FULL ARTICLES

ARAFAT’S ‘PRAGMATIC’ PROTEGE

Arafat’s ‘pragmatic’ protege
By Michael Freund
The Jerusalem Post
April 2, 2003

What a difference a few years can make.

It was in February of 2000 that Israel’s government, then headed by Ehud Barak, was up in arms over the Austrian President’s decision to include Joerg Haider’s neo-Nazi Freedom Party in that country’s newly-formed governing coalition.

Haider’s inclusion, Barak said, should “infuriate all the citizens of the free world”. He promptly recalled Israel’s ambassador to Vienna, and convened a session of the cabinet, which issued a statement expressing “deep concern” over the Austrian move.

Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg also blasted the decision, calling it “a blemish on the Austrian nation”, and saying it was regrettable that “the Austrian people refuse to recognize the terrible tragedy that the racist Nazi ideology inflicted on humanity.”

But now, just three years later, after Yasser Arafat appointed Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian version of Joerg Haider, to serve as Prime Minister, the voices of indignation have suddenly fallen silent.

Haider, of course, came under fire after making a series of foul remarks in which he downplayed the evil of the Nazi regime, defending those who took part in its crimes even as he sought to minimize the lethal nature of the Holocaust. As a result, Haider was roundly and justifiably condemned, and deemed unfit to serve in a position of power.

Curiously, the same logic has yet to be applied to Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, even though his views on the Holocaust are even more odious and offensive.

As a doctoral candidate at Moscow’s Oriental College in 1982, Abu Mazen composed a thesis accusing the Jews of exaggerating the Holocaust for ulterior motives.

“The Zionist movement’s stake in inflating the number of murdered in the war was aimed at ensuring great gains,” he said, asserting that “this led it to confirm the number [6 million] to establish it in world opinion, and by so doing to arouse more pangs of conscience and sympathy for Zionism in general.”

In his paper, later published under the title, “The Other Side: The Secret Relationship between Nazism and the Zionist Movement”, the Palestinian leader sought to deny the German use of gas chambers as instruments of death, and suggested that the number of Jews killed was less than one million.

He also went to great lengths to compare Zionism with Nazism, and accused Jewish leaders of conspiring with Hitler to annihilate European Jewry.

“The Zionist movement,” Abu Mazen wrote, “led a broad campaign of incitement against the Jews living under Nazi rule, in order to arouse the government’s hatred of them, to fuel vengeance against them, and to expand the mass extermination.”

Even Joerg Haider, in the ugliest of his demagogic outbursts, never made such horrifying claims.

But despite professing such outrageous views, which he has never publicly retracted, Abu Mazen has nevertheless been hailed by the media and politicians alike, particularly since he was selected last month for the post of Palestinian prime minister.

A March 19 AP story called him “urbane” and insisted that he was “known as a moderate and a pragmatist”.

“He is a responsible man,” ex-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told Israel Radio on March 9. “He has the seriousness required of the job, as well as clear positions and intentions.”

US Secretary of State Colin Powell also praised Abu Mazen’s nomination, as did the usual European suspects.

And this is truly astonishing, for Abu Mazen’s record is far more egregious than Haider’s. Whereas the Austrian politician made inflammatory remarks regarding the past, Abu Mazen went one step further, threatening physical violence against Jews and Israel on more than one occasion.

In a March 4, 1990 interview with the London-based newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat, Abu Mazen warned that Jews making aliyah from the former Soviet Union would be subjected to terror attacks if they made their homes in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. “No one can check the behavior of the Palestinian citizen in the occupied territories. No one can guarantee the results of this provocation,” he said.

In June 1996, shortly after Benjamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister, Abu Mazen threatened that any change in Israel’s policy toward Oslo would cause the Palestinians to take up arms. “Any digression by Binyamin Netanyahu from the peace process,” he said, “will cause a return to the state of war which existed before September 1993” (The Jerusalem Post, June 14, 1996).

More recently, on January 26, 2003, Abu Mazen was asked by the Chinese news agency Xinhua about the prospects of halting terrorist attacks against Israel. His response was far from principled: “That depends on how Israel acts,” he said. “The Israeli side should stop its aggression against the Palestinians first.”

