Syrian president denies the Holocaust, says Jews have no claim on Israel

Assad also perpetuated the debunked myth that Jews are descended from Khazars or pagans who converted to Judaism in the 8th century.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad claimed in a speech on Wednesday that the Jews fabricated the Holocaust as a pretext for establishing the State of Israel and have no ancestral connection to their land.

The speech was posted on YouTube by the Syrian Arab News Agency, and translated into English by the Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI).

Assad declared, “There is no evidence that six million Jews were killed. Perhaps there were holocausts, nobody denies this.”

He added that the Nazis targeted many people during World War II and didn’t single out the Jews in any way, “There was no method of torture or killing specific to the Jews. The Nazis used the same method everywhere.”

The Syrian President said the Holocaust “was politicized, in order to falsify the truth, and later to prepare for the transfer of the Jews from Europe to other areas, or [rather] to Palestine.”

Assad also perpetuated the common and debunked myth that Jews are descended from Khazars who lived around the Caspian Sea and were pagans who converted to Judaism in the 8th century.

He added, “They emigrated to Europe, and from there, came to this region. They have nothing to do whatever with the [ancient] people of Israel.”

In addition, Assad repeated the conspiracy theory that the United States funded the Nazis.

According to the false theory, given that Germany was devastated economically after World War I, there was no way the Nazis could have built a military and risen to such prominence without “American support, money, loans, and investments.”

In 2022, the United Nations estimated that 306,000 civilians have been killed in Syria’s ongoing civil war, with some human rights groups setting the number at 500,000.

Last month, France issued an arrest warrant for Bashar Al Assad for using illegal chemical weapons against rebel forces in Damascus.

Although Syria claimed to have gotten rid of all chemical weapons in 2013, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has concluded that Syria has used nerve gas repeatedly against rebels.