Syrian dictator, who has himself been accused of genocide, says Jews weren't specifically targeted during WWII, claims US funded Nazi Party's rise to power

Syrian President Bashar Assad earlier this week declared that there is no evidence that six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust and accused the United States of funding the German Nazi party.

In a video of a speech by Assad translated and published by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) on Monday, Assad can be seen telling a listening crowd that “there is no evidence that six million Jews were killed” during the Holocaust.

“True, there were concentration camps, but what shows you that this is a politicized issue, not a humanitarian one and not a real one, is that we talk about these six million, but why don’t we talk about the 26 million Soviets who were killed in that war? Are the six million more precious?”

  • Hyperreality
    8•7 months ago

    Entirely unsurprising. Relevant wikipedia article:

    The Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP)[a] is a Syrian nationalist party operating in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine. … is the second-largest political party in the pro-Assad National Progressive Front led by the ruling Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party … Political rivals of SSNP have commonly labelled Antoun Saadeh as a fascist ideologue who formed relations with Nazis during the Second World War. … Saadeh remained a strong admirer of Adolf Hitler and introduced Nazi symbolism into SSNP insignia. Similar to the “Fuhrer” title, Saadeh took the designation of “az-Za’im” and the party set him up as their “leader for life”. The party adopted a reversed swastika as its symbol and the party anthem was sung to the tune of Deutschlandlied. … Saadeh adopted many themes related to fascism: pushing a personality cult around the party leader, establishing a totalitarian state that policed all aspects of life, belief in “the organic whole of the Syrian Volk” … Throughout the Second World War, Saadeh was rumoured to have close contacts with officials of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. … Western journalists also describe it as fascist. Terry Glavin writes that it “sports its very own stylized swastika [and] sings an anthem to the tune of Deutschlandlied”, while Bellingcat calls its a “rabidly anti-Semitic, fascist organization [with] international ties to the far-right.” … According to historian Stanley G. Payne, interwar Arab nationalism was influenced by European fascism, with the creation of at least seven Arab nationalist shirt movements similar to the brown shirt movement by 1939, with the most influenced ones being the SSNP … SSNP wanting the complete control of Syria, belief in the superiority of their own people (with Saadeh theorizing a “distinct and naturally superior” Syrian race) … Anglo-American journalist Christopher Hitchens and his team were assaulted in February 2009 by SSNP paramilitaries … The attack left Hitchens with body injuries and a limp in his leg. Reporting to Vanity Fair in May 2009, Hitchens described SSNP as a “suicide-bomber front” that carries out terrorist operations in Lebanon on behalf of Ba’athist Syria. He asserted that SSNP was a violent fascist movement; noting its irredentist ambitions of creating “Greater Syria”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Social_Nationalist_Party

    why don’t we talk about the 26 million Soviets who were killed in that war? Are the six million more precious?

    This is what the far right in Russia think, and is why they don’t see the irony in calling Zelensky a Nazi. Relevant article:

    The dominant version of antisemitism alive in parts of eastern Europe today is that Jews employ the Holocaust to seize the victimhood narrative from the “real” victims of the Nazis, who are Russian Christians (or other non-Jewish eastern Europeans). Those who embrace Russian Christian nationalist ideology will be especially susceptible to this strain of antisemitism. … in a 2021 article, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev denounced Zelenskiy as disgusting, corrupt and faithless. The free democratic election of a Jewish president confirms in the fascist mind that the fascist bogeyman of liberal democracy as a tool for global Jewish domination is real. … By claiming that the aim of the invasion is to “denazify” Ukraine, Putin appeals to the myths of contemporary eastern European antisemitism – that a global cabal of Jews were (and are) the real agents of violence against Russian Christians and the real victims of the Nazis were not the Jews, but rather this group. Russian Christians are targets of a conspiracy by a global elite, who, using the vocabulary of liberal democracy and human rights, attack the Christian faith and the Russian nation.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/vladimir-putin-ukraine-attack-antisemitism-denazify