Similarly, on March 3, Abu Mazen again stressed his belief in the use of violence. In an interview with al-Sharq al-Awsat, he sought to clarify statements attributed to him in which he allegedly called for an end to anti-Israel terror. “On the basis of the talks held in Cairo [between the Palestinian Authority and terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad], we agreed upon the freezing of Palestinian military operations for one year... We did not say, however, that we are giving up the armed struggle... The Intifada must continue.”

Thanks, but that is hardly the type of “pragmatism” which the Middle East needs right now.

Indeed, the obvious question which comes to mind is: Why was Joerg Haider denounced for minimizing the mass murder of Jews, while Abu Mazen is not?

And why was the late President of Croatia, Franjo Tudjman, barred from visiting Israel for writing an anti-Semitic World War Two history book entitled Wilderness of Historical Reality, while Abu Mazen is hailed as a “moderate” for holding similar views?

The answer, it would appear, is that not all Holocaust-deniers are created equal, as one standard is applied to the likes of Haider and Tudjman, while an entirely different one is used for Abu Mazen.

Even more disturbing, however, is the willingness of many Israeli and American leaders to overlook Abu Mazen’s brazen calls for violence and his support for terror, all in the vain hope that he will prove more accommodating than his mentor, Yasser Arafat. Such delusions, however, only serve to cloud their judgment, causing them to see Abu Mazen not for what he is, but for what they wish him to be.

So let’s stop fooling ourselves. Abu Mazen is no “moderate”. Anyone who denies the Holocaust, equates Zionism with Nazism and advocates the use of violence against Jews is certainly not deserving of such a label.

Instead, let’s call him what he really is – just another petty anti-Semitic thug. And, more importantly, let’s start treating him as such.

(The writer served as Deputy Director of Communications & Policy Planning in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office under Benjamin Netanyahu).

 

TWO PIECES BY RAFAEL MENDOFF

Two pieces by Rafael Medoff, which appered in various Jewish publications on the Internet. [Medoff is visiting scholar at the State University of New York. His latest book is “A Race Against Death: Peter Bergson, America and the Holocaust,” co-written with David S. Wyman.]

***

The Japanese publisher Bungei Shunju shut down one of its magazines for printing an article denying the Holocaust.

International pressure compelled Croatian President Franjo Tudjman to publicly retract statements in his book doubting that the Holocaust had taken place. Austrian Freedom Party leader Jorg Haider was ostracized by the international community for his remarks praising members of the SS, as was French politician Jean Marie Le Pen, for questioning the existence of the gas chambers and belittling the significance of the Holocaust. A recent poll found 64 percent of Americans believe world leaders should likewise refuse to meet with Abbas.

Yet some in the media have treated Abbas with kid gloves, to say the least. The official BBC News Profile of Abbas reports: “A highly intellectual man, Abbas studied law in Egypt before doing a Ph.D. in Moscow. He is the author of several books.” The New York Times recently characterized Abbas as “a lawyer and historian ... He holds a doctorate in history from the Moscow Oriental College; his topic was Zionism.” Neither the BBC nor the Times offered any further explanation as to the contents of Abbas’ writings.

Bestowing the title “historian” upon Mahmoud Abbas awards his writings a stature they do not deserve, and deals a grievous insult to every genuine historian.

If Abbas is elevated to the post of prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, not only the media but the entire international community will be confronted with the question of whether Abbas deserves to be treated any differently from Tudjman, Haider and Le Pen.

 

PALESTINIANS GET A HOLOCAUST DENIER AS FIRST PRIME MINISTER

Palestinians get a Holocaust denier as 1st prime minister
By Rafael Medoff
Jewish Bulletin of North California

While European Union officials praised Yasser Arafat’s decision to appoint his first-ever prime minister, historians of the Holocaust winced at the news that a leading candidate for the job is the author of a book denying that the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews.

The candidate is Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen), Arafat’s second in command, and his book, published in Arabic in 1983, translates as “The Other Side: The Secret Relations Between Nazism and the Leadership of the Zionist Movement.” It was originally his doctoral dissertation, completed at Moscow Oriental College.

The book repeatedly attempts to cast doubt on the fact that the Nazis slaughtered 6 million Jews, according to a translation provided by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

“Following the war,” he writes, “word was spread that six million Jews were amongst the victims and that a war of extermination was aimed primarily at the Jews...The truth is that no one can either confirm or deny this figure. In other words, it is possible that the number of Jewish victims reached six million, but at the same time it is possible that the figure is much smaller – below one million.”

