Israel Matzav

Leader of Egypt's largest secular party denies the Holocaust

Those of you who thought that overthrowing Hosni Mubarak was a great idea now have another reason to rethink that notion. It's not just Egypt's Islamic parties that hate Jews and Israel. The secular parties (or at least the largest secular party) are apparently not much better.

In a wide-ranging Budapest interview with the Washington Times' Ben Birnbaum, Ahmed Ezz al-Arab, the leader of Wafd, Egypt's largest 'secular' party, denied the Holocaust, attacked the authenticity of Anne Frank's diary, referred to the September 11 attacks as 'made in the USA,' and accused Jewish American soldiers with 'dual Israeli nationality of stealing artifacts from Iraq.

This is from the first link; the rest of the links are to audio of the interview.

“The Holocaust is a lie” Mr. Ezz El-Arab said. “The Jews under German occupation were 2.4 million. So if they were all exterminated, where does the remaining 3.6 million come from?”

Mr. Ezz El-Arab said he accepted that the Nazis killed “hundreds of thousands” of Jews. “But gas chambers and skinning them alive and all this? Fanciful stories,” he added. (AUDIO: on the Holocaust)

Mr. Ezz El-Arab also attacked the authenticity of “The Diary of Anne Frank,” which he said he studied as a doctoral student in Stockholm. “I could swear to God it’s a fake,” the Wafd leader said. “The girl was there, but the memoirs are a fake.”

Established in 1919 and disbanded in 1952, the Wafd Party was refounded in 1983 under reforms instituted by then-President Hosni Mubarak to allow token opposition to his dominant National Democratic Party.

After Mr. Mubarak’s ouster in February, Wafd emerged as arguably the second-most powerful political party to the Muslim Brotherhood, a formerly banned Islamist group.

Last month, Wafd announced it would run jointly with the Brotherhood and 16 other blocs in September’s parliamentary elections to present a united front as Egypt forges a new government.

“For four years, in alliance, we can build a constitution based on certain principles that guarantee human rights, citizenship, no religious trend whatsoever,” Mr. Ezz El-Arab said. “Once this is established, everybody can go to the ballot box and try his luck.”

...

Amr Bargisi, a former Wafd youth leader, said that while Mr. Ezz El-Arab himself does not have a major constituency in Egypt or within the party itself, his views on the Holocaust do.

“The vast majority of Egyptians think the Holocaust never happened,” Mr. Bargisi told The Times. “The fact that his presence in the party hierarchy hasn’t caused any objections tells you something about the farcical nature of Egyptian politics.”

In the interview, Mr. Ezz El-Arab also said that Osama bin Laden was not behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“He could not have the know-how or the ability to do it,” he said, even though he called the dead al Qaeda leader “an American agent.”

“If he had the ability, one plane only landing on the Knesset would give more effect,” Mr. Ezz El-Arab said.

Asked who was responsible for the attacks, Mr. Ezz El-Arab identified the CIA, Israel’s Mossad intelligence service, and the “military-industrial complex."

In much of the rest of the interview he tries to sound reasonable. Aren't you glad Barack Hussein Obama abandoned 30-year ally Hosni Mubarak? Read the whole thing. What could go wrong?

Labels: 9/11, Egyptian democracy, Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Holocaust denial, Wafd party

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:34 AM