Comment & Debate
Ronny Naftaniel, head of the Hague-based Center for Information and Documentation Israel – Holland’s largest Zionist group: “is almost always used for a political purpose, which is discrimination. This needs to be nipped in the bud before it’s too late.”[1]
“Holocaust Denial”. Anti-Defamation League. 1997: “Though there is no evidence that they have persuaded large numbers of students to doubt the settled record of events which comprise the Holocaust, their appearance has generated acrimony and has frequently caused friction between Jewish and non-Jewish students.
This is precisely the intent of the Holocaust deniers: by attacking the facts of the Holocaust, and by framing this attack as merely an unorthodox point of view, their propaganda insinuates subtle but hateful anti-Semitic beliefs of Jews as exploiters of non-Jewish guilt and Jews as controllers of academia or the media. These beliefs, in fact, bear comparison to the preachings which brought Hitler to power in prewar Germany.”[2]
“How to Understand And Confront Holocaust Denial”. Thematic Leaflet. June 2007: “The general aim of the Holocaust denial is to challenge and ridicule the history of Jewish suffering during the war. The deniers want to rehabilitate fascism by denying its past. Holocaust denial is the most extreme form of antisemitism and it shows how the system of antisemitic thought functions. Holocaust denial is therefore a result of classical antisemitism. As Ken Stern writes in his book Antisemitism Today, ‘Holocaust denial is about Jews, not about Holocaust’ (2006).”