The Fifth World Holocaust Forum, set to convene on January 23, 2020, in Jerusalem to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, is being widely covered in the Palestinian media, primarily with criticism and condemnation. One of the articles on it that stood out was Fatah Revolutionary Council member Muwaffaq Matar's column in today's Al-Hayat Al-Jadida daily. In it, Matar referenced Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud 'Abbas's 1982 doctoral dissertation at Moscow's Oriental College, "The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism, 1933-1945," on which his 1984 book The Other Side; The Secret Connection Between The Nazis And The Zionist Movement's Leadership, was based, claiming that the Jewish Holocaust victims numbered less than one million.

Matar wrote that 'Abbas had "revealed the facts regarding the Zionist movement's collaboration with the Nazis in this crime [i.e. the Holocaust], with the aim of prompting mass Jewish emigration from Europe to Palestine." He continued: "[Abbas] did this in his book The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism [sic], published in Arabic in 1984, which was originally his 1982 dissertation submitted for his degree at Russia's University of Friendship Between Peoples. President Abu Mazen [Abbas] saw the Jews in the Holocaust who had been uprooted from their original homeland and were being driven to emigrate by the deprivation and the racist terrorism as victims of a great plot [on the part of the Zionist leadership]. The Palestinian people was the other side [that suffered] from this historic crime that has been continuing for 70 years."[1]  

Muwaffaq Matar (image: alwatanvoice.com)

In 2002, MEMRI published a report on 'Abbas' dissertation and on the book that he based on it; MEMRI has in its possession copies of both.

The following is the 2002 MEMRI report:[2]

Palestinian Leader: Number of Jewish Victims in the Holocaust Might be 'Even Less Than a Million...' Zionist Movement Collaborated with Nazis to 'Expand the Mass Extermination' of the Jews

A 1982 doctoral dissertation by Secretary-General of the PLO Executive Committee Mahmoud Abbas, a.k.a. Abu Mazen, who is considered second to Yasser Arafat, discussed "The Secret Relationship between Nazism and Zionism." Two years later, a study by Abu Mazen based on his dissertation for Moscow's Oriental College was published in Arabic by Dar Ibn Rushd publishers in Amman, Jordan.

In the introduction to his 1984 study, Abu Mazen referred to well-known Holocaust deniers, raised doubts that gas chambers were used for extermination of Jews, and claimed that the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust might be "even less than a million." Abu Mazen claimed that the Zionist movement had a stake in convincing world public opinion that the number of victims was high; thus, it would achieve "greater gains" after the war when the time came to "distribute the spoils."

Abu Mazen's intention was to undermine the legitimacy of the Zionist movement by proving that during a critical stage in the history of the Jewish people – the rise of Nazism and World War II – the Zionist leadership stopped at nothing to achieve its aim of establishing a Jewish state. He wrote, "The truth [about the Nazi crimes] has another aspect" that the West preferred to disregard; instead, the West concealed "a basic partner in crime" – that is, the Zionist movement. The study pointed to a convergence of the interests of the Nazi and the Zionist movements, and the fundamental similarity in the two movements' theories. The central claim Abu Mazen sought to prove is that the Zionist movement, with all its factions, conspired against the Jewish people and collaborated with the Nazis to annihilate it, because the movement considered "Palestine" the only appropriate destination for Jewish emigration.

Abu Mazen wrote, "It might be imagined that Zionism would do all it could, materially and otherwise, to save the Jews, or at least to keep them [alive] until the end of the war. It might have been expected that it would arouse world public opinion and direct its attention to the massacres carried out against the Jews, so that the governments would act to rescue them from their bitter fate." But, stated Abu Mazen, "what Zionism did was the exact opposite of what could have been expected": The Zionist movement sabotaged various aid plans[3] and withheld information regarding the bitter fate of Europe’s Jews "in order to free itself from the need to take necessary action." Abu Mazen added, "the Zionist movement led a broad campaign of incitement against the Jews living under Nazi rule, in order to arouse the government’s hatred of them, to fuel vengeance against them, and to expand the mass extermination."[4]

Introduction: The Truth Has Another Aspect

"The Western countries sketched the final picture of the outcome of World War II. They defined the crimes committed, and described the criminals and the ones they victimized – after setting themselves up as a faithful judge with the decisive word in matters of these crimes. They locked up details, facts, and crimes that they didn’t want to exist; they ignored names, important people, institutions, organizations, and countries that they chose to ignore. In the end, they charged the Nazi leaders with all the crimes that were committed during the war, and they relentlessly hunted down those still alive, even though the crimes were committed long ago. The Nuremberg [trials] cut down the tyrants and the murderers, and cast a [shadow] on the basic partner in the crimes committed during the war. After they collected [the price] from them – they narrowed the focus on the crimes, criminals, prosecutors, defendants, and witnesses, and set the entire matter in limited frameworks that could not be breached. This was how these countries dealt with half the truth, deliberately neglecting the other half."

The Number Of Jewish Victims

"During World War II, 40 million people of different nations of the world were killed. The German people sacrificed 10 million; the Soviet people 20 million; and the rest [of those killed] were from Yugoslavia, Poland, and the other peoples. But after the war it was announced that 6 million Jews were among the victims, and that the war of annihilation had been aimed first of all against the Jews, and only then against the rest of the peoples of Europe."

"The truth of the matter is that no one can verify this number, or completely deny it. In other words, the number of Jewish victims might be 6 million and might be much smaller – even less than 1 million. [Nevertheless], raising a discussion regarding the number of Jews [murdered] does not in any way diminish the severity of the crime committed against them, as murder – even of one man – is a crime that the civilized world cannot accept and humanity cannot accept."

