At a peace conference in Chile, the Palestinian ambassador to the country cited the Czarist anti-Semitic tract The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as proof that Zionism was created to hide a Jewish plan for world domination.

Imad Nabil Jadaa also told the Conference for Peace in Palestine and Israel, held in Santiago, Chile, on May 15, that there is “no Jewish People” and that Palestinians don’t recognize the existence of a Jewish people. An English translation of his comments was only recently made public.

“Until 1896 when a group of academic intellectuals, financial advisers, majority being non-Jewish Europeans, decided to create the Zionist movement with one pretext/excuse; the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people,” he said. “Although the truth is that this (the goal) is to protect their plans of dominating life in the entire planet.”

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“According to the book ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ published in 1923, discovered by Lenin after the triumph of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia was over, in that book they mention the destruction of the moralities of other religions,” Jadaa went on. “In that book they put plans of the manipulation of all the financial, economic and industrial apparatus of the entire world. They discuss the manipulation of local political forces from all different countries.”

The Beirut-born Jadaa represents the Palestinian Authority in a country that has often been at odds with Israel over the Palestinian issue, even recalling its ambassador to Israel during last summer’s war with Hamas in Gaza.

An English translation of Jadaa’s comments, which were delivered in Spanish, was made public last week by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP).

In his May speech, Jadaa also argued that Jews do not constitute a distinct people.

“About the hatred we have against the Jewish people, as Palestinians, first, we don’t have hatred. Second, we don’t recognize the existence of the Jewish people — there is no Jewish people,” Jadaa said.

“This is not my personal analysis. Here we can refer to the Jewish Israeli professor from the University of Tel Aviv, Dr. Shlomo Sand, in his book ‘The Invention of the Jewish people.’ A Jew with an Israeli passport announces that the so-called Jewish nation is a made-up invention. Because a religion cannot be a people.”

Some of Jadaa’s comments reflect widespread opinion in the Middle East, echoing the rhetoric of Palestinian leaders, Iranian leaders and others. Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish nation-state was a key Israeli demand in last year’s failed US-brokered peace talks, and is still sought by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Founded in 2004, ISGAP described itself as “the first interdisciplinary research center dedicated to the study of antisemitism based in North America.”