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120-601: The Fatah–Hamas Doha agreement was signed on 7 February 2012 by President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas chief Khaled Mashal in the presence of Qatar 's emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani , intended to end the Fatah–Hamas conflict . President Mahmoud Abbas would head a unity caretaker cabinet. The Cabinet would be composed of independent technocrats. The task of the new government would be the preparation for upcoming elections and also overseeing reconstruction efforts in

240-525: A La Salle University medieval English literature professor, is considered the first major mainstream American holocaust denier. App defended the Germans and Nazi Germany during World War II. He published numerous articles, letters, and books on Holocaust denial, quickly building a loyal following. App's work inspired the Institute for Historical Review , a California center founded in 1978 whose sole task

360-598: A unity government was formed incorporating members of both Hamas and Fatah, with Ismail Haniyeh as prime minister and independent politicians taking many key portfolios. On 14 June 2007, Abbas dissolved the Hamas-led unity government of Haniyeh, declared a state of emergency, and appointed Salam Fayyad in his place. This followed action by Hamas armed forces to take control of Palestinian Authority positions controlled by Fatah militias. The appointment of Fayyad to replace Haniyeh has been challenged as illegal, because under

480-480: A "false news" law and sentenced to 15 months imprisonment by an Ontario court for "disseminating and publishing material denying the Holocaust". The Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg was a witness for the prosecution at the 1985 trial. Zündel's conviction was overturned in an appeal on a legal technicality, leading to a second trial in 1988, in which he was again convicted. The 1988 trial included, as witnesses for

600-588: A French professor of literature at the University of Lyon , wrote two letters to Le Monde claiming that the gas chambers used by the Nazis to exterminate the Jews did not exist. A colleague of Faurisson, Jean-Claude Pressac , who initially shared Faurisson's views, later became convinced of the Holocaust's evidence while investigating documents at Auschwitz in 1979. He published his conclusions along with much of

720-599: A Hitlerite-style regime may be impossible, but a replica might be produced in the future; the rehabilitation of Nazism, they concluded, required the discrediting of the Holocaust. Neo-fascism has likewise relied upon Holocaust denial as a means of rehabilitation. As a movement, modern Holocaust denial is associated with historical revisionism based on pseudoscientific evidence and fringe academic networks including intradiegetic pseudoscientific journals, conferences, and professional organizations (e.g. Journal of Historical Review , International Conference to Review

840-595: A building company in Doha and died in Qatar of a heart attack in 2002 at the age of 42. The kunya of Abu Mazen means "father of Mazen." Their second son is Yasser Abbas , a Canadian businessman who was named after former PA leader Yasser Arafat . The youngest son is Tareq, a business executive. Abbas has eight grandchildren, six of whom are part of the Seeds of Peace initiative bringing them in touch with young Israelis. In

960-620: A candidate for the kind of leadership role envisaged by both countries. As one of the few remaining founding members of Fatah, he had some degree of credibility within the Palestinian cause, and his candidacy was bolstered by the fact that other high-profile Palestinians were for various reasons not suitable (the most notable, Marwan Barghouti , was a prisoner in Israeli jail after having been convicted on charges of being responsible for multiple murders by an Israeli court). Abbas's reputation as

1080-488: A contingency plan that if defeat was imminent they would carry out the total destruction of German records. Historians have documented evidence that as Germany 's defeat became imminent and Nazi leaders realized they would most likely be captured and brought to trial, great effort was made to destroy all evidence of mass extermination. Heinrich Himmler instructed his camp commandants to destroy records, crematoria, and other signs of mass extermination. As one of many examples,

1200-413: A conversation took place. The specific quote he denied was, "I can't tell four million Palestinians only five thousand of them can go home," regarding the issue of Palestinian refugees. Abbas further said, "I'm not calling her a liar... I am saying we never had that conversation." In response, Rice denied that she fabricated it. Her chief of staff, Georgia Godfrey, wrote, "Dr. Rice stands by her account of

1320-760: A crackdown in order to uphold the Palestinian Authority's side of the Road map for peace . This led to a power struggle with Arafat over control of the Palestinian Security Services ; Arafat refused to release control to Abbas, thus preventing him from using them on the militants. Abbas resigned as prime minister on 6 September 2003, citing lack of support from Israel and the United States as well as "internal incitement" against his government. After Yasser Arafat's death, Abbas

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1440-722: A direct challenge to his authority. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine launched a raid in Gaza on 12 January 2005, that killed one and wounded three Israeli military personnel. On 13 January, Palestinians from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades , Hamas , and the Popular Resistance Committees launched a suicide attack on the Karni crossing , killing six Israelis. As a result, Israel shut down

1560-583: A document uncovered in the Mitrokhin Archive , where he is registered as agent "Krotov". Palestinian officials replied that at the time in question, the PLO collaborated with Moscow, and that Abbas was their liaison man in the Palestinian-Soviet friendship foundation. By early 2003, as Israel and the United States refused to negotiate with Yasser Arafat, it was thought that Abbas would be

1680-464: A paid ad from Bradley R Smith. It was quickly criticized, and the editor issued an apology, saying publishing the ad was a mistake. The German philosopher and historian Ernst Nolte , starting in the 1980s, advanced a set of theories, which though not denying the Holocaust appeared to flirt with an Italian Holocaust denier, Carlo Mattogno , as a serious historian. In a letter to the Israeli historian Otto Dov Kulka of December 8, 1986, Nolte criticized

1800-554: A peace partner but consider [him] a nonthreatening, violence-abhorring, strategic asset." On 23 June 2016, Abbas repeated to the European Parliament a false press report that rabbis in Israel were calling for Palestinian wells to be poisoned. Abbas retracted the statement the following day, acknowledging that the claim was not true and stating that he "didn't intend to do harm to Judaism or to offend Jewish people around

