Michael R. Bernstein

If you want to understand modern antisemitism, you need to go back to Moscow in 1982. This is the cover of Mahmoud Abbas’s thesis, later published as The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism. Abbas is not just another Palestinian politician. He is the President of the Palestinian Authority, Chairman of the PLO, and the man Western governments have treated for decades as a partner for peace. Yet Abbas wrote his thesis in the Soviet Union, promoting Holocaust distortion and the antisemitic conspiracy theory that Zionists collaborated with the Nazis. But the story goes much further. Documents from the Mitrokhin Archive identified Abbas as a KGB agent in Damascus in 1983, operating under the codename “Krotov,” meaning “Mole.” Think about what this means: The man who leads the PLO today was KGB agent. For decades, the Soviet Union weaponized the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It supported Palestinian organizations and systematically repackaged antisemitism in the language of anti-Zionism, anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism. Abbas emerged from this Soviet political environment and maintained close relations with Moscow. Russia continues to exploit the Palestinian issue to expand its influence, destabilize Western societies and undermine Western alliances. And here is what I find extraordinary. The West has allowed itself to be overwhelmed by a political narrative shaped by one of the most successful and enduring influence campaigns in modern history. An entire generation has been taught to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through an ideological framework that was cultivated decades ago by Soviet propaganda. Today, that framework has found powerful new allies in the Red-Green alliance between radical progressive movements and Islamist organizations. The accusations have barely changed. Zionists are Nazis. Israel is responsible for the world’s suffering. Jews are portrayed as powerful conspirators controlling governments, media and wars. What Soviet propaganda once spread through political organizations, universities and intelligence networks is now amplified by social media algorithms, influencers, university campuses and mass demonstrations across Western cities. The technology has changed. The distribution has accelerated. But the ideological foundations remain remarkably familiar. And the most disturbing part? Many Western institutions, politicians and intellectuals have embraced elements of this narrative without questioning where it came from or whose geopolitical interests it serves. The Palestinian cause has become far more than a national movement. It has also been exploited as an instrument of ideological warfare against Israel, Jews and the democratic West. Abbas’s 1982 thesis is not simply a disturbing historical document. It is a window into the ideological origins of a campaign whose influence we continue to witness today.