A Discussion on the TV Channel Al-Jazeera
continued...
"There is no doubt that there is a commonality between Nazism and Zionism," Al-Akhdhar said, but he quickly added, "this commonality exists between Nazism and all nationalist movements," which are based on one principle, namely the centrality of ethnic and racial elements. That is why they use expressions like "the Chosen People" or the phrase common among Islamists: "We are the greatest nation delivered to mankind." "The nations that have given up national narcissism and the centrality of ethnicity," he added, "are the nations that have risen to a higher level of civilization."
On the defensive, "Atiya claimed she is involved in the media, even in the French language, and denied having said the media was unimportant. She added that she is a Maronite Christian and therefore "I cannot be compared to the Taliban."
Al-Qasem raised the possibility of renewing the UN resolution equating Zionism to racism, and A1-Akhdhar claimed this proposal "is un-political": "While there is a consensus that Israel is not a Nazi state, you get up and yell that Israel is a Nazi state. Then you get into trouble, just like one of the leaders did recently [meaning Bashar Assad]. Then you approach international diplomacy and waste weeks and months trying to explain and clarify and claim that your comments were taken out of context, etc. The main thing for us is the struggle against the occupation and the settlements. What is the point, then, to constantly say: Israel is Nazi, Israel is worse than Nazism, Israel is worse than fascism, etc. We cannot fight against international diplomacy, because then we will lose our cause... We must learn from Israel and be realistic." On the other hand, "Atiya claimed that dealing with the Holocaust serves the general interests of the Arabs and Palestinians. "The media is psychology," she explained, "the comparison of Zionism to Nazism in the media is a blow to Western psychology, because the Western conscience is particularly sensitive to the Nazis."
The discussion was then opened to audience participation. On the line was Ibrahim Alloush of Jordan, editor of the anti-Semitic web-site "The Free Arab Voice" and board member of the League Against Zionism and Racism. He claimed that "The Holocaust myth has three aspects. First, there is the lie about the policy of extermination of the Jews; second, the lie about the killing of six million Jews in the Second World War; and third, the lie about the gas chambers. The most important aspect about the Holocaust myth are the tales about the gas chambers because they are where [the locations] the Jews were supposedly exterminated. If we prove that the gas chambers did not exist, as the historians have done, the entire Holocaust myth will collapse."
Alloush agreed with "Atiya's assertion that Holocaust denial serves Arab interests "because it is not merely a historical question, but an issue of contemporary politics and media. The importance of the Holocaust myths for the Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, is that they justify the need for the existence of an occupying Zionist state, because the Jews need a state of their own for safe refuge. Secondly, it also justifies the Zionist movement's violation of UN resolutions, claiming what happened to the Jews in the so-called Holocaust gives them an excuse for not following international law..."
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