1920-625: A pragmatist garnered him favor with the West and some members of the Palestinian legislature. Under international pressure, on 19 March 2003, Arafat appointed Abbas Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority . According to Gilbert Achcar , the United States imposed Abbas on Arafat, the democratically elected leader, though the majority of Palestinians thought of Abbas as a Quisling . A struggle for power between Arafat and Abbas ensued. Abbas's term as prime minister

2040-474: A protégé of Barnes, David Hoggan , published Der erzwungene Krieg ( The Forced War ) in West Germany, which claimed that Germany had been the victim of an Anglo-Polish conspiracy in 1939. Though Der erzwungene Krieg was primarily concerned with the origins of World War II, it also down-played or justified the effects of Nazi antisemitic measures in the pre-1939 period. For example, Hoggan justified

2160-595: A resolution adopted by the Duke University History Department, November 8, 1991, and reprinted in Duke Chronicle , November 13, 1991, in response to an advertisement produced by Bradley R Smith's Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust : That historians are constantly engaged in historical revision is certainly correct; however, what historians do is very different from this advertisement. Historical revision of major events ...

2280-559: A voluminous dictionary of German language and discourse regarding National Socialism and the Holocaust. It includes chapters on Holocaust trivialization and contrived comparisons, such as the infamous "atomic Holocaust", "Babycaust", "Holocaust of abortion", "red Holocaust" or "biological Holocaust". Lawrence Douglas argues that denial was invented by the perpetrators and employed as a means of genocide. For example, trucks of Zyklon B were labeled with Red Cross symbols and victims were told that they would be " resettled ". Douglas also cites

2400-459: A way that could not really be debated." Holocaust deniers have placed "Full page advertisements in college and university newspapers, including those of Brandeis University , Boston College , Pennsylvania State University , and Queens College . Some of these ads arguing that the Holocaust never happened ran without comment; others generated op-ed pieces by professors and students". On September 8, 2009, student newspaper The Harvard Crimson ran

2520-705: Is a constitutionally protected freedom of expression as per s 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms . Keegstra appealed to the Alberta Court of Appeal . That court agreed with Keegstra, and he was acquitted. The Crown then appealed the case to the Supreme Court of Canada , which ruled by a 4–3 majority that promoting hatred could be justifiably restricted under s 1 of the Charter . The Supreme Court restored Keegstra's conviction. He

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2640-474: Is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews , known as the Holocaust , is a fabrication or exaggeration. Holocaust denial includes making one or more of the following false claims: The methodologies of Holocaust deniers are based on a predetermined conclusion that ignores overwhelming historical evidence to the contrary . Scholars use the term denial to describe

2760-483: Is deemed influential in regenerating post-war European far-right ideas at a time of identity crisis in the 1950–1960s. His arguments formed the basis of numerous works of Holocaust denial that followed: "testimonies are not reliable, essentially coming from the mouth of Jews and communists", "atrocities committed in camps were the work of deportees [essentially the kapos ]", "disorganization occurred in Nazi camps following

2880-562: Is not concerned with the actuality of these events; rather, it concerns their historical interpretation – their causes and consequences generally. Lipstadt writes that modern Holocaust denial draws its inspiration from various sources, including a school of thought which used an established method to question government policies. In 1992, Donald L. Niewyk gave some examples of how legitimate historical revisionism—the re-examination of accepted history and its updating with newly discovered, more accurate, or less-biased information—may be applied to

3000-505: Is the denial of the Holocaust. The publication of Arthur Butz 's The Hoax of the Twentieth Century : The case against the presumed extermination of European Jewry in 1976; and David Irving 's Hitler's War in 1977 brought other similarly inclined individuals into the fold. Butz was a tenured associate professor of electrical engineering at Northwestern University . In December 1978 and January 1979, Robert Faurisson ,

3120-556: The CDJC , and much of the huge trove of archives were then transferred to the CDJC after the trials and became the core of future Holocaust historiography. The Nuremberg trials were important historically, but the events were still very recent, television was in its infancy and not present, and there was little public impact. There were isolated moments of limited public awareness from Hollywood films such as The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) or

3240-756: The Centre for the Study of the Causes of the War , a German government-funded think tank whose sole purpose was to disseminate the official government position that Germany was the victim of Allied aggression in 1914 and that the Versailles Treaty was morally invalid. Headed by Major Alfred von Wegerer, a völkisch activist, the organization portrayed itself as a scholarly society, but historians later described it as "a clearinghouse for officially desirable views on

3360-575: The Congressional Research Service characterised the Palestinian public's dissatisfaction with institutional corruption as a factor that contributed to a win by Hamas in the January 2006 parliamentary election. It noted that Fatah leaders had been accused of siphoning funds from ministry budgets, passing out patronage jobs, accepting favors and gifts from suppliers and contractors. Holocaust denial Holocaust denial

3480-652: The National Security Council , a sticking point in the defunct unity government with Hamas. That same day, the United States decided to end its fifteen-month embargo on the Palestinian Authority and resume aid, attempting to strengthen Abbas's West Bank government. A day later, the Fatah Central Committee cut off all ties and dialogue with Hamas, pending the return of Gaza. On 26 July 2023, Abbas met with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh . Behind

3600-768: The Oslo I Accord , Abbas was the signatory for the PLO on 13 September 1993. He published a memoir, Through Secret Channels: The Road to Oslo (1995). In 1995, he and Israeli negotiator Yossi Beilin wrote the Beilin–Abu Mazen agreement , which was meant to be the framework for a future Israeli–Palestinian peace deal. It emerged in September 2016 that Abbas may have once worked for the KGB , as early as 1985 in Damascus , according to

