In an article in the Qatari daily Al-Sharq, Faiz Rashid, a Jordanian columnist of Palestinian origin, criticized a call made by a Palestinian ambassador to teach the Holocaust in Arab schools, as well as the visit of a PA official to Auschwitz. Rashid demanded to teach the Nakba instead of the Holocaust. He also expressed doubt as to the scope of the Holocaust, citing books by Holocaust researchers and deniers, including Roger Garaudy.
The following are excerpts from the article:[1]
Palestinian Officials Who Speak About The Holocaust "Seem To Be Living On Mars"
"Here's the latest gimmick. A Palestinian ambassador in one of the world countries [Germany] gave an interview to Israeli reporter Barak Ravid, in which he demanded to teach generation upon generation about the 'Jewish Holocaust.' According to the online magazine Dunya Al-Watan and many other websites, the interview was published in the [Israeli] daily Haaretz this July, in Hebrew and English. The ambassador said that the Holocaust was a human tragedy whose victims were the Jews, and that we must teach generation upon generation about it as a painful and terrifying event, so that it never repeats itself.[2] Also, two weeks ago, a Palestinian official visited Poland,[3] where the Holocaust took place, and laid flowers there, and a former Palestinian ambassador in a certain country [Poland] held a ceremony commemorating the Holocaust, to which he invited the Zionist ambassador to that country, David Peleg.
"These officials seem to be living on Mars! It is as though they are not experiencing the suffering of our Palestinian people, which, for almost 100 years, has known hundreds of massacres and dozens of attacks, wars and every type of catastrophe at the hands of the Israeli enemy and the Zionist movement. [These officials are responding to] the pressure exerted by the U.S., Europe and the West on the Arab countries, including the PA, and on UNRWA to incorporate the Holocaust into the Arab and Palestinian curricula. In addition, there is also Israeli pressure to refrain from teaching the Palestinian Nakba. Israel has passed laws that prohibit our people inside the 1948 [territories] [i.e., the Israeli Arabs] to mark Nakba Day, under [penalty] of imprisonment for many years.
"These calls come at a time when several European countries have passed the 'Gayssot law',[4] which bans researchers and historians from questioning the Zionist narrative of the Holocaust under penalty of long-term imprisonment – not just the veracity of the [Holocaust] story, but also the number of Jewish victims given by the Israeli account. All those who questioned the veracity of the Zionist narrative were fired from their posts. Their books were not published, their livelihood was compromised and large fines were imposed on them. Among them were the historians Roger Garuady and David Irving."
"Why The Focus On The Jewish Victims? The Zionist Movement Exaggerated The Holocaust…"
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"The Nazis perpetrated massacres against all the European peoples. They burned down thousands of towns and villages. The USSR lost 20 million of its sons at their hands, and many other European nations [likewise] lost many of their sons. [So] why the focus on the Jewish victims? The Zionist movement exaggerated the Holocaust in order to provide a legal excuse to usurp Palestine, expel its people, bring the [Jewish] immigrants there and establish its state, and in order to blackmail the countries of Europe, especially Germany. Jewish writer Norman Volkstein [sic; should be Norman Finkelstein] wrote in his book The Holocaust Industry that the Holocaust is 'an industrial enterprise of Zionism and of Israel.'
"The Zionist movement conspired with the Nazis against the Jews: it signed the 1933 transfer agreement with Germany in order to facilitate the immigration of Jews from Germany to Palestine. In 1934 it signed another agreement, meant to encourage the export of German [goods] to Palestine, so [the Zionists] could market them (see: 'Abd Al-Rahman 'Abd Al-Ghani, Nazi Germany and Palestine, Institute for Palestinian Studies, Beirut, 1995, p. 69). The contacts between the Zionist movement and the Nazis continued. In September 1937, Eichmann and [Herbert] Hagen[5] met in Palestine with Feivel Polkes, a representative of the Haganah terrorist organization, and it was agreed that 'the Zionist movement would provide the Gestapo with every information on the Jewish organizations in Europe and on all their activities against the Nazis, and, in return, the Nazis would support the establishment of the Zionist state (see: Galder [sic],[6] Memories of War, Progress House, Moscow, 1993, pp. 39-46). These [examples] of the collaboration between the two sides are only a drop in the sea. Interested [readers] can find further details in other books on this topic.
"The Nuremberg Tribunal determined the official [number of] Holocaust victims – six million Jews – based on the testimony of only two witnesses, Hubtel and Lubzisny [sic],[7] both of them Nazi officers. That is not enough. Moreover, not a single document signed by Hitler or by any other top Nazi official was found that orders to exterminate the Jews (see: Lucy Dawidowicz, The War against the Jews, Progress House, Moscow, 1975, pp. 21-25). Many writers and researchers agreed unanimously (after visiting the sites of the extermination camps) that they couldn't have held such a vast number of people. Assuming the camps really operated, it would have taken decades to burn all [those people]. As for the gas used in burning [them], it was cyanide, which is expensive and must be handled with great care (see: Roger Garaudy, The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics, Dar Al-Ghad Al-'Arabi, Cairo, 1996, p. 56).
"Incidentally, many Arabs are probably ignorant of the disasters suffered by thousands of Arabs at the hands of the Nazis. Yes, 67,000 Arabs, most of them from North Africa, were detained in Nazi prisons in 1940. Many of them died of torture or fear, and many were crippled for life...
"There is only thing left to say: The call to teach the Holocaust should be replaced by a call to teach the Nakba."
[1] Al-Sharq (Qatar), August 17, 2012.
[2] See haaretz.com, July 1, 2012.
[3] This refers to an official visit to Auschwitz made by Ziad Al-Bandak, an advisor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud 'Abbas, in July 2012. See MEMRI Special Dispatch No.4860, PA Official's Auschwitz Visit Evokes Enraged Responses from Hamas, August 1, 2012.
[4] The Gayssot Law, passed in France in 1990, makes it an offense to question the veracity or dimensions of the Holocaust. Similar laws exist in some other European countries.
[5] A Nazi officer who accompanied Eichmann on his 1937 visit to Palestine.
[6] Apparently refers to Franz Halder.
[7] Apparently refers to Wilhelm Höttl and Dieter Wisliceny, who testified at the Nuremberg Trials.
