Holocaust denial does not make sense, said Michael Berenbaum, a leading scholar of Holocaust studies at American Jewish University, when he spoke in Eggers Hall Thursday about anti-Semitism and denial of the Holocaust in the Middle East.

‘Holocaust denial is nonsense – disreputable, disgusting, disgraceful nonsense,’ Berenbaum said during his lecture, titled ‘Anti-Semitism and Holocaust Denial in the Middle East.’

Berenbaum distinguished between the ways the Holocaust is denied in different countries, and he discussed the three D’s of anti-Semitism developed by Natan Sharansky, a former member of the Israeli parliament: double standards, de-legitimization and demonization.

Berenbaum said it would make more sense for Europeans, especially the Germans, to deny the Holocaust because they were the ones who committed it.

But then he said the president of Germany affirms what happened, while the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, denies it.

He said the Iranians were innocent during the Holocaust and did not persecute or injure the Jews, and they were particularly and distinctly humanitarian in their assistance. He said this shows that the president of Iran’s denial of the Holocaust does not acknowledge the humanitarian nature and decency of his own people.

Some Iranians provided safe havens for Jews escaping the Holocaust and settling in the Middle East, said Miriam Elman, director of the Project on Democracy in the Middle East at the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs.

Berenbaum also spoke on the differences between Holocaust denial in the west and in the Middle East.

‘We have to be careful between the Muslim Holocaust denial and the Holocaust denial that occurs in Europe or in the United States,’ Berenbaum said.

Western Holocaust denial is about the past, he said. He said people in Europe and the United States who deny the Holocaust do so in defense of fascism and to remove the stain on Germany’s past.

But in some Islamic communities, Berenbaum said, Holocaust denial is about everything but the past. People who do not agree with the existence and policies of Israel deny the Holocaust as a way to de-legitimize its existence, he said, which is one of the three D’s. Deniers think Israel is a result of the Holocaust, he said, and by denying the Holocaust, they can deny Israel’s justification for existence.

In relation to the other three D’s, he said Israel is held to double standards when it is judged more harshly for things, such as its foreign policy, than other countries. Demonization occurs when people try to make the Israelis or Jewish people seem like sources of evil and wrongdoing, he said, which can morph into anti-Semitism.

Despite the rhetoric of leaders like Ahmadinejad, many people in the Middle East do not deny the Holocaust, said Mehrzad Boroujerdi, director of the Middle Eastern studies department.

‘I think you can see from the critical response of so many Iranians to Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust that the picture is not so one-sided,’ Boroujerdi said. ‘Keep in mind that many in the Middle East have not yet even forgotten the genocide of Armenians in 1915.’

Rebecca Chad, a senior international relations and Middle Eastern studies major, said Berenbaum’s lecture met her expectations.

‘I like the way he spoke,’ Chad said. ‘He would start at a certain point and cover a wide range of different topics, but he would always come back to a full circle and back to the original point.’

shkim11@syr.edu

Published on February 28, 2010 at 12:00 pm