Leider Egyptische Wafd partij noemt Holocaust en 9/11 verzinsels

Dit komt helaas vaker voor, maar dat haalt de Nederlandse media doorgaans niet. Overigens gaat het hier om de leider van een seculiere partij, wat illustreert hoezeer dergelijke ideeën gemeengoed zijn in Egypte. De kranten zeggen het, zogenaamde experts en historici zeggen het, imams en andere geestelijken zeggen het, en politici zeggen het. Niet zo gek dus dat ook de meeste mensen dit soort gevaarlijke onzin geloven.

RP
----------


Top Egyptian politician calls Holocaust, 9/11 fabrications

Ahmed Ezz El-Arab, leader of the secular Wafd Party, tells the Washington Times the Holocaust is a lie, adding Anne Frank's memoirs 'fake.'

By Haaretz / Published 22:04 06.07.11
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/top-egyptian-politician-calls-holocaust-9-11-fabrications-1.371820


The vice chairman of Egypt's top secular party told the Washington Times in an interview last week that the September 11 terror attacks, the Holocaust and Anne Frank's diary are all historical fabrications.

"The Holocaust is a lie," Ahmed Ezz El-Arab, Wafd Party leader told the Washington Times in Budapest where he was attending the Conference on Democracy and Human Rights.

He went on to explain that it was factually impossible to claim that the Nazis killed 6 million Jews, saying "the Jews under German occupation were
2.4 million. So if they were all exterminated, where does the remaining 3.6 million come from?"

The Egyptian politician acknowledged that the Nazis may have killed "hundreds of thousands" of Jews, but discounted the plausibility of gas chambers and skinning Jews alive, calling them "fanciful stories".

El-Arab's Holocaust denial did not stop there, and the Egyptian politician went on to attack the authenticity of Anne Frank's diary, the memoirs of a teenage girl who hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam, only to be discovered and die in a concentration camp.

The Wafd leader recalled studying the novel that is one of the most widely distributed publications to date as a doctoral student in Stockholm. "I could swear to God it's a fake," he said. "The girl was there, but the memoirs are a fake."

El-Arab concurred with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust – but discredited his motives.

"He's a hateful character, so whatever he says can be criticized," he told the Washington Times, adding "what he says about the Holocaust is true, but he doesn't say it because it's true. He says it out of hatred to the Israeli state."

When asked about future peace with Israel, El-Arab attempted to assuage fears that a new Egyptian government would cancel the 1979 treaty.

The Egyptian politician told the Washington Times that there is "no chance at all" that would happen," adding "Egypt will not go to war unless it's attacked," he said.

El-Arab's historical revision was not reserved for the Holocaust alone, and he also shared his theories on the September 11 attacks and their perpetrators with the Washington Times.

The Wafd leader denied that Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader who was recently killed in an American raid on his compound in Pakistan, was behind the attacks.

"He could not have the know-how or the ability to do it," El-Arab said, calling the dead al-Qaida leader "an American agent."

The Egyptian politician added "if he had the ability, one plane only landing on the Knesset would give more effect."

El-Arab blamed the CIA, Israel's Mossad and the "military-industrial complex".

Despite his Holocaust-denying views, it seems as though El-Arab's overall opinion on the Jewish people is favorable, telling the Washington Time that he believes that there was once a Jewish temple in Jerusalem, entitling the Jews to a historical claim on Israel's capital.

"The Jews are there," he said. "Good or bad, they are there." However, he made sure to follow up with the clarification: "You cannot as a human being think of exterminating 6 million or 5 million or whatever. That's crazy."