Holocaust Denial in the Muslim World

by Molly Myers

I want to say a few words about Holocaust Denial in the Muslim world. I believe the main reason for the existence of Holocaust denial in the Muslim world is Israel. People who are rightfully furious about the tragedy the founding of Israel has had upon the Arab world have seized upon Holocaust Denial as a way of bolstering their arguments against Israel. They believe that if there were no Holocaust, there need be no state of Israel. Firstly, one can never disprove the events of the Holocaust. Furthermore, the denial of the Holocaust is absolutely unnecessary for criticism of Israel. In my opinion, the issue is not the "need for a state of Israel". This is an argument that it is impossible to prove one way or another. The issue at hand is not whether Jews worldwide need a refuge from discrimination, in the form of an exclusive state, but the impossibility of the maintenance of the state without continued grave human rights violations against those this state dispossesses. Therefore, Holocaust denial hurts the Palestinian cause more than it hurts the Jews, not only because the historical facts of the Holocaust are impossible to disprove, but also because it distracts from the issue at hand, the tragic and continuous uprooting of the Palestinian people. Even if the Holocaust created the need for a refuge for the Jewish people, it cannot, and should not, come with such tragic results for another people. And it is impossible to create a state on another's land without these results. The lesson we must all learn from the Jewish Holocaust is not that all persecuted minorities need their own state regardless of the cost to others, but that minorities must be protected in every state, and that no sort of Holocaust or dispossession is ethically permissable for any people.