drugs among Palestinians, that it harvests the organs of dead terrorists, and that it conducts medical experiments on Palestinian prisoners.

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Responding to the Canadian government’s swift condemnation of Abbas’ speech, Noah Shack, director of policy for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) said, “we’re pleased that the government of Canada responded to Abbas’ odious comments in such a serious manner.”

Shack noted the government “demarche is a rarely used diplomatic tool that represents a strong rebuke, which has been amplified further by the government’s public comments on the matter.”

Abbas’ statement “speaks to the fact that classic anti-Semitic tropes that have historically been used to demonize Jews are increasingly being used to demonize the Jewish state,” Shack said.

The libel accusing Jews of poisoning wells led in the past to the murder of innocent people, Shack said, adding that such comments also struck a blow against peace.

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