Sadegh Zibakalam Responds to Mohsen Shokouhi's Critique of the Final Chapter of *The Birth of Israel*

Regarding the subject of the Holocaust, which is mentioned in the final chapter of the book “The Birth of Israel” and was critiqued by Mr. Mohsen Shokouhi in the newspaper “Etemad” (6 October), I have nothing further to add beyond what I have already said in that same chapter. At the same time, neither Mr. Shokouhi nor the other friends who have endorsed his criticism have said anything new either. The entire dispute over the Holocaust issue revolves around this question: “Why, in the West, which claims to uphold freedom of speech, is research and investigation into the Holocaust considered a crime?” Many of those who raise this question are not, in fact, seeking an answer to it, but are rather pursuing the implications and conclusions drawn from posing it. Among other things, they wish to demonstrate that:

- Westerners are lying when they claim to believe in freedom of thought;

- Westerners are lying that freedom of thought exists in the West;

- The Zionists and their affiliated pressure groups and Jewish supporters, through the sinister and hidden power and influence they enjoy in many Western countries, have created this situation;

- The propagation of the Holocaust myth has many benefits for the Jews: firstly, through the sense of pity and the injustice done to the Jews, it creates legitimacy for the establishment of the state of Israel in a usurped land called Palestine; secondly, it compels wealthy European countries, apart from supporting Israel, to pay reparations to this country to compensate for the massacre and annihilation of the Jews, to grant it all kinds of aid, and finally, to remain silent regarding the crimes and inhumane acts of the Jews against the Palestinians.

- Therefore, fabricating a lie and a myth called the Holocaust and insisting that this event did occur entails numerous practical benefits for the Jews. Hence, one can understand why the Jews, with the power and influence they have in the West, prevent research and investigation into the Holocaust.

These are the main points of the objections raised by Mr. Mohsen Shokouhi and others. Of course, they never admit that they harbor any grudge or hatred against the Jews, nor do they acknowledge that they are anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic, nor do they wish for the West to be destroyed, nor do they lack belief in democracy and freedom of speech. Rather, they say: Dr. Zibakalam, you and those like you who are liberals and believe in freedom of thought and freedom of speech, why then, when it comes to the Holocaust, do you undermine all your democratic and free-thinking beliefs?

Friends, as I stated at the beginning of this discussion and in response to Mr. Mohsen Shokouhi’s critique in Etemad, I have nothing further to add beyond what I said about the Holocaust in the final chapter of “The Birth of Israel”; therefore, I will repeat that section of the final chapter of “The Birth of Israel” which concerns the Holocaust. If the fourteen chapters of the book The Birth of Israel demonstrate no other point, they at least impress this conclusion upon the reader at the end: that the formation of Israel, for whatever reason it may have been, has little connection to the Holocaust issue. Unfortunately, Holocaust deniers, apart from their hatred of Jews, have little knowledge of the 4,000-year history of Judaism. Among other things, they are also unaware of the obvious fact that at least 70 years before the Holocaust, the process of Jewish migration from Europe to other places, including Palestine, had already begun.

I believe that Holocaust deniers are anti-Semitic. The dispute is not about freedom of speech, nor freedom of belief, nor freedom of historical research and inquiry, nor whether freedom of speech and belief exists in the West, nor any of the other reasons and pretexts that Holocaust deniers put forward. I would even go so far as to say that many Holocaust deniers are not, in truth, all that pained by the defense of Palestinian rights. If statistics were compiled over the 67 years since the state of Israel was established, comparing the number of Palestinians killed by revolutionary, anti-Western, anti-imperialist Arab regimes—including Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and Saddam Hussein in Iraq—plus those Palestinians who perished during the civil wars in Lebanon and Jordan, against the number killed by Israel, the figures placed side by side would be unbelievable. Let us not go far afield; are Mr. Mohsen Shokouhi and other Holocaust deniers aware of what befell the Palestinians who refused to support the Bashar al-Assad regime during the recent Syrian civil war? Do they know what happened to the more than one hundred thousand Palestinians residing in the Yarmouk camp who refused to support Bashar al-Assad? For Holocaust deniers in Iran to understand the Arabs' treatment of Palestinians, they hardly need to trouble themselves to see how Arab revolutionaries and Holocaust deniers in the Arab world treated Palestinians when they did not dance to their tune. It suffices to look at our own regime and see how we have treated Palestinians at times when they refused to go along with the official policy of Islamic Iran. The Palestine Liberation Organization, deemed traitorous and compromising in our view, is one thing, but how do we treat Hamas when it refuses to obey us?

Support for Palestinians, support for freedom of speech, advocacy for democracy and freedom of thought are all masks to conceal and justify anti-Semitism. Holocaust deniers are not pursuing free and scientific inquiry either; rather, they are seeking a pretext to hide their racist thoughts and beliefs. And it is precisely to combat racism that Holocaust denial has been prohibited. It is to prevent racist propaganda against Jewry that Holocaust denial is considered a crime. Just as, under the pretext of freedom, one cannot in the West insult Muslims, Jews, women, Black people, immigrants, asylum seekers, and other minorities and propagandize against them under the cover of the right to free speech.

May your days be pleasant.

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Audio of Sadegh Zibakalam's Response to Mohsen Shokouhi's Critique of the Final Chapter of the Book The Birth of Israel

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Sadegh Zibakalam's Response to Mohsen Shokouhi's Critique of the Final Chapter of the Book The Birth of Israel

Author: Sadegh Zibakalam

Twentieth of Mehr, One Thousand Three Hundred and Ninety-Five

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