Fathi Shihab-Eddim, a senior figure in Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's circle, has called the Holocaust a hoax invented by US intelligence operatives, according to a ‘Fox News’ report. Shihab-Eddim reportedly claimed that instead of being murdered the six million Jews had simply been moved to America. Shihab-Eddim is in charge of appointing the editors of state-run Egyptian newspapers.
“The myth of the Holocaust is an industry that America invented. US intelligence agencies in cooperation with their counterparts in allied nations during World War II created it [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 was quoted by ‘Fox News’ as saying.
Earlier this month, it became known that Morsi himself had said in interviews in 2010 that "Jews are the descendants of apes and pigs.” A spokesman for the Egyptian leader claimed that his remarks had been taken out of context, and Morsi, in a meeting with US senators two weeks ago, said the Jewish-controlled media in the US had exaggerated his statements.
However, Egyptian opposition leader Mohammed ElBaradei responded by saying that this was untrue. “We are all aware that those statements were not taken out of context and that this discourse is very common among a large number of clerics and members of Islamist groups," he said, adding: “Apart from the remarks themselves, I am calling upon the person who made them to courageously admit either the real stance he and the Muslim Brotherhood and their followers adopt, or how mistaken they had been for all those years."
ElBaradei told the German news magazine 'Der Spiegel': "We all fear that the Muslim Brotherhood will pass a document with Islamist undertones that marginalizes the rights of women and religious minorities. Who sits in this group? One person, who wants to ban music, because it's allegedly against Sharia law; another, who denies the Holocaust; another, who openly condemns democracy."
Meanwhile, President Morsi is to be received in Berlin on Wednesday for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
