Top Egyptian politician calls Holocaust, 9/11 fabrications

Ahmed Ezz El-Arab, leader of the secular Wafd Party, tells the Washington
Times the Holocaust is a lie, adding Anne Frank's memoirs 'fake.'

By Haaretz Published 22:04 06.07.11
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/top-egyptian-politician-calls-holocaust-9-11-fabrications-1.371820

The vice chairman of Egypt’s top secular party told the Washington Times in
an interview last week that the September 11 terror attacks, the Holocaust
and Anne Frank’s diary are all historical fabrications.

“The Holocaust is a lie,” Ahmed Ezz El-Arab, Wafd Party leader told the
Washington Times in Budapest where he was attending the Conference on
Democracy and Human Rights.

He went on to explain that it was factually impossible to claim that the
Nazis killed 6 million Jews, saying “the Jews under German occupation were
2.4 million. So if they were all exterminated, where does the remaining 3.6
million come from?”

The Egyptian politician acknowledged that the Nazis may have killed
“hundreds of thousands” of Jews, but discounted the plausibility of gas
chambers and skinning Jews alive, calling them “fanciful stories”.

El-Arab’s Holocaust denial did not stop there, and the Egyptian politician
went on to attack the authenticity of Anne Frank’s diary, the memoirs of a
teenage girl who hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam, only to be discovered and
die in a concentration camp.

The Wafd leader recalled studying the novel that is one of the most widely
distributed publications to date as a doctoral student in Stockholm. “I
could swear to God it’s a fake,” he said. “The girl was there, but the
memoirs are a fake.”

El-Arab concurred with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s denial of the
Holocaust – but discredited his motives.

“He’s a hateful character, so whatever he says can be criticized,” he told
the Washington Times, adding “what he says about the Holocaust is true, but
he doesn’t say it because it’s true. He says it out of hatred to the Israeli
state.”

When asked about future peace with Israel, El-Arab attempted to assuage
fears that a new Egyptian government would cancel the 1979 treaty.

The Egyptian politician told the Washington Times that there is “no chance
at all” that would happen,” adding “Egypt will not go to war unless it’s
attacked,” he said.

El-Arab’s historical revision was not reserved for the Holocaust alone, and
he also shared his theories on the September 11 attacks and their
perpetrators with the Washington Times.

The Wafd leader denied that Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader who was
recently killed in an American raid on his compound in Pakistan, was behind
the attacks.

“He could not have the know-how or the ability to do it,” El-Arab said,
calling the dead al-Qaida leader “an American agent.”

The Egyptian politician added “if he had the ability, one plane only landing
on the Knesset would give more effect.”

El-Arab blamed the CIA, Israel’s Mossad and the “military-industrial
complex”.

Despite his Holocaust-denying views, it seems as though El-Arab’s overall
opinion on the Jewish people is favorable, telling the Washington Time that
he believes that there was once a Jewish temple in Jerusalem, entitling the
Jews to a historical claim on Israel’s capital.

“The Jews are there,” he said. “Good or bad, they are there.” However, he
made sure to follow up with the clarification: “You cannot as a human being
think of exterminating 6 million or 5 million or whatever. That’s crazy.”