Holocaust denying in the Middle East

I thought David Baddiel's programme on Confronting Holocaust Denial was intelligent and powerful. My one gripe was with his brief look at Holocaust denial in the Arab world.

I'd assumed that it was a subject he wouldn't be dealing with - that he'd be concentrating on the West. Which would have been, if a little disappointing, at least understandable...David Irving vs. Deborah Lipstadt and all that. But, about half-way through, he started talking about places where Holocaust denial was strongest, and came up with Gaza and the West Bank - ie Palestine - with a figure of 82%. So he headed off to SOAS to meet a supposed authority on the subject, Professor Gilbert Achcar. 

Who he? Well, Achcar is a self-proclaimed socialist, who's worked with Chomsky. His book The Arabs and the Holocaust was praised by Tariq Ali in the Guardian. It was, on the other hand, reviewed unfavourably by Jeffrey Herf, who wrote that the book undermines its virtues with "superficial, unfair, and unreliable readings of those with whom he disagrees" and that such attacks do not contribute to scholarship. Matthias Küntzel, whose Tablet article I posted on last week, described the book as one "in which an author from the political left seeks to protect the dogmas of Western anti-Zionism from the reality of Arab antisemitism." 

So what did Achcar have to say for himself here, to Baddiel? Basically, he argued that because the Palestinians live in such a state of miserable oppression under the Israelis, their Holocaust denial should be seen as a “provocative” means of hurting their enemy - a kind of "fuck you" to their oppressors. “I don’t think you can generally, without some degree of pathology, be a Holocaust denier in Europe. But you can be perfectly sane and be a Holocaust denier in the Middle East because of ignorance of the topic,” he said. In other words there's "bad Holocaust denial" - the Western kind - and "good Holocaust denial" - the Arab kind.

Arab Holocaust denial, in other words, gets a pass. As does Arab antisemitism...as always. No mention of Holocaust denial in the Middle East outside Palestine, so comprehensively documented, for instance, at MEMRI. No mention of Iran, or Syria, where denial is government sponsored. 

The subject wasn't pursued. Achcar's vile excuse for Palestinian Holocaust denial - understandable because of what the Jews are doing to them - was left unchallenged. Baddiel, to his credit, wasn't happy with that "good Holocaust denial" vs "bad Holocaust denial" distinction. But the episode still left a bad taste in what was otherwise an excellent programme.

Comments

[Dom]

So how is the Holocaust to be taught in schools? Does it depend on the race of the student?

[Yuvh]

And he only talks about the latest Jewish holocaust... And what about the invasion, conquest and settlement of the "middle east" by Arabs? All those genocides.