William Fisher, An American aid official is shocked to see American
University of Cairo graduates deny the Holocaust.
Holocaust Denial not just
limited to Fundamentalists
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
By William Fisher
Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, launched a media
tsunami when he declared the Holocaust a myth.
But we shouldn’t be all
that surprised. The Middle East is chockablock with Holocaust-deniers and
Holocaust-minimizers. And it is not only the so-called Arab Street that has been
infected. The disease has spread to many members of the Arab intelligentsia and
to some of the area’s privileged elite.
I learned just how deeply
embedded this attitude is during a conversation I had with members of my staff
when I was managing a U.S. aid program in Egypt a few years ago.
Sitting
with me in our luxurious offices overlooking the Nile on a steamy, smoggy Cairo
afternoon were three of Egypt’s “best and brightest” – all from affluent
families, all with master’s degrees from what is arguably the premier
international educational institution in the Middle East, the American
University in Cairo. These were no ordinary proxies for the Arab Street; they
were Egypt’s future leaders.
I’ve long since forgotten what aspect of
geopolitics we were talking about, but the subject soon turned to Israel. All
three made excellent and accurate points about that country’s deeply myopic
policies vis a vis the Palestinians. Then we seemed to segue effortlessly from
Israel to the Holocaust.
“The Holocaust is mostly a myth,” declared one.
“It’s an idea that’s been pushed by the Jewish lobby in America to keep U.S.
support for Israel.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Everyone
who studies the truth knows it”, my staffer responded.
”How about all the
photos of American GIs liberating the concentration camps,” I asked. “Were they
faked?”
Another staff member joined the conversation. “No, they weren’t
faked, but the numbers were purposely exaggerated”, she said, adding, “The camps
were there, but only a million or so were killed.”
“Have you read
Irving’s book about it?” my third colleague chimed in. “He’s a well respected
historian and he proves it never happened.” He was referring, of course, to the
writing of one of more outrageous Holocaust-deniers, David Irving (whose
‘history’ has been reliably refuted by virtually all reputable historians).
Where did these exceptionally smart, exceptionally competent, thoroughly
Western-oriented young people get their information? For more than a generation,
their views have been fuelled by a non-stop stream of inaccurate and distorted
statements by their leaders, by the “reporting” of mostly-State-owned
newspapers, magazines and television channels, by uninformed teachers, and by
textbooks from kindergarten through university.
A few years ago, I wrote
an article on these textbooks for The Daily Star, a highly respected newspaper
based in Beirut.
I found that in Syria, for example, school children
from the fourth grade up are taught that Zionism is a form of colonialism
similar to Nazism; Zionism endangers the Arab world and prevents its
unification; Israel is an aggressive and expansionist enemy and is responsible
for the backwardness of the Arab world; and when young readers grow up, they
must engage in holy war jihad against Israel and seek martyrdom. The texts
also underline that Arab leaders who negotiate with Israel, even in third
countries, are spies and traitors and that Jews are a menace. Books containing
these passages are published by the Syrian Education Ministry and are part of
the official school curriculum.
And in Saudi Arabia, texts for
government-financed and private religious schools declare that God’s wisdom
mandates continuing the struggle between Muslims and Jews until the Day of
Judgment; Jews and Christians, as enemies of Islam, will never be pleased with
Muslims, so Muslims must beware of them.
This kind of vitriol was
equaled only by the inaccurate, disrespectful and totally scurrilous caricatures
used in Israeli textbooks to portray Arabs.
And, while the authors of
most Israeli textbooks were ordered to clean up their act in recent years, far
too much Arab writing on Israel and the Holocaust remains unchanged. Arab
governments continue to use their control of the media and their educational
systems to magnify their messages of hate -- while professing solidarity with
President Bush’s “Global War on Terror” and happily accepting huge sums in
American aid.
For example, Egypt – the Middle East’s most absurd example
of “pretend democracy” -- owns an evening newspaper called Al-Masaa. In a recent
article titled "Israel's Lies", columnist Hisham Abd Al-Rauf wrote that there
were no massacres of the Jews during World War II, and that the gas chambers
were intended for disinfecting clothing. Hitler, he wrote, was not against the
Jews, and had even permitted Jews to emigrate to Palestine during his first
years in power.
This kind of message is repeated on a daily basis
throughout the Middle East – in schools, in newspapers, on television, in
coffeehouse conversations, and in government-financed textbooks.
So we
shouldn’t really be surprised by what Iran’s new president has to say. His voice
is only one added to many others. The problem is that he is the president of a
proud and important country. When he calls his faithful to an “international
conference on the Holocaust”, people will actually attend, speak, and be
reported in the world’s press with the straight face of journalistic
objectivity.
The profound sadness of all this is that it does nothing to
help anyone solve anything. It adds nothing to facilitate understanding or
conversation. It is a roadmap to nowhere. It simply provides yet another
convenient crutch that democracy-denying authoritarian leaders can keep using to
prop themselves up.
It may generate lots of heat, but if you’re looking
for light you won’t find it here.
http://billfisher.blogspot.com/2006/01/why-should-we-be-surprised.html