Muslim Anti-Semitism: Holocaust Denial Among Muslims, Palestinians (Book Notes: Losing Battle with Islam)
Holocaust Denial is usually conceived of as a Western phenomenon, something indulged in by antisemitic bigots in America, Europe, and other Western nations. We should not miss the fact that it has become very popular in the Islamic world as well. Holocaust Denial fuels Muslim Antisemitism and may pose a serious problem for the possibility of any peace in the future.
In The Losing Battle with Islam, David Selbourne writes:
[I]t is not only the most radical of lslamists who deny or minimise accounts of past killings of the Jews. Mahmoud Abbas, Yasser Arafat's successor as leader of the Palestinian Authority and approved by many for his moderation, argued in 1983 in his book The Other Side that the Holocaust had claimed 'only a few hundred thousand lives', and that the figure of six million had been 'inflated' 'in the interest of the Zionist movement'. 'All the data regarding the killing of the Jews' were 'exaggerated', he asserted, 'as an expedient to smooth the way for the occupation of Palestine and the justification of Zionist crimes'.
The official Palestinian al-Hayat al-Jadida went further on 13 April 2001, Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, describing the Holocaust as a 'fable'. Figures of the Jewish dead were a 'lie', their dissemination a product of 'international marketing' by Jews. In France in February 2004, teachers similarly reported that Muslim pupils had for some time been interrupting history classes in order to object to accounts of Nazi policy and actions in the Second World War.
It appears that Holocaust Denial is about as mainstream as it can possibly be among Palestinians and perhaps Muslims in the Middle East generally. It seems like something that people there have come to accept as obvious and beyond question. Given how the Islamic governments in the Middle East have been such staunch enemies of Israel, it's not surprising that they would encourage Holocaust Denial and prevent the truth from coming in.
Given how Muslims themselves in the Middle East have not had warm feelings towards Israel, it's not surprising that they would be suspicious of the Holocaust — especially since it's often cited as a reason for the founding of Israel. If the truth of the Holocaust can be denied, then the moral grounding for Israel might be denied as well. There are thus very strong political, social, and religious forces which make Holocaust Denial almost necessary.
What's curious is that the more antisemitic a person is, the less Holocaust Denial ends up making sense. A really antisemitic person should arguably welcome the Holocaust. Rather than deny it, they should think favorable about the idea that someone tried to eliminate the Jews. So shouldn't they perceive the Holocaust as a model rather than a myth?
Some antisemitic Muslims do exactly that:
In the Egyptian government-sponsored al-Akhbar, however, the fact of the Holocaust was not denied but lauded in April 2001. 'Thanks be to Hitler of blessed memory', wrote one of its columnists. 'On behalf of the Palestinians he took revenge in advance' ... 'on the most vile criminals on the face of the face of the earth. Still, we do have a complaint. His revenge on them was not enough'.
Antisemites in the Islamic world have a difficult dilemma: do they deny the Holocaust in order to make the Jews appear to be liars and to undermine the moral case for the founding of Israel, or do they praise the Holocaust because they think the Jews deserved what happened and would like to see it happen again?
There's a long-term problem here which won't be easy to deal with: so long as Muslims generally deny the Holocuast, it's unlikely that they will be able to achieve any kind of lasting, stable, and peaceful relationship with Israel. The Israeli government isn't likely to make nice with a Muslim government which teaches Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial in the schools; Muslim government which already do this, however, won't find it easy to change simply for the sake of establishing better relations with Israel. Muslim children who grow up learning to hate Israel and that the Holocaust didn't happen aren't likely to enter public life ready and willing to treat Israel like any other nation.
In effect, then, the Muslim nations which have invested so much in Holocaust Denial have created a foundation which will make peace with Israel increasing difficult over the course of time. Is this their intention?
Read More Book Notes from the Book Reviews on this site.
