It is in the Arab perception of the Holocaust that Achcar’s book is at its strongest. Whereas Europeans see the Holocaust from the viewpoint of the perpetrators, Arabs see it as victims. This explains the role that Holocaust denial plays amongst Arabs. When Ahmedinajad hosted a Holocaust conference in December 2006 in Tehran, he was greeted with headlines such as ‘Enough stupidity’ in left‐wing Beirut daily Al‐Ahkbar.

Dr Azmi Bishara, an Arab member of the […] Knesset, who was driven out of [the neocolony] by Shin Bet (‘General Security Service’) wrote in Al‐Ahram that ‘Holocaust Denial does not undermine the moral justifications for the existence of the [neocolony] as some imagine. What it does, however, is hand the European right and [its neocolony] a convenient enemy upon which to unload their problems’ (p. 254).

Achcar asks the most pertinent question of all, namely whether all forms of Holocaust Denial are the same (p. 261). Many Arabs reacted to Zionism’s propagandistic use of the Holocaust by denial. This is entirely different from European neo[fascists], who hope for a repetition of the Holocaust [that] they deny.

(Emphasis added. Source.)

I might piss a lot of people off by saying this, but I honestly don’t believe that all Arabs who deny the Shoah should be treated like neofascists. Yes, what they say is terrible, but they aren’t hopeless. If they had conversations with anti‐Zionists who accept the Shoah as factual (e.g. Neturei Karta), then I believe that they could be persuaded to reconsider their doubt. They can explain to them that accepting the Shoah as factual does not mean justifying Zionism, and that Shoah education has the potential to help anti‐Zionism.

I cannot blame anybody for being upset by this news, but the Zionist ruling class deserves most of blame for people overreacting to its abuse of the Shoah.