On the book cited by a loon last week on a march by Jewish Voices For Peace to the S.F. Federal Bldg. Michael Pugliese, clicking off the mouse... http://sicsa.huji.ac.il/17nordbruch.html The Socio-historical Background of Holocaust Denial in Arab Countries:
Arab reactions to Roger Garaudy's The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics
By Goetz Nordbruch
Abstract
Historical revisionism and Holocaust denial are widely encountered in Arab countries. References
to the Holocaust as a “Zionist myth” are continuously expressed in public discourse, coming to a height in 1996 when numerous articles were published about Roger Garaudy’s book, The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics. Articles denying the historical reality of German crimes against the Jews during the Nazi period are often regarded as mere “curiosities” and explained away as being merely an instrument used to delegitimize the existence of the State of Israel. This paper reconsiders that assumption. Given the presence and vigor of Holocaust denial in the Arab media, an analysis of the reactions to Garaudy’s book can reveal some of the farreaching social and historical origins of Holocaust denial. Irrespective of its function within specific social conflicts, the dissemination of antisemitic codes — which includes Holocaust denial — has to be explained within the context of more general ideological developments. This study, therefore, provides new approaches to the analysis of the elements of Arab antisemitism through tracing antisemitic thought back to its socio-historical interaction with nationalism, and contemporary Islamist thought, reviewing both content and cause. This way, the origins of anti-Jewish expressions in Arab public discourse can be concretized.
Roger Garaudy and Holocaust Denial in the Arab Media
Six million Jews dead? No way, they were much fewer. Let’s stop with this fairytale exploited by Israel to capture international solidarity. (La Republicca, 24 March 2000)
This comment by Ikrima Said Sabri, the Palestinian Authority-appointed imam of the al-Aqsa mosque and Mufti of Jerusalem, is the anticipated harsh response to the Vatican document “We Remember,” that asked forgiveness for actions committed by Roman Catholics during the Holocaust. In addition, French President Jacques Chirac’s plea for forgivenesss for French collaboration in the persecution and extermination of Jews during World War II, and statements made by the Pope during his visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories in spring 2000, sparked negative reactions in the Arab media. Somewhat earlier, countless articles and comments in the Arab media on Roger Garaudy’s The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics (1996) depict the Holocaust as a “Zionist myth” or “Zionist lie” which has become a central issue in contemporary Arab political-historical discourse. While some journalists and academics (Hazem Saghiyeh and Azmi Bishara, for example) demand recognition of the Holocaust as an extraordinary crime against humanity, opponents of any concession to the Jewish or Israeli collective memory remain numerous and prominent. [1]
Well-documented studies have shown that Holocaust denial can be found in the majority of Arabic newspapers, but detailed surveys of the social and historical background of this phenomenon are still missing. Even though Holocaust denial (as with anti-Jewish stereotypes in articles and caricature) is identified as a manifestation of antisemitism, it is usually ascribed as merely an element of the protracted Arab-Israeli conflict, an instrument for delegitimizing the Israeli state. [2] Bernard Lewis, who has studied different facets of antisemitism in Arab countries, concludes that “[i]f mainstream Arab leaders can bring themselves to follow the example of Sadat and enter into a dialogue with Israel...then it is possible that the anti-semitic campaign will fade away, and be confined, as in the modern West, to fringe groups and fringe regimes.” [3]
My aim is to reconsider this assumption. Given the presence and vigor of Holocaust negation in reactions to The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics, and the wide range of voices from different religious and political spectra articulated within this debate, I will use this controversy as an example of different patterns of reception within the Arab political-historical discourse. [4] Contextualizing Holocaust denial within a wider framework of ideological and historical developments, the phenomenon appears as a specific expression of a cultural pattern of antisemitic thought. Far from being simply an arbitrary import from European antisemitism, the ideological basis for the adoption of European stereotypes into Arab societies should be scrutinized. The negation and questioning of German crimes against the European Jews — expressed within the context of the contemporary Arab- Israeli conflict— should thus be explained as a “most modern form of anti-Semitism.” [5] Hence, without neglecting the importance of the specific political conflict in which these articles are articulated, I will stress the historical formation of underlying thought patterns and ideological concepts in order to understand the attraction of Holocaust denial in Arab public discourse on Garaudy’s book.
Soon after the release of The Founding Myths, Arab newspapers published interviews with the author and reports on the charge of antisemitic incitement he was facing in the French courts. [6] His enormous popularity in the Arab countries obviously contributed to the intensive debate triggered by his book. In view of the numerous translations of his earlier writings about Marxism and Islam, it was only a question of time before Arab editors would find interest in his latest work. [7] In France, a first edition of The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics was produced in French and distributed in late 1995 for subscribers of the French publishing house La Vieille Taupe. With extensive chapters about an alleged Holocaust myth and comparisons of Nazism and Zionism, Garaudy openly referred to Robert Faurisson and David Irving and their Holocaust denying publications. The beginning public controversy and the report to the police in January 1996 on his call for incitement forced him to rearrange for the already-envisaged second edition. Published as samizdat at his own expense, a slightly revised edition was released in spring 1996. Despite efforts by him and his lawyers to present his theses as directed against Zionism as a political movement, and not against Jews or Judaism as a religion, in February 1998 a Paris court ruled against him. Garaudy’s book questioned the number of Jewish victims during the Holocaust, and argued that there was no extermination policy as such, and therefore the court found his book to be in violation of the Gayssot Law, under which Holocaust denial and antisemitic incitement is a punishable offence.
Despite his obvious turn to the French extreme Right, the favorable reaction to Garaudy in Arabic newspapers and magazines was overwhelming. [8] Garaudy was invited to the Cairo International Book Fair in 1998, and during his visits to the Middle East, gained widespread public support and funding for his legal case, peaking in the weeks before the French court delivered its verdict. A number of Arabic translations of his book were offered by publishers such as Dar ash-Shuruq in Cairo and Beirut, and Dar al-Kitab in Damascus. [9] Protest letters on his behalf were written by the Palestinian Writers Association, the Arab Lawyers Federation, and other organizations. Well-known politicians and intellectuals, such as Shaykh Muhammad Al-Tantauwi of the al-Azhar University, former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, Egyptian author and Nobel laureate Nadjib Mahfus, and historian Muhammad Hassanin Haikal publicly commented in his favor. None of these figures questioned Garaudy’s claim that the Holocaust was a Zionist invention. <snip>