with Ahmadinejad and Rouhani, talk shows as in Piers Morgan appearing with. Jimmy Carter, tend to ... The famous February tweet by. Khamenei questioning ...
Holocaust Denial and antisemitism: A Look at the Media Academics, Holocaust organizations such as USHMM & Yad Vashem, as well as the ADL and JCPA all list position papers, which describe Holocaust denial as a form of antisemitism: “Prejudice against and hatred of Jews and which includes…hate speech, violence targeting Jews or Jewish institutions and denial, minimization, and distortion of the facts of the Holocaust “(USHMM, 2009), and in the opinion of Historian Robert Wistrich includes “the minimization, banalization, and relativization of the facts and events, in order to cast doubt, on the uniqueness or authenticity of what happened during the Shoah”(Wistrich, 2001). Results of a policy survey jointly conducted by USHMM and Harvard Kennedy School of government have found that 1% of all US published news articles contain some form of expressed denial, while on the Internet-‐surveying Google Suggest, Google Trends, Google Insights and Facebook-‐ an alarming increase of specific Holocaust denial websites was noted. This survey went on to study population opinions and a Roper Starch opinion poll, somewhat controversially, found that 20% of Americans were not sure that the Holocaust happened. Other surveys have consistently noted smaller numbers in the US, but far larger numbers in Europe and especially in the Middle East. These aspects of antisemitism are closely tied to attitudes toward the state of Israel and anti-‐Zionism which have been famously summed up by Natan Sharansky as the 3D’s:Demonization, Double Standards and Deligitimization. We shall bypass the Internet, a notorious place for proliferation of Holocaust denial and antisemitic websites and attempt to focus our attention to US news organizations-‐ print and television-‐ but will look at social media. Here it becomes a subtle exercise, especially since the 2005 court case “Irving vs. Penguin Books and Lipstadt” whereby Irving sued for defamation based on Lipstatd’s book “Denying the Holocaust”, lost and had to pay judgment. How this plays out is seen through media examples: One sees television reality show host, Montel Williams, urging his audience to “tune in and find out about the real facts and myths of the Holocaust”.
NYT and CNN reporting which consistently couches discussion of the Palestinian conflict in anti-‐Israeli context whereby claims by Israel are excessive and founded in terminology implying that the Holocaust is distorted in self serving fashion (see: Noam Chomsky-‐ “Chronicles of Dissent” 1992). An honorary Oscar for Jean-‐Luc Godard in 2010 has been seen as giving a nod to his generally unfavorable and distorted treatment of the Shoah. Very recently, various television interviews of Iranian leaders-‐ CNN and Amanpour with Ahmadinejad and Rouhani, talk shows as in Piers Morgan appearing with Jimmy Carter, tend to give a pass to various forms of Holocaust denial and, cumulatively, demonstrate alarming trends.. The famous February tweet by Khamenei questioning the “certainty of the Holocaust” was dully reported but not questioned. These examples of arguably targeted under reporting, serve to bolster denial. Our work attempts to collate and present the current state of Holocaust denial and antisemitism in the English media of press, television and Internet social websites. Additionally a brief survey of monitoring methods in place by organization such as the ADL and JCPA will be discussed. The results should provide a better working knowledge of these issues and also serve as a guide for future action. Dr.Gabriel Mayer University of Haifa International School For Holocaust Studies Haifa, Israel