Comments
No person with any knowledge of history denies that Jews were sent to death camps. The nature of the camps is being debated however. Does it really make that much difference if someone is slaughtered in a camp or in a doorway or on a battlefield? Millions of Russians were starved to death and they were unable to escape to a special country. The “holocaust” is not applied to any other of the horrible genocides that have taken place since World War II. Zionists did use the “holocaust” term to help them get legitimacy for Israel, which is nothing more than a neo-colonial state founded on a cult. Now people are beginning to believe that Jews weren’t even singled out for extermination at all. There is always blowback when history is charged with propaganda. Everyone bears the blame.
Yes, actually, because deaths on the battlefield were not part of highly organized, systematic effort to wipe out an entire group of people defined by their “race.”
Hitler announced that the war on Russia was a war of annihilation. Annihiliation/Extermination? The fact is that whole armies and cities were virtually wiped out because of this. Soviet prisoners were systematically starved to death in huge enclaves. The slavs were to be wiped out to provide liebensraum.
Well, I’ve certainly no intricate knowledge of history, so I do think it’s possible that the amount of deaths from the Holocaust could be exaggerated. One never knows the motivations of those tallying the death counts back then, nor of those taking account of them now.
I wouldn’t say it never happened, anyone who is is going too far, but I can understand muslims being suspect of it being motivation. Perhaps, by overemphasizing the tragedy, with their own land to live on as a result they thought they could prevent strife and countries from taking control and eliminating them from their populations.
Unfortunately, even the creation of Israel doesn’t stop trouble from happening in Israel.
I’m surprised Muslims would praise Hitler though. I don’t know of any Muslims in Germany at the time, but surely they were butchered too?
Hitler wasn’t trying to exterminate a Russian “race,” though he did want to eliminate communism.
Hitler believed that Slaves “were an inferior race that breed like vermin” He was afraid that an industrialized Russia would dwarf Germany.
One of Hitler’s techniques that is equalled by our current crop of Republicans is to “make all enemies the same”. Thus Muslims, terrorists, liberals are all together in some way. The same goes for Jews, Bolsheviks, and Slavs.
Most moslems are semites. They may be anti Jewish or anti Zionist, but they are not antisemites.
Antisemitism is hatred of Jews, not hatred of Semites generally. It has never been used that way and the only suggestions that it should be used that way come today from people trying to minimize hatred of Jews.
This is truly a bizarre debate. “International Jewry” was not just one of many targets for the Nazis–they were the primary target, on grounds that Judaism was the “racial poison” that supposedly underlay Bolshevism, liberalism, etc. To be incapable of recognizing that point says something about the individual: either he is ignorant of history, or has made himself blind selectively. Hitler himself made this unmistakable, in his speeches (”We have only one problem, and that’s the Jews”) and in the concluding line of his last will and testament (”Above all, I charge the leadership of the nation and their followers with the strict observance of the racial laws and with merciless resistance against the universal poisoners of all peoples, international Jewry.”) But let’s just the assume that the centrality of the Nazi’s obsession with the Jews is all just “propaganda.” So what? How does the fact that millions of Russians perished during World War II in any way mitigate the acknowledged murder of millions of Jews?
The point of this article is that Muslims preach hate against Jews. There are much stronger examples on muslim anti-semitism that were not mentioned. I think the denial that the Holocaust ever happneded is much more common than questoining the number who died, 6 mil. I’ve heard of a survey that says at least 60% of all Muslims think it never happneded! Even if it’s 30%, thats a real problem. It shows the lenths that Muslim leadership will go to use hate as a weapon, to use hate to advance their own objectives, and to use hate with people who are generraly ignorant about the world. This is a basis of all religious compitiion frankly. Christianity did it long ago to advnace it’s won objectives. Jews even did it to spread the word. But that was a long time ago. So all religions have been wrong, but Islam gets the distinction as the most hateful religion in the modern age.
Many muslims are good people who don’t have a problem with jews.
But many are brought up with authority figures constantly feeding them propaganda and so become anti-semitic.
It’s a snowball effect, essentially.
But it’s bloody ridiculous that it’s happening. Extremist muslims are what is wrong with the world.
Idiots.
It is deeply disturbing how commonly accepted it is in that part of the world. It is OK to critizise Israel, for its behavior against palestinians, but there is a difference between that and denying one of the most brutal consepts of racism and extremism humanity has ever seen.