3720-701: The PLO Negotiations Affairs Department . Abbas has been subject to both criticism and controversy, having been accused of corruption, as well as distorting Jewish history and engaging in Holocaust denial . Mahmoud Rida Abbas was born on 15 November 1935 in Safed , in the Galilee region of Mandatory Palestine (now Israel ). His family fled to Syria during the 1948 Palestine war . Before going to Egypt , Abbas graduated from

Fatah–Hamas Doha Agreement - Misplaced Pages Continue

3840-566: The Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement and Hamas because his pragmatic policies were opposed to their hard-line approach. Initially, he pledged not to use force against the militants in the interest of avoiding a civil war, and attempted negotiation. This was partially successful, resulting in a pledge from the two groups to honor a unilateral Palestinian cease-fire. However, continuing violence and Israeli "targeted killings" of known leaders forced Abbas to pledge

3960-521: The Posen speeches as an example of denial while genocide was ongoing, with Himmler referring to the Holocaust as "an unnamed and never to be named page of glory". According to Douglas, the denial of mass murder using gas chambers recalls the Nazi efforts to persuade the victims that they were actually harmless showers. While the Second World War was still underway, the Nazis had already formed

4080-599: The Sharm el-Sheikh Summit to end the Second Intifada , and they both reaffirmed their commitment to the Roadmap for peace process. Sharon also agreed to release 900 Palestinian prisoners of the 7,500 being held at the time, and to withdraw from West Bank towns. On 9 August 2005, Abbas announced that legislative elections , originally scheduled for 17 July 2005, would take place in January 2006. On 20 August, he set

4200-609: The University of Damascus , where he studied law. Abbas later entered graduate studies at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow , where he earned a Candidate of Sciences degree (the Soviet equivalent of a PhD). His doctoral dissertation was The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism . He is married to Amina Abbas , and together they had three sons. The eldest, Mazen Abbas, ran

4320-515: The "About the IHR" statement on their website, the IHR states, "The IHR does not 'deny' the Holocaust. Indeed, the IHR as such has no 'position' on any specific event...." British historian Richard J. Evans wrote that the Institute's acknowledgment "that a relatively small number of Jews were killed" was a means to draw attention away from its primary beliefs, i.e. that the number of victims was not in

4440-660: The 1930s, the Nazi government used this propaganda against the British, claiming allegations of concentration camps were malicious lies put forward by the British government, and historians Joachim Neander and Randal Marlin note that this story "encouraged later disbelief when early reports circulated about the Holocaust under Hitler". Victor Cavendish-Bentinck , chairman of the British Joint Intelligence Committee, noted that these reports were similar to "stories of employment of human corpses during

4560-820: The 1961 Judgment at Nuremberg which had some newsreel footage of actual scenes from liberated Nazi concentration camps including scenes of piles of naked corpses laid out in rows and bulldozed into large pits, which was considered exceptionally graphic for the time. Public awareness changed when the Eichmann trial riveted the world's attention fifteen years after Nuremberg. In 1961, the Israeli government captured Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and brought him to Israel to stand trial for war crimes. Chief prosecutor Gideon Hausner 's intentions were not only to demonstrate Eichmann's guilt personally but to present material about

4680-547: The American INS arrested him in Tennessee , US, on an immigration violations matter, and few days later, Zündel was sent back to Canada, where he tried to gain refugee status. Zündel remained in prison until March 1, 2005, when he was deported to Germany and prosecuted for disseminating hate propaganda. On February 15, 2007, Zündel was convicted on 14 counts of incitement under Germany's Volksverhetzung law, which bans

4800-528: The American far-right activist Willis Carto founded the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), an organization dedicated to publicly challenging the commonly accepted history of the Holocaust. The IHR's founding was inspired by Austin App , a La Salle professor of medieval English literature and considered the first major American holocaust denier. The IHR sought from the beginning to establish itself within

4920-472: The CODOH campus project. He said, "I don't want to spend time with adults anymore, I want to go to students. They are superficial. They are empty vessels to be filled." "What I wanted to do was I wanted to set forth three or four ideas that students might be interested in, that might cause them to think about things or to have questions about things. And I wanted to make it as simple as possible, and to set it up in

Fatah–Hamas Doha Agreement - Misplaced Pages Continue

5040-539: The Coalition for Accountability and Integrity, Al-Monitor characterized corruption in the Palestinian Authority as being "still rampant inside public Palestinian institutions despite the progress during the past year". In 2003, CBS News reported that Yasser Arafat , Abbas's mentor and predecessor, had diverted nearly $ 1 billion in public funds to "insure his political survival". In a 2006 report,

5160-750: The Election Law, so he could align the next presidential and parliamentary elections . Pointing to the Palestinian constitution, Hamas disputed the validity of this move, and considered Abbas's term to have ended, in which case Abdel Aziz Duwaik , Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council , would have become acting president. On 16 December 2009, the leadership of the Palestinian Central Council announced an indefinite extension of Abbas's term as president. Since then, Abbas has remained president of

5280-586: The Executive Committee of the PLO, and subsequently called for an emergency meeting of the PNC to hold an election. The announcement drew criticisms and speculation as to his motives. His proposed special session of the PNC was postponed indefinitely, and he remains acting chairman of the PLC as of October 2023. In 2021, local elections in Palestine were held amidst a rift between Abbas and Hamas . This

5400-631: The Fatah-controlled areas of the Palestinian territories. In April 2014, Hamas withdrew its objection, in order to form a Unity Government with Fatah. Abbas has supported the blockade of the Gaza Strip as a means of weakening Hamas. In 2010, Abbas declared that he opposed lifting the Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza Strip because this would bolster Hamas. Egypt also supported this position. In 2014 and subsequent years, Abbas supported Egypt's crackdown on smuggling tunnels and welcomed

