Holocaust denial a growing trend in the Arab world
The Nazi genocide of Jews is largely ignored in the Muslim education system and media, while high-ranking officials use it against Israel, scholars tell Bar-Ilan University conference.
Dozens of scholars participated in a conference held at Bar-Ilan University on Holocaust denial in the Muslim world. They presented evidence and findings pointing to the growing trend.
"Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) questions the numbers and claims that there were no gas chambers," said Dr. Edy Cohen, a Middle East scholar and senior researcher at the Department of Middle East Studies at Bar-Ilan University. "He provides a platform for the biggest Holocaust deniers humanity has even faced."
"The Arab world is filled with Holocaust denial which comes from the highest ranks," said Dr. Nesia Shemer of the Department of Middle East Studies. "In fact," added Prof. Dan Michman, head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, "The Arab world never had a Holocaust education system."
"I grew up in Lebanon and I didn't learn about the Holocaust," Dr. Edy Cohen added. "We didn’t learn about the six million Jews and didn't learn about the death camps."
Haj Amin el-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, was known for his close relationship with Adolf Hitler. "He played an active part in the annihilation of half a million of Hungary's Jews in 1944," said Mordechai Kedar, a scholar of Arabic literature and a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University's Department of Arabic.
According to Roni Bialer. the editor-in-chief of web magazine Israel in Arabic and a specialist in Arab media, "Every day, if you check the Palestinian Authority's official daily, Al-Hayat al-Jadida, you'll find typical anti-Semitic cartoons of Jews with long noses and sharpened ears."
The conference was organized by Bar-Ilan University's Department of Middle Eastern Studies together with the Begin Institute for the Study of Underground and Resistance Movements and the Center for International Communication.
