HOLOCAUST DENIAL IN THE ARAB WORLD

We’re all Middle East specialists now by Jay Nordlinger (National Review)
When I was a serious student of the Middle East some years ago, I would often think, “You know, the world doesn’t know anything about this — the Holocaust denial, the freakish theories, the irreconcilable hatred.” And I wished the world could know more about the Middle East.

One thing that always amazed me is that many Middle Eastern elites couldn’t decide whether to deny the Holocaust, celebrate it, or lament that it didn’t go far enough. If you ever peruse the website of the Middle East Research Institute, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

And you recall this charming fact about “Abu Mazen,” the head of the Palestinian Authority: He wrote a dissertation that denied the Holocaust. It was later published as The Other Side: The Secret Relations Between Nazism and the Leadership of the Zionist Movement. (The Palestinian boss wrote this scholarly opus while in Moscow.)

Anyway, one thing 9/11 and the War on Terror did was make people far more aware of the nature of the Middle East. When the Iranian president talks the way he talks — the Holocaust never happened, Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth, blah, blah, blah — the world focuses in. The nature of that region is now out in the open, confronted. If I may speak frankly, a lot of us feel like we no longer possess secret knowledge. Which comes as a great relief.

And, by the way: the line that the Iranian president took the other day? I’ll paraphrase: “The Holocaust didn’t occur, but if it did, it was a European crime — and why should the Middle East have to pay, with Jews in our midst, for a crime of Europeans? If Israel has to exist, let it be in Europe.”

Many people were shocked by this. But such talk is routine in the Middle East (and elsewhere). Absolutely standard. No more remarkable than, “Are you enjoying the weather?”

Holocaust denial, and the strict refusal to recognize anything legitimate about Israel, have long been part of the Middle Eastern air. And now the broader world is more cognizant of it. Perhaps this has had the effect of making people more sympathetic to the Israelis, as they cope with their enemies. (I said “perhaps.”)

And may I give you something else about the Muslim world and the Holocaust? I recall to you what Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, son of the dictator, said at the Davos conference last year. In a session with journalists, he was asked about Holocaust denial in countries like Libya (for example, in their textbooks). Gaddafi began, “I’m not a historian, I don’t know all the facts.”
Oops. He quickly recognized that this wouldn’t fly, in this particular room — so he took a new tack.

“It is incorrect to deny the Holocaust.” Why’s that? Because it was the Russians who liberated Auschwitz, and the world learned about these horrors from them — “not from the Zionists, not from the New York Times.” From the Red Army.

(In the Muslim world, the New York Times is seen as an Israeli propaganda sheet. How’s that for misunderstanding?)

“So,” young Gaddafi concluded, “if Arabs deny this [the Holocaust], it is incorrect.”
Whew. Thank heavens for the Red Army.

Before I leave this general — very general — topic, let me add one thing: The other day, a headline read, “ElBaradei says world is losing patience with Iran” — over nuclear weapons. I disagree with Director General ElBaradei (imagine that!). I don’t think the world will ever lose patience with Iran, just as it would never have lost patience with Saddam. The world’s patience when it comes to mad and dangerous Middle Eastern tyrants seems infinite.

Some people simply have to be warier than others. When the Iranian president talks about wiping Israel off the map — the wipees have to pay attention.