5520-706: The Gaza Strip . Abbas declared three days of mourning following the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion and canceled a planned meeting with U.S. president Joe Biden. In February 2024, he called the Al-Rashid humanitarian aid incident an "ugly massacre" that was perpetrated by the "Israeli occupation army." On 23 January 2005, Israeli radio reported that Abbas had secured a thirty-day ceasefire from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. On 12 February, lone Palestinians attacked Israel settlements and Abbas quickly fired some of his security officers for not stopping

5640-544: The Gaza Strip. Abbas initially wanted Salam Fayyad as PM, but this was rejected by Hamas. Both parties considered PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Hamas' Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to become Abbas' deputies. While the European Union supported the Palestinian reconciliation and elections as important steps toward an eventual Israeli–Palestinian peace deal, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned

5760-649: The German government. This Allied intention to administer justice post-war was first announced in 1943 in the Declaration on German Atrocities in Occupied Europe and reiterated at the Yalta Conference and at Berlin in 1945. While the intention was not specifically to preserve the historical record of the Holocaust, some of the core documents required to prosecute the cases were provided to them by

5880-522: The Global Vision of the Holocaust , Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust ). The first person to openly write after the end of World War II that he doubted the reality of the Holocaust was French journalist Maurice Bardèche in his 1948 book Nuremberg ou la Terre promise ("Nuremberg or the Promised Land"). Viewed as "the father-figure of Holocaust denial", Bardèche introduced in his works many aspects of neo-fascist and Holocaust denial propaganda techniques and ideological structures; his work

6000-420: The Hamas prime minister has continued to operate in Gaza , and is recognised by a large number of Palestinians as the legitimate acting prime minister. Anis al-Qasem, a constitutional lawyer who drafted the Basic Law, is among those who publicly declared Abbas's appointment of Fayyad to be illegal. On 18 June 2007, the European Union promised to resume direct aid to the Palestinian Authority, and Abbas dissolved

6120-416: The Holocaust denial movement bases its approach on the predetermined idea that the Holocaust, as understood by mainstream historiography, did not occur. Sometimes referred to as " negationism ", from the French term négationnisme introduced by Henry Rousso , Holocaust deniers attempt to rewrite history by minimizing, denying, or simply ignoring essential facts. Koenraad Elst writes: Negationism means

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6240-476: The Holocaust in 1969 in a book entitled The Myth of the Six Million , which was published by the Noontide Press , a small Los Angeles publisher specializing in antisemitic literature. In 1964, Paul Rassinier published The Drama of the European Jews . Rassinier was himself a concentration camp survivor (he was held in Buchenwald for having helped French Jews escape the Nazis), and modern-day deniers continue to cite his works as scholarly research that questions

6360-425: The Mermelstein case filed motions for summary judgment in consideration of which Judge Thomas T. Johnson of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County took " judicial notice of the fact that Jews were gassed to death at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland during the summer of 1944," judicial notice meaning that the court treated the gas chambers as common knowledge, and therefore did not require evidence that

6480-414: The Palestinian Basic Law, the president may dismiss a sitting prime minister, but may not appoint a replacement without the approval of the Palestinian Legislative Council . According to the law, until a new prime minister is thus appointed, the outgoing prime minister heads a caretaker government. Fayyad's appointment was never placed before, or approved by the Legislative Council. For this reason, Haniyeh,

6600-460: The Second World War", the Allies made the Nazis the "scapegoat" for their own misdeeds. Barnes cited the French Holocaust denier Paul Rassinier , whom Barnes called a "distinguished French historian" who had exposed the "exaggerations of the atrocity stories". In a 1964 article, "Zionist Fraud", published in the American Mercury , Barnes wrote: "The courageous author [Rassinier] lays the chief blame for misrepresentation on those whom we must call

6720-476: The State of Palestine and the Palestinian National Authority ( PNA ). He has been the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization ( PLO ) since 2004, PNA president since January 2005, and State of Palestine president since May 2005. Abbas is also a member of the Fatah party and was elected chairman in 2009. Abbas was elected on 9 January 2005 to serve as President of the Palestinian National Authority until 15 January 2009, but extended his term until

6840-433: The Supreme Court of Canada declared the "false news" law unconstitutional. Zündel had a website, web-mastered by his wife Ingrid, which publicized his viewpoints. In January 2002, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal delivered a ruling in a complaint involving his website, in which it was found to be contravening the Canadian Human Rights Act . The court ordered Zündel to cease communicating hate messages. In February 2003,

6960-419: The West Bank and compensate the Palestinians with 5.8 percent (taken from pre-1967 Israel), which Abbas stated he rejected out of hand, insisting instead to demarcate the 4 June 1967 borders of Palestine. He said that Olmert did not give a map of the proposal and that he could not sign without seeing the proposal. Abbas also said that he was not an expert on maps and pointed to Olmert's corruption investigation (he

7080-420: The accepted facts of the Holocaust. Critics argued that Rassinier did not cite evidence for his claims and ignored information that contradicted his assertions; he nevertheless remains influential in Holocaust denial circles for being one of the first deniers to propose that a vast Zionist/Allied/Soviet conspiracy faked the Holocaust, a theme that would be picked up in later years by other authors. Austin App ,

7200-402: The agreement, saying it would be impossible to reach peace with a government that included Hamas. He said "It is either peace with Hamas or peace with Israel. You can't have them both". On 18 February 2012, Abbas drew anger from Hamas by declaring that "the next government will remain committed to the obligations and agreements signed by the Palestine Liberation Organisation". According to Hamas,