Abbas denies that the gas chambers were used to murder Jews, quoting a “scientific study” to that effect by French Holocaust-denier Robert Faurisson.

Abbas’ book then asserts: “The historian and author Raoul Hilberg thinks that the figure does not exceed 890,000.”

That is, of course, utterly false. Hilberg, a distinguished historian and author of the classic study “The Destruction of the European Jews,” has never said or written any such thing.

Abbas believes the 6 million figure is the product of a Zionist conspiracy: “It seems that the interest of the Zionist movement... is to inflate this figure so that their gains will be greater,” he writes. “This led them to emphasize this figure in order to gain the solidarity of international public opinion with Zionism. Many scholars have debated the figure of six million and reached stunning conclusions “fixing the number of Jewish victims at only a few hundred thousand.”

Another falsehood. In fact, no serious scholar proposes such a figure.

After reducing the magnitude of the Nazi slaughter so that it no longer seems to have been a full-scale Holocaust, Abbas seeks to absolve the Nazis by blaming the Zionist leadership for whatever killings did take place. According to Abbas, “A partnership was established between Hitler’s Nazis and the leadership of the Zionist movement... [the Zionists gave] permission to every racist in the world, led by Hitler and the Nazis, to treat Jews as they wish, so long as it guarantees immigration to Palestine.”

In addition to encouraging the persecution of Jews so they would immigrate to the Holy Land, the Zionist leaders actually wanted Jews to be murdered, because – in Abbas’ words – “having more victims meant greater rights and stronger privilege to join the negotiation table for dividing the spoils of war once it was over. However, since Zionism was not a fighting partner – suffering victims in a battle – it had no escape but to offer up human beings, under any name, to raise the number of victims, which they could then boast of at the moment of accounting.”

Perhaps sentiments of this sort were common within Abbas’ circle of graduate students in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. But in the free world, such propaganda has never been accepted as serious scholarship.

In most Western countries, Holocaust-deniers have been treated as pariahs. In Canada and many European countries, Holocaust-denial is a criminal offense. In New Zealand, Canterbury University recently issued an apology for having accepting a master’s thesis denying the Holocaust, while the French minister of education revoked a doctoral degree that was awarded to a Holocaust-denier by the University of Nantes. A Polish university professor who denied the Holocaust was suspended from his position. The Japanese publisher Bungei Shunju shut down one of its magazines for printing an article denying the Holocaust.

International pressure compelled Croatian President Franjo Tudjman to publicly retract statements in his book doubting that the Holocaust had taken place. Austrian Freedom Party leader Jorg Haider was ostracized by the international community for his remarks praising members of the SS, as was French politician Jean Marie Le Pen, for questioning the existence of the gas chambers and belittling the significance of the Holocaust. A recent poll found 64 percent of Americans believe world leaders should likewise refuse to meet with Abbas.

Yet some in the media have treated Abbas with kid gloves, to say the least. The official BCC News Profile of Abbas reports: “A highly intellectual man, Abbas studied law in Egypt before doing a Ph.D. in Moscow. He is the author of several books.” The New York Times recently characterized Abbas as “a lawyer and historian... He holds a doctorate in history from the Moscow Oriental College; his topic was Zionism.” Neither the BBC nor the Times offered any further explanation as to the contents of Abbas’ writings.

Bestowing the title “historian” upon Mahmoud Abbas awards his writings a stature they do not deserve, and deals a grievous insult to every genuine historian.

If Abbas is elevated to the post of prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, not only the media but the entire international community will be confronted with the question of whether Abbas deserves to be treated any differently from Tudjman, Haider and Le Pen.

 

RIGHT-WINGERS TO PROTEST “ABU MAZEN - HOLOCAUST DENIER”

Report: Right-wingers to protest “Abu Mazen – Holocaust denier”
Ynet (Yediot Ahronot)
April 27, 2003

Ynet reports that a group of “right wing extremists” have presented Jerusalem police with a request to hold a protest rally on Holocaust Remembrance day at “Yad Vashem” in Jerusalem against Prime Minister Sharon’s plans to conduct negotiations with new Palestinian Prime Minister, Abu Mazen.

The right-wingers plan to protest the planned negotiations with the “Holocaust denier” Abu Mazen, reports Ynet.

