Author: Rafael Medoff
Publication: Jewishsf.com
Date: February 26, 2003
While European Union officials praised
Yasser Arafat's decision to appoint his first-ever prime minister, historians
of the Holocaust winced at the news that a leading candidate for the job
is the author of a book denying that the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews.
The candidate is Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen), Arafat's second
in command, and his book, published in Arabic in 1983, translates as "The
Other Side: The Secret Relations Between Nazism and the Leadership of the
Zionist Movement." It was originally his doctoral dissertation, completed
at Moscow Oriental College.
The book repeatedly attempts to
cast doubt on the fact that the Nazis slaughtered 6 million Jews, according
to a translation provided by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.
"Following the war," he writes,
"word was spread that six million Jews were amongst the victims and that
a war of extermination was aimed primarily at the Jews...The truth is that
no one can either confirm or deny this figure. In other words, it is possible
that the number of Jewish victims reached six million, but at the same
time it is possible that the figure is much smaller -- below one million."
Abbas denies that the gas chambers
were used to murder Jews, quoting a "scientific study" to that effect by
French Holocaust-denier Robert Faurisson.
Abbas' book then asserts: "The historian
and author Raoul Hilberg thinks that the figure does not exceed 890,000."
That is, of course, utterly false.
Hilberg, a distinguished historian and author of the classic study "The
Destruction of the European Jews," has never said or written any such thing.
Abbas believes the 6 million figure
is the product of a Zionist conspiracy: "It seems that the interest of
the Zionist movement...is to inflate this figure so that their gains will
be greater," he writes. "This led them to emphasize this figure in order
to gain the solidarity of international public opinion with Zionism. Many
scholars have debated the figure of six million and reached stunning conclusions
-- fixing the number of Jewish victims at only a few hundred thousand."
Another falsehood. In fact, no serious
scholar proposes such a figure.
After reducing the magnitude of
the Nazi slaughter so that it no longer seems to have been a full-scale
Holocaust, Abbas seeks to absolve the Nazis by blaming the Zionist leadership
for whatever killings did take place. According to Abbas, "A partnership
was established between Hitler's Nazis and the leadership of the Zionist
movement...[the Zionists gave] permission to every racist in the world,
led by Hitler and the Nazis, to treat Jews as they wish, so long as it
guarantees immigration to Palestine."
In addition to encouraging the persecution
of Jews so they would immigrate to the Holy Land, the Zionist leaders actually
wanted Jews to be murdered, because -- in Abbas' words -- "having more
victims meant greater rights and stronger privilege to join the negotiation
table for dividing the spoils of war once it was over. However, since Zionism
was not a fighting partner -- suffering victims in a battle -- it had no
escape but to offer up human beings, under any name, to raise the number
of victims, which they could then boast of at the moment of accounting."
Perhaps sentiments of this sort
were common within Abbas' circle of graduate students in the Soviet Union
in the 1970s. But in the free world, such propaganda has never been accepted
as serious scholarship.
In most Western countries, Holocaust-deniers
have been treated as pariahs. In Canada and many European countries, Holocaust-denial
is a criminal offense. In New Zealand, Canterbury University recently issued
an apology for having accepting a master's thesis denying the Holocaust,
while the French minister of education revoked a doctoral degree that was
awarded to a Holocaust-denier by the University of Nantes. A Polish university
professor who denied the Holocaust was suspended from his position. The
Japanese publisher Bungei Shunju shut down one of its magazines for printing
an article denying the Holocaust.
International pressure compelled
Croatian President Franjo Tudjman to publicly retract statements in his
book doubting that the Holocaust had taken place. Austrian Freedom Party
leader Jorg Haider was ostracized by the international community for his
remarks praising members of the SS, as was French politician Jean Marie
Le Pen, for questioning the existence of the gas chambers and belittling
the significance of the Holocaust. A recent poll found 64 percent of Americans
believe world leaders should likewise refuse to meet with Abbas.
Yet some in the media have treated
Abbas with kid gloves, to say the least. The official BCC News Profile
of Abbas reports: "A highly intellectual man, Abbas studied law in Egypt
before doing a Ph.D. in Moscow. He is the author of several books." The
New York Times recently characterized Abbas as "a lawyer and historian...He
holds a doctorate in history from the Moscow Oriental College; his topic
was Zionism." Neither the BBC nor the Times offered any further explanation
as to the contents of Abbas' writings.
Bestowing the title "historian"
upon Mahmoud Abbas awards his writings a stature they do not deserve, and
deals a grievous insult to every genuine historian.
If Abbas is elevated to the post
of prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, not only the media but
the entire international community will be confronted with the question
of whether Abbas deserves to be treated any differently from Tudjman, Haider
and Le Pen.
(The writer is visiting scholar
in the Jewish studies program at the State University of New York-Purchase
College. His latest book is "A Race Against Death: Peter Bergson, America
and the Holocaust," co-written with David S. Wyman.)