Trial of Holocaust denier stirs passions in Arab world

LONDON, Feb. 23 (JTA) — The fate of an alleged Holocaust denier in France has stirred passions across the Arab world. A Paris court is expected to hand down a verdict Friday in the trial of Roger Garaudy, an 85-year-old French intellectual who has been charged with denying crimes against humanity. The trial of Garaudy, whose ideological path has taken him from Stalinism through Christianity to Islam, stems from his 1996 book, “The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics,” in which he denies the existence of Nazi gas chambers and claims that the number of Jews killed by the Nazis has been grossly exaggerated in order to justify the Zionist case. Hitler’s executions of Jews, he asserted, were indeed “massacres,” but it would be an exaggeration to term the Nazi crimes “genocide” or a “Holocaust.” He dismisses claims that 6 million Jews perished under the Nazis. Such sentiments are illegal in France. If convicted, Garaudy, a former left-wing deputy speaker of the French National Assembly, could face a one-year jail term or a fine of $50,000. Prosecutors in the case have waived demands for a jail term. Garaudy’s book and trial have sparked a powerful wave of support across the Arab world, even in countries that have peace treaties with Israel. Such support appears to emanate from two, intertwined fronts: defense of his freedom of expression in questioning the Holocaust and support for his criticism of Israel and the “Zionist-controlled media.” Arabs support Garaudy “because of his sound and clear position against Israel and America and his support for the Palestinians,” said Amina Rashid, who lectures on French literature at Cairo University in Egypt. Jordan’s 12 opposition political parties issued a statement criticizing the trial as “a theatrical farce” — claiming that “Zionists have fabricated the falsehoods about the extermination of the Jews in Germany to mislead the world and blackmail Western governments and society into supporting the Zionists’ plots against mankind and the Palestinian people.” Protesting outside the French Cultural Center in Gaza, 70 Palestinian intellectuals recently held banners proclaiming, “Garaudy, All of Palestine is With You.” In Beirut, a group of seven leading Lebanese lawyers volunteered to defend Garaudy, while the Union of Arab Journalists called on “Arab intellectuals to rally [for Garaudy], who had the courage to disclose Zionist lies.” In the Persian Gulf, the United Arab Emirates daily al-Khaleej published a front-page appeal to its readers to send donations and messages of support to Garaudy. The paper was inundated with messages, while the wife of UAE leader Sheik Zayed ibn Sultan Al-Nahayan offered a cash gift of $50,000 to pay Garaudy’s fine if it is imposed. But nowhere has Garaudy’s star shone more brightly than in Egypt, where he visited last week as guest of Egyptian Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni to lecture and participate in symposiums at the annual Cairo Book Fair. Garaudy was treated to a hero’s welcome by religious and intellectual leaders. “Every Muslim should support Garaudy’s thought and stand with all cultural, religious and diplomatic efforts,” said Egypt’s highest religious authority, Grand Mufti Nasr Farid Wasel. “It is a duty to defend him and stand by his side.” Garaudy did not disappoint his hosts. “Under France’s freedom of speech, you can attack President Jacques Chirac or even the Pope. But when you criticize Israel, you are lost,” Garaudy told a seminar organized by Egypt’s Ministry of Culture and other professional unions. “This is because the media in the West is 95 percent controlled by the Zionists.” Some Egyptians accused the West of double standards in trying Garaudy while protecting British author Salman Rushdie, whose novel “The Satanic Verses” prompted Iran’s late leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, to issue a death sentence against him.