Why Do Muslim Leaders in Britain Wish to Diminish the Holocaust?
By Aaron Goldstein (09/17/05)
After the terrorist attacks in London on July 7th and the subsequent second attempt two weeks later, Prime Minister Tony Blair appointed leading members of Britain’s Muslim community to advise him as to how to combat extremism. These recommendations are to be submitted to Blair and to his Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, on September 22nd.
However, some of the draft proposals have been leaked and these were published by The Sunday Times on September 11th which can be found at www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-1775068-523,00.html. One of the principle recommendations was that the Blair Labour government scrap Holocaust Memorial Day on the grounds that it “excludes” Muslims. They propose, instead, that it be replaced by Genocide Day which would commemorate the murders of Muslims in Palestine, Chechnya and Bosnia amongst others. “There are 500 Palestinian towns and villages that have been wiped out over the years. That’s pretty genocidal to me,” said Ibrahim Hewitt of the Muslim charity, Interpal. No word, however, if Genocide Day would commemorate the murder of a million Christians at the hands of a Muslim led government in the Sudan.
Andrew McCarthy, a senior fellow at the Foundation of the Defense of Democracies, has written an excellent article on this subject at www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.p?ref=mccarthy/mccarthy200509120806. However, I wish to focus on the notion that Britain should not commemorate the Holocaust on the grounds that it “excludes” Muslims.
First of all, I find it very hard to believe that Muslims feel excluded from being victims of the Holocaust. I find it hard to believe that Muslims feel excluded from being forced to wear yellow stars on the chests. I find it hard to believe that Muslims feel excluded from being compelled from their homes and having their businesses destroyed by angry mobs. I find it hard to believe that Muslims feel excluded from being placed on trains that shipped them to Auschwitz, Birkenau and Dachau. I find it hard to believe that Muslims feel excluded from being systematically murdered by a dictator who believed in a pure Aryan race.
I find these things hard to believe because many Muslim leaders have actively supported the notion that the Holocaust either did not happen or at the very least was exaggerated. It must be remembered that Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Arab spiritual in British Mandated Palestine, went to Germany to meet with Adolf Hitler and express his support for his efforts to rid Europe of Jews in 1941. The Grand Mufti’s objective was to rid Jews from British Mandated Palestine. The Grand Mufti would later become a political mentor to Yasser Arafat. Prior to becoming Arafat’s heir apparent, Mahmoud Abbas was perhaps best known as the author of The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement. Abbas argues that Zionists urged the Third Reich to kill Jews so as gain them sympathy for a Jewish state. This from a so-called Palestinian “moderate”.
In a 2003 article written by Dr. Rafael Medoff, the Executive Director for the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, which can be found at www.wymaninstitute.org/articles/2003-10-onelie.php, Medoff cites instances where Arab governments through their state run media such as Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority have put forth the message that the Holocaust did not happen or was severely exaggerated. Indeed, Medoff cites the Egyptian government’s warm reception for French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy during a 1996 visit. While in Egypt, Garaudy was awarded a prize by the editor in chief of the government newspaper Al Ahram. This from a supposedly “moderate” Arab government. When Garaudy ran into legal troubles with the French government in 1998 because of his Holocaust denial activities, the Minister of Communications for the Palestinian Authority held a rally in Gaza on Garaudy’s behalf.
So given that the Grand Mufti publicly supported Adolf Hitler during WWII and given that many Arab Muslim governments actively deny there ever was a Holocaust why would it then be a stretch for Muslim leaders in a Western country to behave in a similar manner?
Now to be certain, Muslim leaders in Britain have not come out and said that the Holocaust did not happen. They are cunning enough to know that such language is still unacceptable in the current political discourse. Instead, they use the language of liberalism and argue that commemorating the Holocaust isn’t sufficiently inclusive and leads to the alienation of Muslims. However, this is nothing more than a smokescreen. If Muslim leaders in Britain cannot deny the Holocaust they will certainly diminish it.
Fortunately, there have been those who have spoken out such as Louise Ellman, a Labour Member of Parliament from Liverpool who said, “These Muslim groups should stop trying to evade the enormity of the Holocaust.” Well said. But let us consider that those who survived the Holocaust and were alive when Britain was at war with the Nazis are diminishing in number every day. As time passes it will be easier for those who wish to minimize the Holocaust to have their way.
It is unclear whether this recommendation will make it to the desk of the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary. But one must wonder what Blair was thinking when he appointed people such as Inayat Bunglawala, media secretary for the Muslim Council of Britain? As Andrew McCarthy pointed out, Bunglawala has described Osama bin Laden as a “freedom fighter.” How does one go about combating extremism with the help of those who look upon bin Laden as a hero? It is as baffling as London Mayor Ken Livingstone likening Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi to the late Pope John Paul II. You may recall that Dr. al-Qaradawi has praised Palestinian homicide bombers. Somehow I think I missed the papal encyclical endorsing the murder of civilians. Yet the Blair government is working on getting Dr. al-Qaradawi a visa to come to Britain as he did in July 2004 when he was a special guest of Mayor Livingstone.
The Blair government might not go along with the idea of scrapping Holocaust Memorial Day. After all, it was the Blair government that established it in 2001. However, they have lent legitimacy to those who support the idea of it by appointing them to sensitive governmental committees. So long as the British government seeks their advice Islamic extremism and terrorism might bring about a Holocaust in that fair land.
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