New York, NY, January 6, 2011 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today condemned the remarks of a senior Hamas official who claimed that the Holocaust was "a lie that has crumbled" and suggested that Zionists had committed "countless Holocausts" on the Palestinian people.
The League called his statements "a disturbing reminder of the virulent anti-Semitism promoted by Hamas and the ongoing threat the group poses to Israel."
Mahmud Zahar, a senior leader of the Gaza-based terrorist group, made the remarks during a memorial ceremony for 43 Palestinians killed at a U.N. school in the Jabaliya refugee camp during Israel's military incursion into Gaza in December 2008.
Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:
Once again, the abhorrent and hateful philosophy of Hamas has reared its ugly head, polluting the public square with Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism. These comments are a disturbing reminder of the virulent anti-Semitism promoted by Hamas and the ongoing threat the group poses to Israel.
To compare the atrocities of the Holocaust to the actions of "Zionists" is an affront to truth and history. It is an insult to the six million Jews and millions of others who perished as a result of the Final Solution, and to those who fought the Nazis during World War II.
We must never forget that the Holocaust was a systematic effort to rid the world of the Jewish people.
Through its incitement against Israel, Hamas continues to show that it is not a partner for peace and reconciliation, nor a force of moderation. The anti-Semitic ideas expressed by Zahar do not occur in a vacuum, but are a carbon copy of the rhetoric of Hamas's major supporters, Iran and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
These hateful ideas are also endorsed and amplified in Hamas' founding Charter, which repeatedly compares Zionism to "Nazism" and embraces the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." These ideas are reinforced throughout the Hamas-run media, newspapers and propaganda establishment.