Islamophobia and Holocaust Denial

By Norman G. Finkelstein

A frequent allegation used to demonize Muslims is that Holocaust denial is widespread in the Muslim world. Recent remarks by President Achmadinejad of Iran seem to have reinforced this prejudice against Muslims.

No rational person can deny that during World War II the Nazis and their collaborators systematically murdered 5-6 million European Jews.

It is correct that no truth is sacred and that in the course of time even what seem to be the most obvious truths have frequently been shown to be false. It is equally correct that human beings are fallible, none has a monopoly on truth, and an overwhelming majority can be wrong while a minority of one can be right.

However serious persons are also very careful before rejecting an obvious truth that is supported by a vast amount of evidence. It requires more than showing that a fact here or there might be wrong to demolish a scholarly edifice constructed over many years and labored on by many competent minds.

In the case of truths that bear on moral concerns such as human suffering compassionate human beings are especially cautious to question established truths because of the needless offense and injury they might cause. Japanese would rightfully be outraged if someone were to say, But isn�t it possible that the U.S. did not drop an atomic bombing on Hiroshima?, just as Iranians would be rightfully outraged if someone were to say, But isn�t it possible that the U.S. did not overthrow the Mossadeq regime and the SAVAK did not torture political prisoners.

In addition, every culture, every religion honors the memory of the dead and one aspect of honoring that memory is respecting the specific circumstances of their deaths. It should be obvious that it is deeply offensive to rewrite these circumstances for the sake of political convenience or, worse, for amusement.

Yet, there are many understandable reasons why Holocaust denial is to be found in the Muslim world. The assertion that the Nazis exterminated millions of Jews in an assembly-line fashion does seem hard to believe. I remember a very decent Palestinian in a refugee camp whispering to me not in malice but in wonderment, Did it really happen? In fact many Jewish leaders in the West did not believe it themselves when witnesses from the death camps managed to escape and inform them.

Moreover, because Israel has consistently lied about the history of the Israel-Arab conflict, alleging that Palestine was empty before the Jews came and that the Arabs are responsible for all the wars Israel has fought, it is unsurprising that many Arabs would also conclude that Israel is lying about what happened to Jews during World War II.

It is also true that the Nazi holocaust has been used as a weapon to legitimize Israel�s crimes against the Palestinians as well as against its Arab neighbors. It is often said that because of the unique suffering of Jews during World War II it is understandable that Israel sometimes goes to extremes to defend itself. Because the Nazi holocaust has been used to deny Palestinians their rights, it was perhaps inevitable that some Palestinians would seek to deny the Nazi holocaust in order to �neutralize� this potent weapon.

However, another approach, which also has the virtue of being consistent with truth and morality, is to turn this weapon against Israel�s brutal policies. The meaning of the Nazi holocaust should not be Never Again to Jews but Never Again to Anyone. The lesson of the Nazi holocaust should not be to rank human suffering in order to diminish the horror of �lesser� forms of human suffering. Instead, as the epitome of human suffering the lesson of the Nazi holocaust should be to sensitize us to all forms of human suffering. Wherever there is mayhem and murder, wherever there is hunger and homelessness, wherever there is discrimination and degradation � there is the Nazi holocaust. That, at any rate, is the lesson my late parents, who survived the Nazi holocaust, taught me.

It might also be noted that the U.S. and Israel typically invoke the memory of the Nazi holocaust for the purpose not of averting the horrors of war but to justify inflicting them. Whenever the United States and Israel prepare to attack Muslims it is almost always the case that the leaders will be compared to Hitler. In the 1950s-1960s Nasser was compared to Hitler, in the 1990s and again in the 2000s Hussein was compared to Hitler. Now Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran are being compared to Hitler. Those who oppose the illegal war plans of the U.S. and Israel are accused of being like the appeasers of Hitler. It is hard to conceive a more cynical exploitation of the suffering of Jews during World War II than its use to justify murderous wars of aggression.

It should finally be said that before the so-called West deplores Holocaust denial in the Muslim world, it should take a closer look at itself.

The U.S.-imposed economic sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s were responsible for the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. Respected United Nations officials called these sanctions genocidal, yet U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said that the �price is worth it.� She did worse than deny genocide; she justified it.

In the 1980s during the U.S.-backed wars in Central America, tens of thousands of Guatemalans, Salvadorans and Nicaraguans were killed. The Truth Commission of Guatemala called it a genocide. But in bestselling books nowadays it is said that these murderous wars are a model for how to defeat the insurgents in Iraq. Is this the meaning of Never Again?

In the 1960s-1970s during the U.S. aggression against Indochina, 3-4 million Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians were killed. But the only question that is asked in the U.S. is, When will the Vietnamese apologize for what they did to us?

The Muslim world is demonized for denying the Nazi holocaust. And it is undoubtedly true that, however understandable, such denial is wrong. Indeed, it shames and demeans the deniers not those whose martyrdom is being questioned.

It is true that the U.S. does not deny the many holocausts it has committed. But this is because to deny a fact you first have to acknowledge its existence. The U.S. has not yet even taken this first step of acknowledging the existence of the numberless colossal crimes it has committed.