"It seems that the Zionist movement's stake in inflating the number of murdered in the war was aimed at [ensuring] great gains. This led it to confirm the number [6 million], to establish it in world opinion, and by doing so to arouse more pangs of conscience and sympathy for Zionism in general. Many scholars have debated the question of the 6 million figure, and reached perplexing conclusions, according to which the Jewish victims total hundreds of thousands. The well-known Canadian author Roger Delarom[5] said on this matter: 'To date, no proof whatsoever exists that the number of Jewish victims in the Nazi concentration camps reached four million or six million. Zionism first spoke of 12 million exterminated in these camps, but then the number decreased greatly, to half, that is, only six million. Then the number decreased further, and became four million, as the Germans could not have killed or exterminated more Jews than there were in the world at that time. In effect, the true number is much smaller than these fictitious millions.' The [American] historian and author Raul Hilberg thinks that this number is no greater than 896,000."[6]

"The source of the submission of this large number, 6 million [murdered], is Chaim Weizmann's 1936 declaration before a British committee regarding the fate of 6 million Jews living in Europe if a world war should break out. [According to Weizmann], 'The little green branches are the ones that will survive, while the rest must bear their [bitter] fate.' From that point on, the Zionist movement insisted that all 6 million were murdered, and that none of them survived."

"Afterwards, the Zionist movement attempted to describe how they [the Jews] were murdered in concentration camps and gas chambers, as it disregarded two fundamental facts. First, many of the Jews remained alive; some were rescued by the Zionist movement [which encouraged] their emigration to Palestine, and some [survived because of] the peoples of the world that managed to protect them and take them away from the Nazis, as the Soviet Union did by sending two million Jews to its eastern republics. In addition, hundreds of thousands of live Jews were found in the concentration camps when the Allies liberated the territories [conquered by the Nazis]."

"Second, the extermination of the victims was not carried out only in the concentration camps and gas chambers. Some of the victims fell as a result of their participation in wars and battles, and also due to starvation and disease that struck all the peoples of Europe. In addition, the concentration camps were not only for Jews, but held people from all over Europe, among them fighters, intellectuals, scholars, prisoners of war, and opponents of fascism..."

"Regarding the gas chambers, which were supposedly designed for murdering living Jews: A scientific study published by Professor Robert Faurisson[7] of France denies that the gas chambers were for murdering people, and claims that they were only for incinerating bodies, out of concern for the spread of disease and infection in the region."[8]

The Zionist Movement Conspired Against The Jewish People

"It takes little effort to prove the truth [about the crimes of the Nazis] and to document them. World War II did take place, and in it fell millions of victims. It was Hitler… who established the concentration camps in all of Europe to hold all of his opponents and enemies, including peoples not worthy of living, and it was also he who invented the gas chambers. However, another aspect of the truth remains shrouded in mystery, like the other side of the moon..."

"How could [anyone with] reason believe that the institutions of the Zionist movement that arose to defend 'the [Jewish] people' then became a cause of this people's annihilation? History has taught us that Nero burned Rome, but he was insane, and his insanity removes from him his responsibility. History has also taught us that leaders have betrayed their people and their country and sold them to their enemies. But they are few, and they alone bear the responsibility for their actions. Therefore, a popular, public movement's conspiracy against its 'people' is something astonishing that demands an in-depth and meticulous examination before it is accused for no reason..."

On The Similarity Between Nazi And Zionist Theory

"When discussing declared Zionist ideas, which have been espoused with profound conviction and faith by the movement's followers, one finds that they believe in the purity of the Jewish race – as Hitler believed in the purity of the Aryan race – and the movement calls for finding a deeply-rooted and decisive solution to the 'Jewish problem' in Europe via immigration to Palestine. Hitler also called for this, and carried it out. The Zionist movement maintains that antisemitism is an eternal problem that throbs in the Gentiles' blood; that it is not possible to put an end to it or get away from it; and thus it is the basic motive for Zionist immigration. It follows that if antisemitism did not exist it would be necessary to invent it, and that if its flame dies away it must be fanned. David Ben-Gurion defined the Zionist movement as immigration [to Israel] and nothing else; whoever does not immigrate [to Israel] denies the Torah and the Talmud and therefore is not a Jew… These ideas provide a general dispensation to every racist in the world, most prominently Hitler and the Nazis, to treat the Jews as they wish, as long as this includes immigration to Palestine..."

The Entire Zionist Movement Is Responsible For Conspiring With The Nazis

"In order to avoid error and generalization regarding the various factions of the Zionists, and for the purpose of accuracy, we must point out that the Zionist movement was divided. One part held the leadership and another part formed the opposition... Can we accuse the second group, which was not party to the institutions and leadership [of conspiring against the Jewish people]? This question is relevant in only one incident – whether there were differences of opinion between the two sides regarding the origin of the Zionist theory and regarding the practical implementation of Zionist thought. But if the point of departure and the implementation went together, as indeed happened – then there is no room for question… An Arabic proverb states, 'When differences of opinion arise among thieves, the theft is revealed.' This is what happened with the Zionist movement; when the Labor Party ruled Israel, it refused the Revisionists [the future Likud party] their share, and so [the Revisionists] began to expose the facts and rend the curtain of falsehood. However, in the heat of argument over the roles of the Laborites [in conspiring with the Nazis], they forgot to speak of the role they played, which was no different from that of others. Then came a third side and revealed the positions of all..."