Holocaust denial

Main article: Holocaust denial

Holocaust denial, (referred to by its supporters as Holocaust revisionism), is the belief that the Holocaust did not occur, or, more specifically: that far fewer than around six million Jews were killed by the Nazis (numbers below one million, most often around 30,000 are typically cited); that there never was a centrally-planned Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews; and/or that there were not mass killings at the extermination camps. Those who hold this position often further claim that Jews and/or Zionists know that the Holocaust never occurred, yet that they are engaged in a massive conspiracy to maintain the illusion of a Holocaust to further their political agenda. As the Holocaust is generally considered by historians to be one of the most documented events in recent history, these views are not accepted as credible by scholars, with organizations such as the American Historical Association, the largest society of historians in the United States, stating that Holocaust denial is “at best, a form of academic fraud.”[37]

Holocaust deniers almost always prefer to be called Holocaust revisionists. Most scholars contend that the latter term is misleading. Historical revisionism, in the original sense of the word, is a well-accepted and mainstream part of the study of history; it is the reexamination of accepted history, with an eye towards updating it with newly discovered, more accurate, and/or less biased information, or viewing known information from a new perspective. In contrast, negationists typically willfully misuse or ignore historical records in order to attempt to prove their conclusions, as Gordon McFee writes:

‘Revisionists’ depart from the conclusion that the Holocaust did not occur and work backwards through the facts to adapt them to that preordained conclusion. Put another way, they reverse the proper methodology [...], thus turning the proper historical method of investigation and analysis on its head. [38]

Public Opinion Quarterly summarized that: “No reputable historian questions the reality of the Holocaust, and those promoting Holocaust denial are overwhelmingly anti-Semites and/or neo-Nazis.” Holocaust denial has also become popular among Muslim opponents of Israel. The doctoral dissertation of Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority since 2005, raised doubts that gas chambers were used for the extermination of Jews and suggested that the number of Jews killed in th

e Holocaust was “less than a million.”[39][40] Abbas has, however, not espoused this position since his appointment as Palestinian Prime Minister in 2003, and has denied being a Holocaust revisionist. In late 2005 Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denounced the Holocaust of European Jewry as “the myth of the Jews' massacre.” [41][42] Public espousal of Holocaust denial is a crime in ten European countries (including France, Poland, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Romania, and Germany), while the Nizkor Project attempts to counter it on the Internet.

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