The protesters will carry banners, which read: “negotiations with Abu Mazen a blow to the memory of those murdered in the Holocaust.”

The protesters are referring to Abu Mazen’s doctoral dissertation presented in 1982 at Moscow’s Oriental College in which he allegedly made a claim that Zionists collaborated with the Nazis to annihilate the Jewish people.

Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) holds a Ph.D. in history from Moscow’s Oriental College. His doctoral thesis served as a basis for his 1984 book, “The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism.”

In this book, Abbas raised doubts that gas chambers were used for extermination of Jews using arguments previously espoused by a known French Holocaust denier, and suggested that the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust was “less than a million.”

According to a translation provided by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, the book repeatedly attempts to cast doubt on the fact that the Nazis slaughtered six million Jews.

 

ARAB ANTISEMITISM

Inquiry and Analysis - Arab Antisemitism
MEMRI
No. 95
May 30, 2002

Palestinian Leader: Number of Jewish Victims in the Holocaust Might be “Even Less Than a Million...” Zionist Movement Collaborated with Nazis to “Expand the Mass Extermination” of the Jews

A 1982 doctoral dissertation by Secretary-General of the PLO Executive Committee Mahmoud Abbas, a.k.a. Abu Mazen, who is considered second to Yasser Arafat, discussed “the secret ties between the Nazis and the Zionist movement leadership.” Two years later, a study by Abu Mazen based on his dissertation for Moscow’s Oriental College was published in Arabic by Dar Ibn Rushd publishers in Amman, Jordan.

In the introduction to his 1984 study, Abu Mazen referred to well-known Holocaust deniers, raised doubts that gas chambers were used for extermination of Jews, and claimed that the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust might be “even less than a million.” Abu Mazen claimed that the Zionist movement had a stake in convincing world public opinion that the number of victims was high; thus, it would achieve “greater gains” after the war when the time came to “distribute the spoils.”

Abu Mazen’s intention was to undermine the legitimacy of the Zionist movement by proving that during a critical stage in the history of the Jewish people – the rise of Nazism and World War II – the Zionist leadership stopped at nothing to achieve its aim of establishing a Jewish state. He wrote, “The truth [about the Nazi crimes] has another aspect” that the West preferred to disregard; instead, the West concealed “a basic partner in crime” – that is, the Zionist movement. The study pointed to a convergence of the interests of the Nazi and the Zionist movements, and the fundamental similarity in the two movements’ theories. The central claim Abu Mazen sought to prove is that the Zionist movement, with all its factions, conspired against the Jewish people and collaborated with the Nazis to annihilate it, because the movement considered “Palestine” the only appropriate destination for Jewish emigration.

Abu Mazen wrote, “It might be imagined that Zionism would do all it could, materially and otherwise, to save the Jews, or at least to keep them [alive] until the end of the war. It might have been expected that it would arouse world public opinion and direct its attention to the massacres carried out against the Jews, so that the governments would act to rescue them from their bitter fate.” But, stated Abu Mazen, “what Zionism did was the exact opposite of what could have been expected”: The Zionist movement sabotaged various aid plans 1 and withheld information regarding the bitter fate of Europe’s Jews “in order to free itself from the need to take necessary action.” Abu Mazen added, “the Zionist movement led a broad campaign of incitement against the Jews living under Nazi rule, in order to arouse the government’s hatred of them, to fuel vengeance against them, and to expand the mass extermination.” 2

Introduction: The Truth has Another Aspect

“The Western countries sketched the final picture of the outcome of World War II. They defined the crimes committed, and described the criminals and the ones they victimized; after setting themselves up as a faithful judge with the decisive word in matters of these crimes. They locked up details, facts, and crimes that they didn’t want to exist; they ignored names, important people, institutions, organizations, and countries that they chose to ignore. In the end, they charged the Nazi leaders with all the crimes that were committed during the war, and they relentlessly hunted down those still alive, even though the crimes were committed long ago. The Nuremberg [trials] cut down the tyrants and the murderers, and cast a [shadow] on the basic partner in the crimes committed during the war. After they collected [the price] from them - they narrowed the focus on the crimes, criminals, prosecutors, defendants, and witnesses, and set the entire matter in limited frameworks that could not be breached. This was how these countries dealt with half the truth, deliberately neglecting the other half.”

