An Arab Schindler?

It’s convenient for the Arab world to dismiss the Holocaust as a Zionist conspiracy. It’s easy, too, when accurate information about the Holocaust is so difficult to obtain in Arab societies.

Robert Satloff, author of Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust’s Long Reach into Arab Lands, has this to say about Arab Holocaust denial:

Of all the forms of anti-Semitism in Arab societies, Holocaust denial is one of the most pernicious and widespread. Generally it takes one of three forms: outright denial, Holocaust glorification, and Holocaust minimization or trivialization.

One does no favor to Arabs by exempting them from this history, whatever its connection to their political dispute with Israel. And because jihadists’ conspiracy theories target a coalition of “Crusaders and Jews,” exempting Arabs from Holocaust history certainly does America no favor either.

Satloff’s solution was to document incidences of Arabs who saved Jews during the Holocaust - the Arab Schindlers, if you like.

An example of this is Si Kaddour Benghabrit, the rector of the Great Mosque of Paris. According to Satloff, he saved up to one hundred Jews by having the mosque’s administrative personnel give them certificates of Muslim identity, with which they could evade arrest and deportation.

Satloff’s book - and the publicity that went with it - was a ‘hearts and minds’ attempt to win over Arab anti-semites.

But there are other ways, too.

More tomorrow…