Hamas slams Abbas ‘hypocrisy’ for Paris trip

Palestinian terror group Hamas criticized Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday for his attendance at a Paris rally in solidarity with the victims of last week’s terror attacks in the French capital.

“This behavior is part of the hypocrisy and political acrobatics typical to Abbas,” said senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar, according to Ynet.

Zahar said Sunday that Abbas’s attendance at the march was an evasion of his responsibilities, which should first and foremost be toward his people, before standing against terror.

“Abbas wants to seem as if he’s fighting terror but he doesn’t know the meaning of terror. He thinks that in acting this way, he’s earning the sympathy of world nations. He should first worry about his own people,” said Zahar.

French President Francois Hollande (3rd L) is surrounded by head of states (From L to R : Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, Ibrahim Boubakar Keita of Mali, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, EU Council President Donald Tusk and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas) as they attend the solidarity march (Marche Republicaine) in the streets of Paris January 11, 2015. (photo credit: AFP/POOL PHILIPPE WOJAZER)

Hamas “condemns any attack that is carried out against any country, but Abbas must display solidarity with his [own] people,” said Zahar. The Hamas leader charged that the Palestinian Authority led by Abbas was withholding salaries of Hamas employees and delaying the rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip following Operation Protective Edge.

Abbas “is letting his people starve in the freezing cold,” charged Zahar. Four people, including three infants, died from the cold on Saturday in Gaza.

At the Paris rally, attended by dozens of world leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Abbas marched mere meters from the Israeli leader.

Hamas on Saturday issued a condemnation of the massacre at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday in which 12 people were gunned down by two terrorist brothers, but made no mention of the terrorist attack at a kosher supermarket on Friday where four Jewish men were killed.

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, who also traveled to Paris, also criticized the participation of Abbas and Qatari officials in the Paris march, pointing out Qatar’s support for Hamas.

“It’s hypocritical of those same Qataris and Arabs who are financing terrorism to come and demonstrate as if against terrorism,” he was quoted by Channel 2 telling a Parisian Jewish youth group. “I don’t accept this.”

“They’re hands are covered in blood,” Bennett told Army Radio.