A prominent and respected Egyptian journalist, Salah Montasser, wrote an article based on an interview with some unidentified critic of Holocaust propaganda, wherein it is stated that the number of Jews killed directly or indirectly by Hitler's government was much less than the claimed 6 million. The six-million claim was invented to counter the fame that Adolf Hitler gained by helping 6 million unemployed Germans, the real figure for Jewish deaths being not more than 10% of that, according to the article.

Reactions might lead one to think that disputing the six million was the essay's main point. In fact it was only a minor point. Montasser himself rejects the six-million figure quite casually with the opinion:

“This number seems to be unrealistic and inflated, but the Jewish propaganda managed to spread and instill it." (CIJ News, 23 September 2016)

This is reminiscent of the common-sense skepticism of many educated people when the gas-chamber accusation was new. The sheer magnitude and outlandishness of the charges provoked disbelief:

"To be fair, the reports of genocidal crimes were so sweeping and so gruesome that a great many Americans, including some Jewish leaders, simply refused to believe them. As late as December 1944, [U.S. Assistant Secretary of War John J.] McCloy took aside the president of the World Jewish Congress, Leon Kubowitzki, and said, 'We are alone, tell me the truth. Do you really believe that all those horrible things happened?'" (Peter Wyden, The Hitler Virus (2001): p. 65)

Montasser's unidentified expert estimates that "between 100-600 thousands were killed directly or indirectly." He suggests that in the big scheme of things the sum of Jewish deaths during the Second World War, at 600,000 or less, was not particularly noteworthy.

That is more or less the extent of the criticism of the six-million figure in Montasser's article.

Oddly, Montasser's expert does not mention the scientific reasons for concluding that the alleged gassings with Zyklon B and diesel exhaust did not happen. Anyone schooled in Holocaust Revisionism would almost certainly mention the forensic work of Leuchter and others. Also, the suggestion that as few as 100,000 Jews might have died from all causes in all German camps is egregious: probably no well-known Holocaust Revisionist would say this. One is therefore tempted to conclude that the unnamed expert is only a fictitious vehicle for Montasser's own less-than-thoroughly-informed views.

Nonetheless, it is remarkable that in the Muslim World the essential falsity of the Holocaust story can be mentioned as a minor point in an essay by a well-respected journalist, without any sense of a need for rigorous proof. This kind of relaxed attitude toward the subject reflects the fact that Holocaust indoctrination and fear of questioning could not be imposed throughout the world with the same forcefulness as in the West.

The main focus in Montasser's article is on Jewish culpability for whatever anti-Jewish reaction did occur (which is not really a Revisionist point). The article states that Jews had caused most economic collapses between 1870 and 1920 and that Jews promoted various forms of degeneracy, and Communism.

The article first appeared in the Egyptian daily newspaper al-Masry al-Youm on 6 June 2016 with a title that translates as: "The Question that Everybody Ignores: Why Did Hitler Kill the Jews?"

The English-speaking world first heard about the essay after it was reprinted in the June-July issue of al-Saraha, an Arabic-language periodical based in London, Canada. B'nai B'rith Canada responded with an aggressive effort at censorship, CEO Michael Mostyn declaring:

“This article constitutes an obscene form of hate propaganda aimed at Canada’s Jewish community. Its appearance in a community newspaper which hosts advertisements from local businesses and mainstream political parties is extremely worrying.” (Aidan Fishman, B'nai B'rith, Canada Free Press, 21 July 2016)

B'nai B'rith complained to the office of the Premier of Ontario, eliciting a written condemnation of the publication from Premier Kathleen Wynne, who emphasized Holocaust Denial as the main offense:

“I want to condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the statements in the Al Saraha article that deny the Holocaust and express anti-Semitic and homophobic views.” (London Free Press, 22 July 2016)

Several advertisers were induced to stop doing business with al-Saraha. The London and Middlesex Local Immigration Partnership, which had recommended al-Saraha as a news-source for immigrants, withdrew its recommendation. The publisher, Abdul-Hadi Shala, apologized, declaring that he had not intended to deny the Holocaust, and the London Police Service investigated whether the article contained any violation of the criminal code. (S. Shefa, Canadian Jewish News, 22 July 2016) Merchants with Arab customers meanwhile stopped making al-Saraha available (H. Ghonaim, London Free Press, 22 July 2016).

On 8 December 2016, the Zionist propaganda-agency MEMRI, far from suppressing Montasser's essay, deliberately publicized it, offering portions in translation. (A full translation is available from CIJ News.) MEMRI's constant purpose is to make Arabs and Muslims, the perpetual enemies of the State of Israel, look bad. One of the ways that MEMRI tries to embarrass enemies of the State of Israel is by exposing them as Holocaust Deniers; there are numerous examples of such reports from MEMRI. Since the people behind MEMRI (evidently) believe in the Holocaust, in their minds it is a disgrace to be exposed as not believing in it.

In reality, the effect of such a report – about Muslims or Arabs disputing the Holocaust – depends heavily on who is reading it. If the reader already firmly believes in the Holocaust and is negatively disposed toward Muslims and Arabs anyway, then the report will reinforce those biases. If, however, the reader has no pre-existing bias against Arabs and Muslims, then a report about Arabs or Muslims disbelieving the Holocaust could induce the reader also to have a more open mind on the question.

To tilt things in the desired direction, MEMRI's presentation includes criticisms from two other Egyptian journalists, who asseverate their high regard for Montasser but dislike what he wrote in this essay. There does seem to be at least one bad argument attributed to the anonymous expert, when he opposes the six-million figure with the point that

"... the number of the Jews in Germany was less than a quarter of the number of the Jews whom they say that Hitler burnt!"

Non sequitur. Perhaps there was some mistake in transcribing or translating what the unidentified expert said, but it seems more likely that there was no expert, that the views expressed are Montasser's own.

As a Zionist propaganda-agency, MEMRI distributes its information free of charge to news organizations, with the result that this story was picked up by World Net Daily and Breitbart. Lively free discussion ensued in the comments sections – especially on Breitbart, where the fact that Montasser had rejected the six-million figure was emphasized. Even if Montasser's article has some mistakes, and even if MEMRI's intentions in publicizing it were not benevolent, "open debate on the Holocaust" is not a bad outcome.