Dr. Mario Silva
Dr. Mario SilvaYoni Kempinski

Holocaust denial is another form of anti-Semitism which is prevalent today and must be fought, Dr. Mario Silva told Arutz Sheva.

Dr. Silva, chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, took part in the 4th conference of the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism which was held in Jerusalem this week.

“It’s sad to say it, but [Holocaust denial] is still a problem,” he said. “There are still some regimes – certainly we know the more prominent case of the President of Iran and his Holocaust denial – but there are other political groups in the world that are popping up and are denying the Holocaust.

“We have to be vigilant and condemn these groups, and also make sure that domestic and national governments are speaking out against this type of behavior and denial of the Holocaust,” he added.

Dr. Silva also referred to the fact that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who is often hailed by the West as a “peace partner” with Israel, has denied the Holocaust.

Abbas claimed in his doctoral dissertation that the Zionist movement collaborated with the Nazis to annihilate the Jewish people, in exchange for a transfer agreement between Nazi Germany and the Jewish Agency, which allowed the transfer of the properties of tens of thousands of Jews from Germany to Israel.  He also accused the Zionist movement in the dissertation of inflating the number of victims and the severity of the Holocaust.

“These are things that the government of Israel has to deal with on an ongoing basis – the denial of the Holocaust by several of its neighbors,” said Dr. Silva.

Holocaust denial, he added, comes in many forms such as minimization, trivialization and comparing it to other genocides while claiming that the Holocaust “wasn’t as bad.”

“This is becoming fashionable in some circles and we have to combat that as well.”