7320-414: The approval of Morocco , Tunisia , Libya , Egypt , Iraq , Yemen , and Sudan . Abbas has performed diplomatic duties, presenting a moderating contrast to the PLO's "revolutionary" policies. Abbas was the first PLO official to visit Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War in January 1993 to mend fences with the Gulf countries after the PLO's support of Iraq during the Persian Gulf War strained relations. In

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7440-433: The attacks during the ceasefire. On 9 April 2005, Abbas said that the killing of three Palestinians in southern Gaza by Israeli soldiers was a deliberate violation of the declared ceasefire deal. "This violation is made on purpose," Abbas said in a written statement sent to reporters in the West Bank capital of Ramallah . Abbas made the statement shortly after three Palestinian teenage boys were shot dead by Israeli troops in

7560-444: The bodies of the 25,000 mostly Latvian Jews whom Friedrich Jeckeln and the soldiers under his command had shot at Rumbula (near Riga ) in late 1941 were dug up and burned in 1943. Similar operations were undertaken at Belzec , Treblinka and other death camps. In occupied France , the situation with respect to preserving war records was not much better, partly as a result of French state secrecy rules dating back to well before

7680-554: The broad tradition of historical revisionism, by soliciting token supporters who were not from a neo-Nazi background such as James J. Martin and Samuel Edward Konkin III , and by promoting the writings of French socialist Paul Rassinier and American anti-war historian Harry Elmer Barnes, in an attempt to show that Holocaust denial had a base of support beyond neo-Nazis. The IHR republished most of Barnes's writings, which had been out of print since his death. While it included articles on other topics and sold books by mainstream historians,

7800-399: The conversation and what she wrote in her book." In January 2019, Abbas accepted the chairmanship of the United Nations' Group of 77 , a coalition of 134 mainly developing nations and China, on behalf of Palestine, which is a non-member observer state of the UN. He was handed the gavel by Egypt's foreign minister Sameh Shoukry , the outgoing chairman. Citing the 2012 corruption report by

7920-438: The current negotiations were, in effect, deadlocked: "So far, we have not reached an agreement on any issue. Any report indicating otherwise is simply not true." Abbas has since confirmed that he turned down an Israeli offer for a Palestinian state on nearly 95% of the West Bank. In September 2008, Olmert had presented him with a map that delineated the borders of the proposed PA state, for which Israel would annex 6.3 percent of

8040-412: The damaged terminal and broke off relations with Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, stating that Abbas must now show a gesture of peace by attempting to stop such attacks. Abbas was formally sworn in as the President of the Palestinian National Authority in a ceremony held on 15 January, in the West Bank town of Ramallah . On 8 February 2005, Abbas met with Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon at

8160-407: The defense, Fred A. Leuchter , David Irving and Robert Faurisson . The pseudo-scientific Leuchter report was presented as a defense document and was published in Canada in 1988 by Zundel's Samisdat Publishers, and in Britain in 1989 by Irving's Focal Point Publishing. In both of his trials, Zündel was defended by Douglas Christie and Barbara Kulaszka . His conviction was overturned in 1992 when

8280-406: The denial of historical crimes against humanity . It is not a reinterpretation of known facts, but the denial of known facts. The term negationism has gained currency as the name of a movement to deny a specific crime against humanity, the Nazi genocide on the Jews in 1941–45, also known as the Holocaust (Greek: complete burning) or the Shoah (Hebrew: disaster). Negationism is mostly identified with

8400-448: The documentation of Nazi crimes as propaganda and took steps against it. Eisenhower, upon finding the victims of Nazi concentration camps, ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and made to bury the dead. The Nuremberg trials took place in Germany after the war in 1945–1946. The stated aim was to dispense justice in retribution for atrocities of

8520-637: The effort at re-writing history in such a way that the fact of the Holocaust is omitted. In "Secondary Anti-Semitism: From Hard-Core to Soft-Core Denial of the Shoah", Clemens Heni  [ de ] writes: Contrary to the hard-core version, soft-core denial is often not easily identifiable. Often it is tolerated, or even encouraged and reproduced in the mainstream, not only in Germany. Scholars have only recently begun to unravel this disturbing phenomenon. Manfred Gerstenfeld discusses Holocaust trivialization in an article published in 2008. In Germany in 2007 two scholars, Thorsten Eitz and Georg Stötzel, published

8640-525: The elections for 25 January. On 15 January 2006, Abbas declared that, despite unrest in Gaza, he would not change the election date, unless Israel were to prevent Palestinians in East Jerusalem from voting. The elections took place on 25 January 2006, and resulted in a decisive Hamas victory. On 16 January 2006, in the context of Fatah's election loss and Hamas' presumed future one party government, Abbas said that he would not run for office again at

8760-590: The end of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and statehood for Palestine by 2017. The threat of joining the ICC and suing Israel for war crimes had been considered by Palestinian officials for years prior, but the move was seen as a diplomatic "last resort." The decision came as Abbas's administration dealt with allegations of corruption and mismanagement, potential political challenges from rival parties and other Fatah members, and low approval ratings. On 22 August 2015, Abbas announced his resignation as chairman of

8880-462: The end of his term. However, following international sanctions against a Hamas one party government, political and military conflicts between Hamas and Fatah, and the division of the country, which made new elections impossible, Abbas stayed president after the expiration of his four-year term on 15 January 2009. He extended his term for another year, using another interpretation of the Basic Law and

9000-404: The entire Holocaust, thus producing a comprehensive record. The Israeli government arranged for the trial to have prominent media coverage. Many major newspapers from all over the globe sent reporters and published front-page coverage of the story. Israelis had the opportunity to watch live television broadcasts of the proceedings, and videotape was flown daily to the United States for broadcast

