A few days ago - Jan 28 - Berita Harian published an article stating that the Holocaust is a fabrication (' Bukan semua percaya Jerman bunuh Yahudi ').

Among the reasons given:

• There is no proof that Zyklon B killed the Jews.
• The images of bodies in graves comprised Germans who died of starvation.
• Anne Frank's diary is false. It was written in ball-point ink which did not exist then.
• It would take 68 years to kill six million Jews in Auschwitz (Note that one million died in Auschwitz - my quote).

It is certainly commendable that Berita Harian wants to tackle a weighty issue such as the Holocaust. It is possible to find reference to justify any claims: there are interpretations that says Man came from outer space, that Elvis is alive, that the moon landings were hoaxes. And there is certainly nothing wrong in highlighting the issues that deny the existence of the Holocaust. But if Berita Harian wants to do justice to such a serious matter as the murder of six million human beings, what about highlighting evidence for the Holocaust as well?

But then the newspaper might crow about how those archives are faked by the worldwide Jewish conspiracy. Ok then. What about the non-Jewish records? What about travelling to Germany and looking at its World War II archives, where the Nazis had meticulously recorded the number of Jews killed (and why would the Germans fake these records?). What about sifting through the Nuremberg trial documents, interviewing the non-Jewish camp survivors, talking to the GIs that saw the bodies?

Then please compare the weight of evidence and conclude which is heavier? To focus on a speck of grain and harrumph about it reflects the writer's state of mind.

If the Jews are the enemy - and one way to effectively combat the enemy is to know them - then Berita Harian isn't educating its readers well. Their readers certainly wouldn't know that the main reasons why the Israelis respond as they do toward the Arabs, toward the Palestinians, is because of the shadow of countless pogroms culminating in the big one.

'Never Again' is more than just a catcall. The article does a disservice to both Jews and Muslims.