Mahmoud Abbas
Mahmoud AbbasSTF/Flash 90

Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday recalled his ambassador to Chile, following anti-Semitic statements the envoy made at a convention in Santiago, according to Haaretz.

The ambassador, Imad Nabil Jadaa, cited leftist Israeli Shlomo Sand to support his claim that the Jewish people does not exist, and also relied on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic hoax from 1903, to describe a Jewish plan for global domination.

"Until 1896 when a group of academic intellectuals, financial advisers, majority being non-Jewish Europeans, decided to create the Zionist movement with one pretext; 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. 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. In that book they put plans of the manipulation of all the apparatus of the financial, economic and industrial of the entire world. They discuss about the manipulation of the local political forces from all different countries."

"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. 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 Israeli passport announces that, the so-called Jewish nation is a made up invention. Because a religion cannot be a people."

The comments were translated and uploaded to the internet by the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy. Americans for Peace Now later condemned Jadaa’s comments, calling on Abbas to both repudiate them as well as dismiss the ambassador.

PA sources cited by Haaretz said on Thursday that Abbas was furious and instructed his foreign minister Riad al-Malki to recall the envoy for consultations.

Abbas reportedly saw the remarks as a sharp deviation from his official line that Palestinians have no quarrel with Jews or Judaism, but oppose Israeli policy, according to the report.

A PA source added that it is doubtful that the ambassador will return to his post and a replacement will probably be named.