9120-501: The first German defeats", "the high mortality is due to the 'weakening' of prisoners and epidemics", "only lice were gassed in Auschwitz ", etc. Harry Elmer Barnes , at one time a mainstream American historian, assumed a Holocaust-denial stance in his later years. Between World War I and World War II , Barnes was an anti-war writer and a leader of the historical revisionism movement. Starting in 1924, Barnes worked closely with

9240-618: The flooding of the tunnels by Egypt in coordination with the PA. In 2016, Abbas objected to the entrance of Qatari fuel to the Gaza electricity plant via Israel, because his PA would be unable to collect taxes on the fuel. On 31 December 2014, Abbas signed an application for Palestine to join the International Criminal Court , just one day after the UN Security Council voted against a resolution demanding

9360-551: The following day. In the immediate aftermath of the war, prior to the extensive documentation efforts by the Allied forces, a sense of disbelief caused many to deny the initial reports of the Holocaust. Compounding this disbelief was the memory of forged newspaper accounts of the German Corpse Factory , an anti-German atrocity propaganda campaign during WWI, which was widely known to be false by 1945. During

9480-662: The following years, leading to an agreement in April 2014 for a Unity Government (which lasted until October 2016) and to the recognition of his office by Hamas. Abbas was also chosen as the president of the State of Palestine by the PLO Central Council on 23 November 2008, a position he had held unofficially since 8 May 2005. Abbas served as the first prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from March to September 2003. Before being named prime minister, Abbas led

9600-437: The funds raised by Abbas were used, without the latter's knowledge, to implement the 1972 Munich massacre . He was among the first members of Fatah to call for talks with moderate Israelis, doing so in 1977. In a 2012 interview, he recalled, "[...] because we took up arms, we were in a position to put them down with credibility." In 1977, Abbas called for the repatriation of Arab Jews to their countries of origin, receiving

9720-717: The gas chambers at Auschwitz. Mermelstein, in turn, submitted a notarized account of his internment at Auschwitz and how he witnessed Nazi guards ushering his mother and two sisters and others towards (as he learned later) gas chamber number five. Despite this, the IHR refused to pay the reward. Represented by public interest attorney William John Cox , Mermelstein subsequently sued the IHR in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County for breach of contract , anticipatory repudiation , libel , injurious denial of established fact , intentional infliction of emotional distress , and declaratory relief . On October 9, 1981, both parties in

9840-520: The gas chambers existed. On August 5, 1985, Judge Robert A. Wenke entered a judgment based upon the Stipulation for Entry of Judgment agreed upon by the parties on July 22, 1985. The judgment required IHR and other defendants to pay $ 90,000 to Mermelstein and to issue a letter of apology to "Mr. Mel Mermelstein, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald, and all other survivors of Auschwitz" for "pain, anguish and suffering" caused to them. In

9960-585: The huge one billion Reichsmark fine imposed on the entire Jewish community in Germany after the 1938 Kristallnacht as a reasonable measure to prevent what he called "Jewish profiteering" at the expense of German insurance companies and alleged that no Jews were killed in the Kristallnacht (in fact, 91 German Jews were murdered in the Kristallnacht ). Subsequently, Hoggan explicitly denied

10080-603: The incitement of hatred against a portion of the population and given the maximum sentence of five years in prison. In 1987, Bradley R. Smith, a former media director of the Institute for Historical Review, founded the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH). In the United States, CODOH has repeatedly attempted to place advertisements questioning whether the Holocaust happened, especially in college campus newspapers. Bradley Smith took his message to college students—with little success. Smith referred to his tactics as

10200-680: The last war for the manufacture of fat which was a grotesque lie"; likewise, The Christian Century commented that "The parallel between this story and the 'corpse factory' atrocity tale of the First World War is too striking to be overlooked." Neander notes that "There can be no doubt that the reported commercial use of the corpses of the murdered Jews undermined the credibility of the news coming from Poland and delayed action that might have rescued many Jewish lives." The Neo-Nazi movement has been revitalized by Holocaust denial. Small but vocal numbers of Neo-Nazis realized that recreation of

10320-506: The majority of material published and distributed by IHR was devoted to questioning the facts surrounding the Holocaust. In 1980, the IHR promised a $ 50,000 reward to anyone who could prove that Jews were gassed at Auschwitz. Mel Mermelstein wrote a letter to the editors of the Los Angeles Times and others including The Jerusalem Post . The IHR wrote back, offering him $ 50,000 for proof that Jews were, in fact, gassed in

10440-524: The mass murder of Jews but deny the participation of their own nationals in the Holocaust. Holocaust denial is considered a serious societal problem in many places where it occurs, and it is illegal in Canada, Israel, and many European countries . Holocaust deniers prefer to refer to their work as historical revisionism, and object to being referred to as " deniers ". Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt has written that: "The deniers' selection of

10560-546: The meeting was Turkey 's effort to reconcile Fatah with Hamas. In May 2009, he welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to the West Bank, who supported Abbas's goal of a Palestinian State. Also in May 2009, Abbas made a visit to Canada, where he met with foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon and Prime Minister Stephen Harper . The same year Abbas visited Venezuela and met Hugo Chávez . In February 2010, Abbas visited Japan for

10680-630: The mid-1950s, Abbas became heavily involved in underground Palestinian politics, joining a number of exiled Palestinians in Qatar, where he was Director of Personnel in the emirate's Civil Service. While there in 1961, he was recruited to become a member of Fatah , founded by Yasser Arafat and five other Palestinians in Kuwait in the late 1950s. At the time, Arafat was establishing the groundwork of Fatah by enlisting wealthy Palestinians in Qatar, Kuwait, and other Gulf States . According to Abu Daoud , part of

