AJC Appalled by Egyptian Government's Latest Holocaust Denial Outrage

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Jan 30, 2013, 11:52 ET

NEW YORK, Jan. 30, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AJC is appalled by the Holocaust denial comments of a senior Egyptian government official and Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi's silence about it.

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"The myth of the Holocaust is an industry that America invented," declared Fathi Shihab-Eddim. "U.S. intelligence agencies in cooperation with their counterparts in allied nations during World War II created [the Holocaust] to destroy the image of their opponents in Germany, and to justify war and massive destruction against military and civilian facilities of the Axis powers, and especially to hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the atomic bomb."

Shihab-Eddim, who is responsible for Egyptian state newspaper editors, spoke on the day designated by the UN as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Shihab-Eddim also said that the six million Jews actually had relocated to the United States during World War II.

"President Morsi's failure to unequivocally condemn these Holocaust denial comments is deeply troubling," said AJC Executive Director David Harris. "Urgent action is needed to counter the deep hatred of Jews sanctioned by Egypt's current leadership."

The Morsi aide's comments come in the wake of the recent revelation of Morsi's own virulent, threatening remarks against Jews. "We must never forget, brothers, to nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred for them: for Zionists, for Jews," Morsi declared in 2010. "These warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs...They have been fanning the flames of civil strife wherever they were throughout their history. They are hostile by nature."

SOURCE American Jewish Committee