Not satisfied with his considerable achievements in genocide, chemical warfare, civil war, suppression of democracy, and toadying up to more successful dictators, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has become a scholar of world history.
The Syrian Arab New Agency posted his December 18
speech on YouTube. I quote from a transcript by MEMRITV.
“Most of us do not know that the rise of Nazism between
the two world wars happened with American support…loans, and investments.”
[Undoubtedly, this was why Hitler declared war on the US
on December 11, 1941. The key to success is to war on your financiers.]
“There is no evidence that six million Jews were
killed [in the Holocaust]…True, there were concentration camps, but what shows
you that this is a politicized issue, and is not a humanitarian issue, and is
not real, how come we talk about these six millions, and not the 26 million
Soviets who were killed in that war? Are those six millions more precious?”
[Evidently, Assad’s evidence that six million Jews
were not killed is that 26 million Soviets were. The Holocaust Encyclopedia
documents the estimate that the Nazis killed six million Jews. This includes
2.7 million at the killing centers of Auschwitz-Birkenau (1 million), Treblinka
II (925,000), Chetmno, Belzel, and Sobibor. It also includes 2 million in mass
shootings at 1,500 points in Eastern Europe; 800,000 to 1 million in ghettos,
labor camps, and concentration camps; and
250,00 in antisemitic riots and other acts of violence.
[The Russian Academy of Sciences in 1993 put the
number of Soviet deaths in World War II at 27 million, including deaths due to
famine. Contrary to Assad’s claim that no one talks about this statistic, there
is a ferocious controversy in Russia among historians about the accuracy of the
estimate, by the Russian Ministry of Defense, of 8.7 million military deaths.
[But the key, and obvious, point is that the estimate
of Soviet deaths has nothing to do with the veracity of the estimate of six
million Jewish deaths at the hands of the Nazis. The reader can judge for
herself whether this estimate is scrupulous: See The Holocaust Encyclopedia,
cited below.]
“There was no method of torture or killing specific to
the Jews. The Nazis used the same method everywhere. However, this issue was
politicized, in order to falsify the truth, and later to prepare for the
transfer of the Jews from Europe to other areas, or [rather] to Palestine.”
[The Wiener Holocaust Library offers online more than 1,000 eyewitness accounts of Nazi persecution of Jews, including at Auschwitz. For eyewitness accounts exclusively at Auschwitz, see the Web page of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, cited below.
[According to The Holocaust Encyclopedia, Jews comprised by far
the largest group murdered by Nazis. Other groups included 3.3 million Soviet
prisoners of war and 1.8 million non-Jewish Poles. The Nazis also killed up to perhaps
500,000 Romani, or Gypsies; but this estimate is particularly imprecise.]
“The Jews who came to Palestine are Khazar Jews, from
east of the Caspian Sea. They were pagans who converted to Judaism in the
eighth century. They emigrated to Europe, and from there, came to this region.
They have nothing to do whatever with the [ancient] people of Israel.”
[The Times of Israel writes, “The claim that modern
Jews are descended from Khazars…is an antisemitic conspiracy theory long used by
people trying to discount Jewish claims to the land of Israel.”]
What was the purpose of Assad’s error-clogged,
illogical speech? Note that it appears at a time when Hamas and other anti-Israeli
groups are conducting a successful public relations campaign against Israel
over the Israel-Hamas War. In this campaign, denial of the legitimacy of Jewish
land claims would be particularly useful. The speech may also curry favor with
Assad’s allies who invest in his country: Iran, which denies the Holocaust, and
Russia.
Assad may not be a historian. But he is non pareil as a sycophant. – Leon
Taylor, Baltimore tayloralmaty@gmail.com
References
Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. Witnesses accounts / Liberation of KL Auschwitz / Auschwitz-Birkenau
The Holocaust Encyclopedia. Documenting
Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution | Holocaust
Encyclopedia (ushmm.org)
Middle East Media Research Institute. Syrian
President Bashar Al-Assad Claims U.S. Supported Nazis | MEMRI
Shira Silkoff. Syria's
Assad claims Holocaust was a lie fabricated to justify creation of Israel | The
Times of Israel . December 20, 2023.
Testifying to the Truth: Eyewitnesses to the Holocaust - The Wiener Holocaust Library
Wikipedia. World War II casualties of the Soviet Union. World
War II casualties of the Soviet Union - Wikipedia
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