10800-575: The millions and that Jews were not systematically murdered in gas chambers. In 1984, James Keegstra , a Canadian high-school teacher, was charged under the Canadian Criminal Code for "promoting hatred against an identifiable group by communicating anti-Semitic statements to his students". During class, he would describe Jews as a people of profound evil who had "created the Holocaust to gain sympathy." He also tested his students in exams on his theories and opinion of Jews. Keegstra

10920-414: The name revisionist to describe themselves is indicative of their basic strategy of deceit and distortion and of their attempt to portray themselves as legitimate historians engaged in the traditional practice of illuminating the past." Scholars consider this misleading since the methods of Holocaust denial differ from those of legitimate historical revision. Legitimate historical revisionism is explained in

11040-574: The new National Office for Veterans and Victims of War ; however, the bureau then held them in secret, refusing to release copies later, even to the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation (CDJC). In 1943, Isaac Schneersohn , anticipating the need for a center to document and preserve the memory of the persecution for historical reasons and also support claims post-war, gathered together 40 representatives from Jewish organizations in Grenoble which

11160-485: The next election in 2010, citing the PLO constitution, and on 16 December 2009 was voted into office indefinitely by the PLO Central Council . As a result, Fatah's main rival, Hamas , initially announced that it would not recognize the extension or view Abbas as the rightful president. Nonetheless, Abbas is internationally recognized in his position(s) and Hamas and Fatah conducted numerous negotiations in

11280-472: The occurrence of the Holocaust, has claimed that the Wannsee Conference of 1942 never happened and that the minutes of the conference were post-war forgeries done by "biased" Jewish historians designed to discredit Germany. The British historian Ian Kershaw has argued that Nolte was operating on the borderlines of Holocaust denial with his implied claim that the "negative myth" of Nazi Germany

11400-572: The outbreak of the war." Following World War II, Barnes became convinced that allegations made against Germany and Japan , including the Holocaust, were wartime propaganda that had been used to justify the United States' involvement in World War II. Barnes claimed that there were two false claims made about World War II, namely that Germany started the war in 1939, and the Holocaust, which Barnes claimed did not happen. In his 1962 pamphlet, Revisionism and Brainwashing , Barnes claimed that there

11520-409: The previous Doha agreement, particularly the registering of new voters in the Gaza Strip and the formation of an interim government. Mahmoud Abbas Mahmoud Abbas ( Arabic : مَحْمُود عَبَّاس , romanized :  Maḥmūd ʿAbbās ; born 15 November 1935), also known by the kunya Abu Mazen (Arabic: أَبُو مَازِن , ʾAbū Māzin ), is a Palestinian politician who is the president of

11640-557: The remarks violated the agreements because the next government would be a national unity government, which "is everyone's government, not one of a particular political group [and] has no political program". In May 2012, Hamas and Fatah signed a further agreement in Cairo for new unity government and implementation of Palestinian elections, three and a half months after the Doha agreement. The new Cairo agreement essentially took steps to carry out

11760-403: The southern Gaza town of Rafah. Israel claimed they thought the boys were attempting to smuggle weapons, while Palestinians claimed a group of boys were playing soccer and three of them went to retrieve the ball near the border fence. On 25 July 2005, he announced that he would move his office to Gaza until the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops in order to coordinate the Palestinian side of

11880-516: The study of the Holocaust as new facts emerge to change the historical understanding of it: With the main features of the Holocaust clearly visible to all but the willfully blind, historians have turned their attention to aspects of the story for which the evidence is incomplete or ambiguous. These are not minor matters by any means, but turn on such issues as Hitler's role in the event, Jewish responses to persecution, and reactions by onlookers both inside and outside Nazi-controlled Europe. In contrast,

12000-439: The swindlers of the crematoria, the Israeli politicians who derive billions of marks from nonexistent, mythical and imaginary cadavers, whose numbers have been reckoned in an unusually distorted and dishonest manner." Using Rassinier as his source, Barnes claimed that Germany was the victim of aggression in both 1914 and 1939 and that reports of the Holocaust were propaganda to justify a war of aggression against Germany. In 1961,

12120-470: The third time as Palestinian president. In this visit he met Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama . He also visited Hiroshima , the first such visit by a Palestinian leader, and spoke about the suffering of Hiroshima, which he compared to the suffering of the Palestinians. In July 2012, Abbas accused former U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice of fabricating a conversation between them and denied such

12240-691: The underlying evidence in his 1989 book, Auschwitz: Technique and operation of the gas chambers . Henry Bienen , the former president of Northwestern University, has described Arthur Butz's view of the Holocaust as an "embarrassment to Northwestern". In 2006, sixty of Butz's colleagues from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science faculty signed a censure describing Butz's Holocaust denial as "an affront to our humanity and our standards as scholars". The letter also called for Butz to "leave our Department and our University and stop trading on our reputation for academic excellence". In 1978

12360-435: The views and methodology of Holocaust deniers in order to distinguish them from legitimate historical revisionists , who challenge orthodox interpretations of history using established historical methodologies . Holocaust deniers generally do not accept denial as an appropriate description of their activities and use the euphemism revisionism instead. In some former Eastern Bloc countries, Holocaust deniers do not deny

12480-468: The vote as President of the Palestinian National Authority. In his speech, he addressed a crowd of supporters chanting "a million shahids ", stating: "I present this victory to the soul of Yasser Arafat and present it to our people, to our martyrs and to 11,000 prisoners ". He also called for Palestinian groups to end the use of arms against Israelis. Despite Abbas's call for a peaceful solution, attacks by militant groups continued after his election, in

