Innocent of Ill Intent

"This Jewish propaganda succeeded until it became prevalent throughout the media that six million Jews were victims of Hitler, even though the total number of Jews in Germany was less than a quarter of this figure that they say Hitler burned!"
June/July edition Al Saraha London, Ontario Arabic-language community newspaper

"Steps [are being taken to determine] whether [this] qualifies as a Criminal Code offence inciting hatred, promoting hatred or on the contrary, is it free speech."
London Constable Chris Loizides

"You don't even have to read the whole article, all you have to do is read the headline. To say that is offensive is to minimize the article. It is absolutely hateful rhetoric, and it is unacceptable that this is being published in a newspaper in Canada."
"We have new immigrants coming into our country all the time and I think, as Canadians, we want to always ensure that these new immigrants learn the language of tolerance. Canada is the place where, while we may have our own opinions back home, and we may have our own prejudices back home, we don't import those to Canada."
"We get along, we work together here. We live together here, and this [article] is completely antithetical to that."
Michael Mostyn, chief executive, B'nai Brith

"I was curious to know why Hitler killed Jews during the Holocaust, so I read through his article and I found information."
"I don't know. History knows. I believe in the correct history. If someone told me the correct history was 10 million or 20 million people died, then I'll believe it as long as it's correct history."
Arabic publisher, London Al Saraha newspaper

The cartoon's heading: "The sixtieth anniversary of the Holocaust."  Akhabar al-khalij, January 28, 2005 

The feigned naivette of a compromising situation is hardly compelling as an error in judgement by someone so innocent that he would take a rancid slander of Jews as 'history'. There are ample legitimate historical accounts that could be consulted readily if the editor of the Arabic-language newspaper published in London, Ontario really was interested in discovering for himself the historic truth.

He chose instead to headline the except he published: "The Question Which Everyone Ignores: Why Did Hitler Kill the Jews?"

Why indeed. Possibly because they were Jews and Hitler's brand of anti-Semitism was powerful enough to have him plot their extinction, to set in motion an inquisition that began with slanderous characterizations of Jews as a pestilence, to inure the greater public only perhaps slightly tainted with prejudice to the plight of a people singled out for the oppression of degradation gradually building toward slave labour, death camps and mass murder.

But the original article, published in al-Masry al-Youm, a daily Egyptian newspaper, had its own explanation. It answered its own question by recounting the reasons why the Third Reich carefully planned the extermination of an entire people and successfully committed genocide to the extent of six million that were lost which German records themselves carefully annotated and measured for accurate future reference.

Anne Frank in bed with Adolph Hitler.
Web Site of the Arab European League (February 2, 2006)

The Jews got their comeuppance because they were responsible for the "economic collapse" of the 1920s that placed Germany in an untenable situation ...  They were guilty as well of the crimes of promoting "promiscuity ... homosexuality ... every type of sexual deviance". That being so, the Jews of Europe clearly earned the fate that awaited them, every baby, child, teen, adult male, female, aged or ailing Jew who was gassed, and whose body went up in smoke in the crematoria.

The London newspaper is distributed in restaurants and grocery stores serving the Middle East neighbourhood throughout the Greater London area. The newspaper is even promoted by the London and Middlesex Local Immigration Partnernship, an agency funded by the Ontario government, as a source of news meant especially for the immigrant community.

It was, fortuitously enough, a member of the Arab Canadian community who is a local, who brought the article to the attention of B'nai Brith so the Jewish human rights and advocacy group could take it from there. London police were alerted, then the B'nai Brith made contact with the office of the Ontario premier. The very same office that in the same issue of the newspaper had a "best wishes" message for Ramadan from the "Ontario Liberal Caucus".

"I didn't mean to reject something that happened historically", said Abdul Haidi Shala, the newspaper editor, speaking to a reporter in Arabic through a translator.