The following two statements were recently reproduced by Tikkun (www.tikkun.org), the prominent liberal Jewish interfaith organization. The first statement is from Ibrahim Ramey, Director of the Human and Civil Rights Division of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, and carried by USNewswire on December 15, 2006. The second release is from Mahmoud al-Safadi, a Palestinian activist freed from Israeli prison in 2006 after 18 years of emprisonment. It was first printed in the French journal Le Monde on December 4, 2006, and translated by Yoshie Furuhashi. Ramey's statement was introduced by Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun as follows:

 How many times have you heard claims that Muslims never speak out to denounce the extremism in  their community, while Jews and Christians do? It's a lie that is part of the larger assault on Muslims that has replaced anti-communism as the primary way that reactionary forces in the U.S. deflect attention from their own extremism, militarism and ongoing war in Iraq.

 In the ongoing effort to give publicity to Muslim voices whose words are not tailor-made for anti-Muslim sound-bites, Ramey's full statement is included here, followed by excerpts from al-Safadi's article. Even if those who denouce Islam manipulate the historical record, Muslims should indeed be restrained from likewise giving lie to verifiable historical events. As the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, has said:

 It is obligatory for you to tell the truth, for truth leads to good deeds and good deeds lead to paradise ... Avoid falsehood, for falsehood leads to wickedness and wickedness leads to hell.
 If a man continues to speak falsehood and makes falsehood his objective, he will be recorded in Allah's presence as a great liar. (Muslim 4/6309)

 Prominent Muslim leaders in America besides Ramey have also spoken out against Holocaust denial. Tikkun more recently carried an article by Zaytuna Institute's Shaykh Hamza Yusuf entitled, "Holocaust Denial Undermines Islam" (available at www.zaytuna.org), in which he writes:

 Much of what we know about the world and what we accept as truth comes from multiply-transmitted accounts. Let's say I claim that Australia doesn't exist and is merely a figment of our imagination, that its origins lie in a whimsical cartographer in the Middle Ages who decided that such a large ocean needed a land mass. And, when confronted with people who claim to be from Australia and can prove it, I dismiss them as part of a conspiracy of cartographers who wish to perpetuate the myth of their forbearer. I would be laughed at, or ignored, or deemed "certifiable." While this example seems absurd, many people actually believe things just as fatuous and far-fetched. Holocaust denial is one such example. As one who has read some Holocaust denial literature, with the poorly reproduced pictures and claims of the orchestration of these scenes in collusion with the U.S. government, I can attest to the tragic gullibility of people who take such literature as historical truth.

* * *

 True Muslims must not deny the Holocaust

by Ibrahim Ramey

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, Most Merciful

 History will recall the tragedy of the genocide that slaughtered some six million European Jews between the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party in 1933 and the culmination of the Second World War in Europe in May, 1945.

 The evidence of this crime, and the horrible magnitude of this killing, is irrefutable. From sources as varied as Nazi war records, film documentation, and most importantly, the testimony of survivors and witnesses, we know that the mass murder of European Jews was, indeed, the single greatest crime of genocide in the twentieth century.

 Yet the world now witnesses yet another wave of historical revisionism and Holocaust denial, this time emerging not from European Anti-Semites, but from none other than the President of Iran. Indeed, this head of state has taken the unprecedented act of hosting an international conference of anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, and even white racists like former Klan leader David Duke, to gather in Tehran to deny the magnitude, if not the very existence, of this barbaric act.

 As a Muslim of African decent in the United States, whose ancestors were victimized by the enormous crime of slavery, I object. And I believe that all Muslims, like other human beings who value compassion and truth, must vigorously object to this gathering as well.

 Like many in the global Muslim community, I regard the occupation of Palestinian land and the policies of the State of Israel as issues of extreme importance. I am certainly among those who believe that the occupation of Palestinian territory and the denial of full human rights to Palestinians, and even to Arab people regarded as Israeli citizens, is deplorable.

 But I find it to be morally unconscionable to attempt to build political arguments and political movements on a platform of racial hatred and the denial of the suffering of the human beings who were victimized by the viciousness of Hitler's genocidal rampage through Europe.

 President Ahmedinejad should recognize that the issue of the Palestinian people must not, and cannot, be transmogrified into the ugly and spiritually bankrupt context of racial hatred. The cause of freedom must never drink from the well of hatred and racism.

 And indeed, as the Holy Qur'an compels Muslims to demand justice for the oppressed, we are also called to witness against ourselves when we are in error.

 And in this case, the President of Iran most certainly is.

* * *

"A Letter to the President of Iran"
by Mahmoud al-Safadi

 I am furious about your insistence on claiming that the Holocaust never took place and about your doubts about the number of Jews who were murdered in the extermination and concentration camps, organized massacres, and gas chambers, consequently denying the universal historical significance of the Nazi period.

 Allow me to say, Mr. President, with all due respect to you, that you made these statements without really knowing the Nazi industry of death. To have read the works of some deniers seems to be enough for you -- a little like a man who shouts above a well and hears only the echo of his own voice. I believe that a man in your position should not make such an enormous error,
because it could be turned against him and, worse still, his people...

 From a theoretical point of view, this objective, just like the victories won at the time by the Nazi armies of occupation, threatened the existence of the Arabs and Muslims as well. Whatever the number of victims -- Jewish and non-Jewish -- the crime is monumental. Any attempt to deny it deprives the denier of his own humanity and sends him immediately to the side of torturers. Whoever denies the fact that this human disaster really took place should not be astonished that
others deny the sufferings and persecutions inflicted on his own people by tyrannical leaders or foreign occupiers...

 Perhaps you think that the act of denying the Holocaust places you at the vanguard of the Muslim world and that this refusal constitutes a useful tool in the combat against American imperialism and Western hegemony. By doing so, you actually do great disservice to popular struggles the world over. At best, you cover your people and yourself with ridicule in the eyes of political forces who reject imperialism but cannot take your ideas and arguments seriously, due to the fact that you obsessively deny the existence of an abundantly documented and studied historical period whose consequences are still felt and discussed today.

 At worst, you discourage and weaken the political, social, and intellectual forces who, in Europe and in the United States, reject the policy of confrontation and war...

 Concerning the struggle of my people for their independence and their freedom: perhaps do you regard the negation of the Holocaust as an expression of support for the Palestinians? There, again, you are mistaken. We fight for our existence and our rights and against the historical injustice which was inflicted on us in 1948. We will not win our victory and our independence by denying the genocide perpetrated against the Jewish people, even though the forces who occupy our country today and dispossess us are part of the Jewish people.