Participants at the Holocaust denial conference in Egypt
(Al-‘Alam TV, December 27)

1. On December 27, 2006, two weeks after Tehran hosted a Holocaust denial conference, ¹ a follow-up conference was held in Cairo , called “The lie of the [Jewish] Holocaust and the Arab Holocaust in Palestine .” It was organized by a number of marginal opposition parties headed by the Egyptian Arab Socialist Party, a pan-Arab Socialist party which splintered off from the ruling National Democratic Party in 1983. ² The conference was attended by public figures, “experts” and media representatives.

2. Wahid Fakhri al-Aqsari , the chairman of the Egyptian Arab Socialist Party, gave a particularly vicious speech denying the Holocaust, whose main points were:

A. There were no gas chambers and six million Jews were not murdered : The Jews, he said, falsely claim that the Nazis murdered six million in the gas chambers. However, the “greatest historians” have testified that there were no gas chambers in Germany and that there were only 3,221,103 Jews to begin with in the European countries occupied by the Nazis, and therefore six million could not have been killed. The Jews have managed to turn the Holocaust into a symbol for the West, they prevent its being investigated and persecute the researchers who examine it.

B. The Holocaust is used as a means to justify the persecution of the Palestinians : He claimed that the Jews persecuted the Arabs as they persecuted Jesus and handed him over to the Romans for crucifixion. The Jews, he said, use the Holocaust to justify both the slaughter they carry out in Egypt , Lebanon , Syria and Jordan , and their slaughter of the Palestinians, which is a holocaust in every sense of the word.

C. The Holocaust is used to avoid enforcing international law and as a tool to rake in profit : The Jews exploit the Holocaust to avoid enforcing international law and to deflect the international community's censure of Israel . The Jews rake in reparations payments from Germany , exploit the world economically and live on the money they extort in the name of the lie of the Holocaust.

3. Wahid al-Aqsari interwove Holocaust denial with vicious anti-Semitic propaganda :

A. The Jews feel they are superior to the rest of the world : The Jews are worse than the Nazis because they compare the gentiles to animals, as can be seen from the Talmud, while the Nazis only [sic] categorized people as superior and inferior, but did not compare them to animals. Al-Aqsari quoted portions of the Talmud which, he claimed, permitted the Jews to kill gentiles and to take control of the property of the rest of the world.

B. Al-Aqsari waved a copy The Protocols of the Elders of Zion , which, he claimed, was the explanation for everything that was happening today. He quoted a section of The Protocols according to which the Jews operate immorally and promote their schemes through the use of lies, espionage, bribery, fraud, etc. He also took “examples” from history, including the relationship between the Jews and Muhammad, which, he claimed, “indicated” that throughout history the Jews have been conspirators, sinners, murderers and traitors.

Left: Wahid al-Aqsari holding up a copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Al-‘Alam TV, December 27). It is 2002 edition issued by the large, respectable publishing house which puts out the establishment weekly Akhbar al-Youm. The front cover shows the “Jewish world government” plotting its schemes while it members peruse the sacred Jewish texts. In the foreground are a blue Star of David and a seven-branched candelabrum, the symbols of Israel and the Jews. This edition of The Protocols has been distributed to Arab and Western countries. Right: The front cover. ³

The Egyptian aspect

4. Egypt avoided joining the Iranian Holocaust denial campaign . That was because Holocaust denial is not part of Egyptian policy and because the Egyptian regime is aware that the campaign is a tool used by Iran to further its political objectives. For that reason the Iranian Holocaust denial conference was widely condemned by the Egyptian media, which claimed that the conference played into Israel 's hands.

5. Nevertheless, the Egyptian regime allowed the Cairo Holocaust denial conference – the first of its kind in Egypt – to be held, and only a short time after the Tehran conference, even though it could have been prevented. In our assessment, there were two reasons for that:

A. The Egyptian regime did not consider the conference particularly important because of the marginality of the parties organizing it in Egyptian politics (the conference was in fact not covered by the Egyptian media).

B. It is the regime's policy to allow anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial to exist and even thrive in Egyptian society and politics, in that they serve as safety valves for the pressures generated by the opposition parties. ⁴

The Iranian aspect

6.The Iranians gave the Egyptian Holocaust denial conference, a marginal Egyptian event, wide coverage in the Arab-Muslim world. Al-‘Alam TV, which is the Iran's popular Arabic-language satellite channel, broadcast the conference's opening session live for 25 minutes! Al-‘Alam's Arabic Website also covered the Cairo conference. Both were part of Iran 's Holocaust denial campaign, whose goal is to deny the legitimacy of the existence of the State of Israel and to increase Iranian influence in the Arab-Muslim world.

¹ For further information see our December 25, 2006 Bulletin entitled “Holocaust denial as a tool of Iranian policy,” at http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/holocaust_denial_e.htm and http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/holocaust_denial_e.pdf .

² Among the fringe parties in attendance were the Liberal Socialist Party, a small party founded in 1976 which adopted a radical Islamic platform; the Afro-Asian Writers Conference and a group calling itself Egypt's Parallel Government. According to Arab Socialist Party leader Wahid al-Aqsari, the North Korean ambassador to Egypt sent a fact apologizing for not being able to attend the conference, but expressed his country's full solidarity with the Palestinian people and stated that he supported the conference and its results.

³ For further information see our January 1, 2004 Bulletin entitled “A new Arabic edition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was issued in Egypt in July 2002, by the same company that publishes the weekly establishment newspaper, Akhbar al-Youm,,” at http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/html/final/eng/sib/egypt/peoz_1_04.htm and http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia//ENGLISH/HATE-ANTI%20SEMITISM/PDF/SIB_1G04.PDF .

⁴ For further information see our April 2004 Bulletin entitled “Anti-Semitism in the Contemporary Middle East,” at http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/html/final/eng/sib/4_04/as_hp.htm and http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia//ENGLISH/HATE-ANTI%20SEMITISM/PDF/APR11_04.PDF .