Roger Garaudy Convicted of “Revisionism,” Fined $40,000

As this issue of Smith’s Report was being readied for press, we received the news from Paris that Roger Garaudy was convicted on February 27 of violating France’s law against contesting the Holocaust story. The 83-year-old Frenchman, who had to contend with legal attacks from ten different Jewish associations as well as with the state prosecutor, was fined the equivalent of $40,000 for his “crimes” (the case against him consisted of various charges flowing from his “Holocaust denial”).

Garaudy, who while awaiting the verdict traveled to Egypt to promote his book The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics at a book fair influential in the Arab world, was not present for the ruling. A large contingent of Jewish youths from Betar, the international youth wing of Menachem Begin’s Zionist “Revisionist” party, was, and underscored the French state’s intellectual terrorism with physical intimidation, injuring several revisionists who were present outside the court. The French media gave uncharacteristic coverage to this particular Holocaust trial, and gave Robert Faurisson much of the blame (i.e., the credit) for educating Garaudy on the gas chamber hoax.

In last month’s SR it was noted that the French had a choice, and that by convicting Garaudy they risked making him—and his Holocaust revisionist revelations—lionized throughout the Arab world, and wherever elsewhere the writ of Mohammed runs (an estimated population of one billion in all). CODOH, through its growing contacts over the Internet and otherwise, is helping to spread the word to its Muslim friends that Holocaust revisionism packs more power than all the Scud missiles and anthrax bacteria in the Middle East. We eagerly await further fallout from the Garaudy affair. We’ll report it as we receive it.

[Meanwhile, don’t let what is potentially one of the most important revisionist breakthroughs ever leave you behind. If you haven’t read Roger Garaudy’s Founding Myths of Israeli Politics, you can only guess at how he weaves together Holocaust revisionism and anti-Zionism into a fabric of truth for Arab and non-Arab alike. Don’t guess—find out for yourself or for a friend. Your contribution of $25 (or more) helps CODOH spread the word to our campuses, to media, to the world.]