According to Gideon Bachar, the head of the Israeli Foreign Ministry department for the fight against antisemitism, the newly accepted definition of a holocaust denier is anyone who doubts the number of Jews killed, who denies the existence of the gas chambers, as well as anyone who claims the Jews have brought on the holocaust intentionally, to serve their own ends, such as the establishment of the State of Israel, and also anyone who includes the 1939-1945 holocaust among other great tragedies in human history. (SOYMB emphasis)
Bachar told Israel Radio that the new universal definition does not have a legal validity, but it may help in the fight against holocaust denial and anti-semitism.
The International Alliance for Holocaust remembrance (IHRA) in 2007 expanded its thematic mandate to include the genocide of the Roma. This would seem to be in conflict with Bachar’s point about the holocaust remaining a distinctly Jewish event, incomparable with any other case of human suffering. The world’s history is replete with documented evidence of genocides. Are we not to use the word holocaust for those crimes against humanity and make the comparison with the Nazi attempted extermination of the Jewish people?
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