A senior Hamas leader has followed in the footsteps of his organization's Iranian benefactor and calls the Holocaust a lie. He also added that Jewish crimes cause anti-Semitism. The Palestinian Authority systematically ignores the Holocaust in its school textbooks.
The United Nations has not commented on the remarks of Mahmud al-Zahar, who said that the” Zionist lie” of the Holocaust will be followed in the future by the “liberation” of all of Israel “after the Zionist planes and tanks are destroyed.”
Hamas: Teaching About Holocaust Corrupts Our Children's Mentality
Last month, Hamas complained to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) about the trips to foreign countries UNRWA arranged for schoolchildren. "These trips included taking the schoolchildren to the Jewish Holocaust in Europe," Hamas stated. “Taking our children to places like the Jewish Holocaust and briefing them over the suffering of the Jewish people by the Nazi is corrupting the mentality of the Palestinian children."
Al-Zahar, in his Holocaust denial statement, admitted that Jews have been subject to massacres and deportations, but said they were due to “their crimes and corruption” and that the "only ones who treated Jews respectfully were Islamic rulers."
He made the remarks in a ceremony marking the second anniversary of an IDF Operation Cast Lead action that resulted in the shelling of a United Nations-run school in Gaza. Documented footage has shown that Hamas used the school as a base to attack Israel, in violation of international law, and that it may have been Hamas weapons that struck the building.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) responded, “Once again, the abhorrent and hateful philosophy of Hamas has reared its ugly head, polluting the public square with Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism. Through its incitement against Israel, Hamas continues to show that it is not a partner for peace and reconciliation, nor a force of moderation. The anti-Semitic ideas expressed by Zahar do not occur in a vacuum, but are a carbon copy of the rhetoric of Hamas’s major supporters, Iran and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."
Ahmadinejad has hosted Holocaust denial conferences in Iran.
Supreme Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal previously has mocked the Holocaust without outrightly denying it. He said three years ago that Israel is "exaggerating the Holocaust and using it to blackmail the world."
"Israel wants to exaggerate the Holocaust when it comes to numbers," Mashall has said. "The Palestinian people are the victims and Israel is the hangman and killer.”