The Number of Jewish Victims

“During World War II, 40 million people of different nations of the world were killed. The German people sacrificed 10 million; the Soviet people 20 million; and the rest [of those killed] were from Yugoslavia, Poland, and the other peoples. But after the war it was announced that 6 million Jews were among the victims, and that the war of annihilation had been aimed first of all against the Jews, and only then against the rest of the peoples of Europe.”

“The truth of the matter is that no one can verify this number, or completely deny it. In other words, the number of Jewish victims might be 6 million and might be much smaller – even less than 1 million. [Nevertheless], raising a discussion regarding the number of Jews [murdered] does not in any way diminish the severity of the crime committed against them, as murder – even of one man – is a crime that the civilized world cannot accept and humanity cannot accept.”

“It seems that the Zionist movement’s stake in inflating the number of murdered in the war was aimed at [ensuring] great gains. This led it to confirm the number [6 million], to establish it in world opinion, and by doing so to arouse more pangs of conscience and sympathy for Zionism in general. Many scholars have debated the question of the 6 million figure, and reached perplexing conclusions, according to which the Jewish victims total hundreds of thousands. The well-known Canadian author Roger Delarom[3] said on this matter: ‘To date, no proof whatsoever exists that the number of Jewish victims in the Nazi concentration camps reached four million or six million. Zionism first spoke of 12 million exterminated in these camps, but then the number decreased greatly, to half, that is, only six million. Then the number decreased further, and became four million, as the Germans could not have killed or exterminated more Jews than there were in the world at that time. In effect, the true number is much smaller than these fictitious millions.’ The [American] historian and author Raul Hilberg thinks that this number is no greater than 896,000.” [4]

“The source of the submission of this large number, 6 million [murdered], is Chaim Weizmann’s 1936 declaration before a British committee regarding the fate of 6 million Jews living in Europe if a world war should break out. [According to Weizmann], ‘The little green branches are the ones that will survive, while the rest must bear their [bitter] fate.’ From that point on, the Zionist movement insisted that all 6 million were murdered, and that none of them survived.”

“Afterwards, the Zionist movement attempted to describe how they [the Jews] were murdered in concentration camps and gas chambers, as it disregarded two fundamental facts. First, many of the Jews remained alive; some were rescued by the Zionist movement [which encouraged] their emigration to Palestine, and some [survived because of] the peoples of the world that managed to protect them and take them away from the Nazis, as the Soviet Union did by sending two million Jews to its eastern republics. In addition, hundreds of thousands of live Jews were found in the concentration camps when the Allies liberated the territories [conquered by the Nazis].”

“Second, the extermination of the victims was not carried out only in the concentration camps and gas chambers. Some of the victims fell as a result of their participation in wars and battles, and also due to starvation and disease that struck all the peoples of Europe. In addition, the concentration camps were not only for Jews, but held people from all over Europe, among them fighters, intellectuals, scholars, prisoners of war, and opponents of fascism...”

“Regarding the gas chambers, which were supposedly designed for murdering living Jews: A scientific study published by Professor Robert Faurisson[5] of France denies that the gas chambers were for murdering people, and claims that they were only for incinerating bodies, out of concern for the spread of disease and infection in the region.” [6]

The Zionist Movement Conspired Against the Jewish People

“It takes little effort to prove the truth [about the crimes of the Nazis] and to document them. World War II did take place, and in it fell millions of victims. It was Hitler... who established the concentration camps in all of Europe to hold all of his opponents and enemies, including peoples not worthy of living, and it was also he who invented the gas chambers. However, another aspect of the truth remains shrouded in mystery, like the other side of the moon...”

“How could [anyone with] reason believe that the institutions of the Zionist movement that arose to defend ‘the [Jewish] people’ then became a cause of this people’s annihilation? History has taught us that Nero burned Rome, but he was insane, and his insanity removes from him his responsibility. History has also taught us that leaders have betrayed their people and their country and sold them to their enemies. But they are few, and they alone bear the responsibility for their actions. Therefore, a popular, public movement’s conspiracy against its ‘people’ is something astonishing that demands an in-depth and meticulous examination before it is accused for no reason...”

