American Jewish Committee Decries Egyptian Award For Journalist Who Glorifies The Killing Of Jews

American Jewish Committee
Sunday, 3 June 2001

The American Jewish Committee is decrying the awarding of a prestigious honor to an Egyptian journalist who recently published two columns glorifying the Nazi extermination of Jews in the Holocaust. The columns, "Thanks to Hitler," appeared in Al Akhbar, an Egyptian government-owned newspaper, on April 18 and 25.

"Denying, trivializing or even lauding the Nazi extermination of 6 million Jews, including 1.5 million children, is very much alive today in the Middle East," said the American Jewish Committee. "Now, the Egyptian Press Syndicate has saluted this outrageous pattern in the media across the Arab world by giving Ahmad Ragab its highest honor."

The American Jewish Committee, which protested Ragab's "Thanks to Hitler" columns to the Egyptian government shortly after their publication, said Cairo's failure to denounce, or deny publication of, Ragab's columns in a government-owned newspaper, combined with the government's failure to criticize the Egyptian Press Syndicate's award celebrating Ragab, is deeply disturbing.

"This grotesque distortion of history does not help to build the foundation for mutual respect and peace so desperately need by the peoples of the region," said the American Jewish Committee.

Ragab's grotesque assertion that Hitler did not finish the job of "taking revenge in advance on behalf of the Palestinians" was featured in an American Jewish Committee full-page ad in early May in the International Herald Tribune, the New York Times and the Washington Post. The ad, entitled "The Big Lie Is Still Alive," included a selection of quotes from government-sponsored newspapers in Egypt, Syria and Iran, as well as the Palestinian Authority, that regularly publish material denying, minimizing, or even praising the Holocaust.

In previous ads, in testimony before the U.S. Senate, and in published op-ed articles, the American Jewish Committee has repeatedly pointed out the prevalence and destructive consequences of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in the media and in school text books in the Arab world.

For more information, or to contact American Jewish Committee, see their website at: www.ajc.org