JERUSALEM ¨C Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday offered an apology after he was accused of anti-Semitism for suggesting that historic persecution of European Jews had been caused by their conduct, not by their religion.
Abbas condemned anti-Semitism and called the Holocaust the ¡°most heinous crime in history¡± in a statement issued by his office in Ramallah after a four-day meeting of the Palestinian National Council (PNC), at which he had made the remarks.
¡°If people were offended by my statement in front of the PNC, especially people of the Jewish faith, I apologize to them,¡± Abbas said in the statement.
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