Chancellor Schroeder inaugurates Book Fair in Frankfurt Together with
notorious Holocaust-Denier
by Thomas von der Osten-Sacken
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Would the German Chancellor Schroeder show himself in public with a Holocaust-Denier like David Irving? Would he seek a dialogue with him?
Last Tuesday has proven that he has at least not that great fear of contact with these kind of people.
After Chancellor Schoeder held a speech at the opening event of this year Book Fair in Frankfurt, the notorious Mohammad Salmawy delivered a greeting message of Nobelprice Winner Nagib Machfus, who was not able to visit the Book Fair. This year’s guest of honour at the book fair is the Arab League. In advance a variety of Right’s organization expressed their outrage about the fact, that the Fair was planned together with the Arab League, representing Governments in the Arab World, who are all accused of a wide range abuse of Human Rights, promotion of anti-Semitic publications and even Terrorist activities.
Since years it is well known, that Mohammed Salmawy, editor of the French magazine Al Ahram Hebdo, publicly denies the Holocaust and praises Suicide Bombers in Israel. Al Ahram Hebdo is property of the Egyptian government.
He wrote in that magazine: “There are no findings to indicate the existence of mass graves, because the size of the ovens makes it impossible for many Jews to have been killed there. According to the lists presented by the Soviets to the Germans, no more than 70,000 Jews were registered as having been at Auschwitz."
These statements are not something to wonder about, because Mr. Salmawy becomes committed to the French Holocaust-denier Roger Garaudy, who was the former Chief Ideologue of the French Communist Party before he converted to Islam. In an article “Cherchez les Juifs” (Searching for the Jews) Salmawy published in Al Ahram, he defended British Holocaust-Denier David Irving.
The deportation of the German Jews to the Eastern Europe was welcomed by Salmawy. He stated that “the Germans had no choice but to load the Jews onto trains and deport them to the East, because they were underdeveloped and a burden to the German economy…”
According to The Ottawa Citizen he explained: "All the atrocities the Nazis have done to innocent Jews at the time are now being committed against the Palestinians by the very victims of evil, and when you tell that you are anti-Semitic."
But those who would speak out loud about these facts, would be accused to be an anti-Semitis by a “Zionist Lobby”. In four articles he praised Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice as a timeless description of Jewish behaviour in the past and at the present.
In an interview with the BBC Salmawy also said, “that the Israeli Mossad was behind the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US, despite the evidence claiming otherwise.”
His latest book Wafa Idris and other Palestinian Stories is dedicated to the first female suicide bomber, who attaced the City of Jerusalem in January 2002. The main character of his novel says according to the American based Anti Defamation League: “the Israelis fear the women more, as day after day we give birth to male children; this increases the number of Palestinians in a manner that threatens to undermine the very basis of the concept of Jewish state. If we shall know how to raise these children, they will be youngsters whose ambition it is to become shuhada [martyrs] for the sake of the homeland
The German media until now saw no need to scandalize the fact that such a prominent Holocaust-Denier inaugurated the Book Fair in Frankfurt. It was not even mentioned in one of the major magazines. It seems, people like Mr. Salmawy are exactly the partners, who are welcomed in Germany to lead a dialogue with the Arabic and Islamic world.
Instead of supporting all the brave people in the Middle East, who are fighting for a better and democratic future of their countries and facing persecution and torture, the German Government obviously prefers to support not only all the dictatorships, that are represented by the Arab League, but even has not problems to give Holocaust-Deniers and anti-Semites a public stage.
Article first published on October 8th in : "die
jüdische"
(Translation: Phillip Thieé)