* British journalist Adel Darwish
British journalist Adel Darwish questions the motives behind Holocaust denial in the Muslim world and says recognition of the historical truth of the Holocaust cannot harm Muslims.
The extremist Iranian president [Ahmadinejad] may have gained some points in terms of vocal propaganda in the hate-mongering satellite channels, but diplomatically, he only caused damage to his country, which is going through a difficult period in terms of its foreign relations. He also caused severe damage to the Muslims by creating a political-cultural climate in which feelings of hate drown out the Muslims' noble and humane sentiments.
Ahmadinejad and his ideological followers are misleading themselves and the media when they say that the Holocaust denial conference was held for purposes of historical research, and that it put to the test the West's receptiveness to free speech and free academic research... Those evil and despicable figures... who were invited to the conference, and who prevented the Palestinian attorney Khaled Mahamid from participating in it - are they historians?... Among the participants were six Jews - British Orthodox rabbis - but they are not historians, nor do they deny the historical [truth] of the Holocaust - they merely oppose the [existence of] a Jewish state before the coming of the Messiah. Ahmadinejad is using them as a fig-leaf to cover up his moral shame, since he wants to 'wipe Israel off the map.’
There are political activists who refuse to accept the Jewish Holocaust as justification for harming the Palestinians and denying [their right to have] an independent state like all other nations - but they, too, express this position as political activists and not in the guise of researchers or historians.
I will conclude by posing the question that was posed to all Muslims by the Iranian Muhammad Khaled: "How does it threaten you to recognize the historical truth of the Holocaust?"