Soral roger garaudy biography
The Founding Myths of Modern Israel
book by Roger Garaudy
| Author | Roger Garaudy |
|---|---|
| Language | French |
Publication date | |
Published&#;in English | |
Les Mythes fondateurs de la politique israélienne (The Founding Myths of Modern Israel) is a book published in by French philosopher Roger Garaudy.
His most controversial work, Les Mythes was translated into English in by the Institute for Historical Review. The work was determined under French Law to be "racial libel".[1]
Premises of state legitimacy
In his book, Garaudy rejected many of the premises of the Jewish claim to a homeland in the Levant and to the legitimacy of the state of Israel as "myths," e.g., the "theological myths" of the Bible; the twentieth century "myth of Zionistanti-Fascism"; the "myth of justice at Nuremberg," the "myth of the six million," and the "myth of the land without a people for a people without a land." These and other myths, Garaudy's book argued, had been used by world Zionists in a conspiracy to dispossess the Palestinians of their homeland.
Gayssot Law
Under France's Gayssot Law, which prohibits the questioning of the existence of the category[clarification needed] of crimes against humanity as defined in the London Charter of , several of Garaudy's assertions, in particular, his claim that the Holocaust was a myth, were deemed to be illegal.
Garaudy's trial began in and he was convicted in The court ruled that the chapters entitled "The Myth of the Nuremberg Trials and The Myth of the Holocaust" in the first edition, constituted "Holocaust denial" by writing of "the myth of the six million" Jewish victims.[1]
Further ban
French courts banned further publication of Garaudy's book and on February 27, fined him , French Francs (about $40,) and sentenced him to a suspended jail sentence of several years.
The decision of the court provoked a debate about freedom of speech in France and Europe and some[who?] claimed the verdict was a political one.[2] Garaudy appealed this decision to the European Court of Human Rights, but his appeal was rejected as inadmissible.[3][1]