On the Similarity Between Nazi and Zionist Theory

“When discussing declared Zionist ideas, which have been espoused with profound conviction and faith by the movement’s followers, one finds that they believe in the purity of the Jewish race – as Hitler believed in the purity of the Aryan race – and the movement calls for finding a deeply-rooted and decisive solution to the ‘Jewish problem’ in Europe via immigration to Palestine. Hitler also called for this, and carried it out. The Zionist movement maintains that antisemitism is an eternal problem that throbs in the Gentiles’ blood; that it is not possible to put an end to it or get away from it; and thus it is the basic motive for Zionist immigration. It follows that if antisemitism did not exist it would be necessary to invent it, and that if its flame dies away it must be fanned. David Ben-Gurion defined the Zionist movement as immigration [to Israel] and nothing else; whoever does not immigrate [to Israel] denies the Torah and the Talmud and therefore is not a Jew... These ideas provide a general dispensation to every racist in the world, most prominently Hitler and the Nazis, to treat the Jews as they wish, as long as this includes immigration to Palestine...”

The Entire Zionist Movement is Responsible for Conspiring with the Nazis
“In order to avoid error and generalization regarding the various factions of the Zionists, and for the purpose of accuracy, we must point out that the Zionist movement was divided. One part held the leadership and another part formed the opposition... Can we accuse the second group, which was not party to the institutions and leadership [of conspiring against the Jewish people]? This question is relevant in only one incident - whether there were differences of opinion between the two sides regarding the origin of the Zionist theory and regarding the practical implementation of Zionist thought. But if the point of departure and the implementation went together, as indeed happened – then there is no room for question... An Arabic proverb states, ‘When differences of opinion arise among thieves, the theft is revealed.’ This is what happened with the Zionist movement; when the Labor Party ruled Israel, it refused the Revisionists [the future Likud party] their share, and so [the Revisionists] began to expose the facts and rend the curtain of falsehood. However, in the heat of argument over the roles of the Laborites [in conspiring with the Nazis], they forgot to speak of the role they played, which was no different from that of others. Then came a third side and revealed the positions of all...”

 

FOOTNOTES TO THE ITEM ABOVE

[1] In the study, Abu Mazen notes several incidents in which the Zionist movement ignored the fate of the Jews and actively undermined plans to aid them. He wrote, “In 1943, there was an opportunity to send packages of food, medicine, and clothing to Jews in the ghettos of Europe. The International Red Cross, in cooperation with the U.S. government, began collecting these packages, but the Zionist movement objected to the proposal and sabotaged the idea, claiming that the German Red Cross would be the recipient [of the packages]. Because of these positions, thousands died in the ghetto of epidemic and starvation, even before the Nazis began their actions. Infant mortality ranged from 60% to 70% in various places – nothing could be more terrible. Had intentions been good, there were ways and means of delivering the packages, via the Red Cross or some neutral country such as Switzerland, Turkey, or Portugal, and they would have been sent – and all these children could have been saved.”

[2] Abu Mazen stated in his paper, “The Zionist movement’s most obvious incitement activities against the Jews living under the German conquest were the decisions of the Biltmore Conference, held in the U.S. [in May, 1942]- when the Zionist leaders declared war on Germany on behalf of the Jewish people. When Hitler learned about the conclusions of the conference through his ambassador in the U.S., he was enraged, and declared, ‘Now I will liquidate them.’ Afterwards he held an urgent meeting with all Germany’s leaders, and they developed their detailed plans for the Final Solution – We must not overestimate the importance of the Biltmore Conference and see it as the only reason leading Hitler to authorize the Final Solution, but it is clear that the decisions taken at the conference were one of Hitler’s main excuses for speeding up the implementation of his solution regarding the Jews, and therefore this conference can be seen as one of the more important causes that led to the [bitter] end...”

[3] The spelling of this name is not certain; the name as it appears in the study is unknown.

[4] Abu Mazen cited p. 670 of Hilberg’s The Destruction of the European Jews as the source of this data. However, an examination of this source shows that no such figure is mentioned. Hilberg writes that between 1935 and 1945 world Jewry lost a third of its number; it dropped from 16 million to about 11 million. It should be noted that the original Russian version of Abu Mazen’s study focuses much less on how many Jews were murdered than does the Arabic version, and includes only the figure of 896,000, which Abu Mazen attributes to Hilberg.

[5] A well-known Holocaust denier.

[6] In the original version of this study (in Russian) the question of whether or not gas chambers were used to murder Jews does not appear.