12600-619: The war aimed at protecting the French government and the state from embarrassing revelations, and partly to avoid culpability. For example, at Liberation , the Prefecture of Police destroyed nearly all of the massive archive of Jewish arrest and deportation. One of the earliest efforts to save historical record of the Holocaust occurred during the war, in France, where Drancy internment camp records were carefully preserved and turned over to

12720-480: The withdrawal, mediating between the different factions. On 2 March 2008, Abbas stated he was suspending peace talks with Israel, while Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert vowed to press on with military operations against militants who have been launching home-made rockets into southern Israel. On 20 May 2008 Abbas said he would resign from his office if the current round of peace talks had not yielded an agreement in principle "within six months". He also said that

12840-414: The work of Holocaust deniers as superior to "mainstream scholars". Nolte wrote that "radical revisionists have presented research which, if one is familiar with the source material and the critique of the sources, is probably superior to that of the established historians of Germany". In a 1994 interview with Der Spiegel magazine, Nolte stated "I cannot rule out the importance of the investigation of

12960-610: The work of the French Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson on the ground that the Holocaust did occur, but went on to argue that Faurisson's work was motivated by what Nolte claimed were the admirable motives of sympathy towards the Palestinians and opposition to Israel. In his 1987 book Der europäische Bürgerkrieg ( The European Civil War ), Nolte claimed that the intentions of Holocaust deniers are "often honourable", and that some of their claims are "not obviously without foundation". Nolte himself, though he has never denied

13080-406: The world". Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Abbas's statement spread a " blood libel ". On 25 May 2006, Abbas gave Hamas a ten-day deadline to accept the 1967 ceasefire lines . On 16 December 2006, Abbas called for new legislative elections, to bring an end to the parliamentary stalemate between Fatah and Hamas in forming a national coalition government. On 17 March 2007,

13200-464: Was a "lack of any serious opposition or concerted challenge to the atrocity stories and other modes of defamation of German national character and conduct". Barnes argued that there was "a failure to point out the atrocities of the Allies were more brutal, painful, mortal and numerous than the most extreme allegations made against the Germans". He claimed that in order to justify the "horrors and evils of

13320-422: Was after he had indefinitely postponed the presidential election and parliamentary elections . During the 2023 Israel–Hamas war , Abbas rejected "practices of killing civilians or abusing them on both sides because they contravene morals, religion and international law." He called for the "release of civilians, prisoners and detainees" and expressed concern about the consequences of Israel's total blockade of

13440-414: Was characterised by numerous conflicts between him and Arafat over the distribution of power. The United States and Israel accused Arafat of undermining Abbas and his government. Abbas hinted he would resign if not given more control over the administration. In early September 2003, he confronted the Palestinian parliament over this issue. Abbas came into conflict with Palestinian militant groups , notably

13560-497: Was charged under s 281.2(2) of the Criminal Code (now s 319(2)), which provides that "Every one who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group" commits a criminal offense. He was convicted at trial before the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench . The court rejected the argument, advanced by Keegstra and his lawyer, Doug Christie , that promoting hatred

13680-438: Was created by Jewish historians, his allegations of the domination of Holocaust scholarship by "biased" Jewish historians, and his statements that one should withhold judgment on Holocaust deniers, whom Nolte takes considerable pains to stress are not exclusively Germans or fascists. In Kershaw's opinion, Nolte is attempting to imply that perhaps Holocaust deniers are on to something. In a 1990 interview, Nolte implied that there

13800-401: Was fired from his teaching position shortly afterward. The Toronto-based photo retoucher Ernst Zündel operated a small-press called Samisdat Publishers , which published and distributed Holocaust-denial material such as Did Six Million Really Die? by Richard Harwood (a pseudonym of Richard Verrall  – a British neo-Nazi). In 1985, he was tried in R. v. Zundel and convicted under

13920-648: Was later convicted). Abbas said in October 2011 that he made a counteroffer to let Israel annex 1.9% of the West Bank. In 2012, Abbas floated the idea of accepting a two-state solution which outlined Palestine as existing within the 1967 borders with a capital in East Jerusalem . In an interview with Israeli Channel 2 TV, Abbas said, "It is my right to see [the Israeli city of Safed ], but not to live there." The negative reaction to these words forced Abbas to backpedal. According to an International Crisis Group report, most Israeli officials "do not see [Abbas] as

14040-464: Was not able, to disarm Palestinian militants and use force against groups designated as terrorist organisations. With Israeli forces arresting and restricting the movement of other candidates, Hamas's boycott of the election, and his campaign being given 94% of the Palestinian electoral campaign coverage on TV, Abbas's election was virtually ensured, and on 9 January Abbas was elected with 63% of

14160-519: Was seen, at least by Fatah, as his natural successor. On 25 November 2004, Abbas was endorsed by Fatah's Revolutionary Council as its preferred candidate for the presidential election , scheduled for 9 January 2005. On 14 December, Abbas called for an end to violence in the Second Intifada and a return to peaceful resistance. Abbas told the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that "the use of arms has been damaging and should end." However, he refused, or

14280-540: Was something to the Leuchter report : "If the revisionists [Holocaust deniers] and Leuchter among them have made it clear to the public that even 'Auschwitz' must be an object of scientific inquiry and controversy then they should be given credit for this. Even if it finally turned out that the number of victims was even greater and the procedures were even more horrific than has been assumed until now." In his 1993 book Streitpunkte ( Points of Contention ), Nolte praised

14400-414: Was under Italian occupation at the time in order to form a center de documentation . Exposure meant the death penalty, and as a result little actually happened before liberation . Serious work began after the center moved to Paris in late 1944 and was renamed the CDJC. In 1945, General Dwight D. Eisenhower , Supreme Allied Commander, anticipated that someday an attempt would be made to recharacterize

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