In 1993, Abbé Pierre (1912-2007), a French Catholic Priest, gave an interview, saying it was Catholic Christians who committed the Holocaust, and who gave Palestine to the Jews because they were ashamed of what they did.
A staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause, Abbé Pierre said Christians made the moslems—who did nothing to the Jews—pay the price of Hitler’s actions.
This from frontpagemag.com.
He also said:
Not a single [moslem] had participated in the Holocaust, nor had any responsibility. And we deceived the Palestinians. We lied to them.
Now, let us dissect each of these assertions one by one:
First, it was not ‘Catholic Christians’ who committed the Holocaust, but the Nazis—most of whom were of Lutheran background, and who can hardly be called ‘Christians’ in any reasonable sense of that word.
There may have been some in Hitler’s Nationalist Socialist Party who once upon a time had thought of themselves as Catholic, but like those who may at one time have called themselves Lutheran, Christians in any reasonable sense of the word would have acted in such an evil manner.
Second, no one ‘gave’ Palestine to the Jews. The Jews had been living in the Land of Israel uninterruptedly for 3500 years. It is where Jewish history was made.
The League of Nations’ Mandate for Palestine recognized that historic claim, and urged that the Mandatary, Great Britain, “facilitate Jewish immigration” to the land and “encourage close Jewish settlement on the land.” Jewish immigrants returned to the Land of Israel, to settle on both “state and waste” lands and on land they bought—at exorbitant prices—from Arab and Turkish landowners.
After 1949, they continued to buy land and also took over lands that had been abandoned by Arabs who had heeded broadcasts to leave Mandatory Palestine/Israel while the war was going on, having been assured they would soon return with the victorious Arab armies. Their plans did not come to fruition.
Third, the Jews of Israel have repeatedly had to fight to keep their land from those who would destroy them. They fought three wars for their very survival, in 1948, 1967, and 1973. The Israelis are fighting a fourth such war for their survival today, a seven-front war in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran.
Many Israelis have died in defense of their land. Their blood, like that of the Maccabees thousands of years ago, is on the title deed.
Fourth, Abbé Pierre claimed ‘not a single [moslem] had participated in the Holocaust, nor had any responsibility.’ What could he have been thinking? Had he forgotten the leader of the Palestinian Arabs, Hajj Amin el-Husseini, spent the war years in Berlin, met with Hitler and congratulated him on how he was dealing with the Jews, visited Auschwitz with his friend Adolf Eichmann, made broadcasts in Arabic on behalf of the Nazis throughout the war, and recruited several battalions of Bosnian [moslems] to serve in the Waffen-SS, where they helped round up and murder Jews? Husseini was not the only Arab leader to spend the war years in Berlin broadcasting pro-Nazi propaganda to Arab audiences in the Middle East. So did the former Iraqi prime minister Rashid Ali al-Kailani, and the Syrian guerrilla leader Fawzi al-Qawuqji.
Fifth, Abbé Pierre claimed ‘we’—the Western powers ‘deceived the Palestinians. We lied to them.’ How did the Western world ‘deceive the Palestinian Arabs?’ They were well-treated by the West; it was the Jews who were ill-treated by the Western powers. The ‘Palestinians’ in 1921 were handed all of Palestine east of the Jordan River, 78% of the territory that had originally been intended to be part of the Mandate for Palestine, and thus to become part of a future Jewish state. Instead, that territory was handed over to the Hashemite Emir Abdullah, so that he would have a state of his own, just like his younger brother Feisal, whom the British had put on the throne of Iraq.
Western Palestine thus became the Emirate of Transjordan (and in 1946 turned into the Arab Kingdom of Jordan). The Jews protested against this betrayal, but to no avail. And later, the British would ignore their solemn obligations as holders of the Mandate, and instead of “encouraging Jewish immigration” and “facilitating close Jewish settlement on the land” they tried to prevent Jews from coming to Mandatory Palestine.
They prevented ships loaded with Jewish refugees from disembarking in Palestine before and during the war, when up to a million might have been saved; after the war they continued to keep boats carrying Jews, fresh out of concentration and DP camps, from landing in Palestine. In fact, in 1939 the British government’s infamous White Paper limited the number of Jews allowed into Mandatory Palestine to 15,000 a year for five years, after which the Arabs could exercise a veto—meaning, of course, that no more Jews would be allowed into Palestine.
None of that appears to have made an impression on Abbé Pierre. But it should make an impression on us.
Final thoughts: Checkout the link above for more information on Abbé Pierre. He is remembered for his acts of beneficence but he also has his share of accusers of impropriety. What would have been his rationale for re-opening the Holocaust can of worms in 1993—specifically, blaming it on Catholics?
