New French Web site aims to work against Holocaust denial

A new Web site launched Friday aims to stanch the spread of Holocaust denial in the Muslim world by providing Arabic and Farsi speakers an accurate account of the history of the concentration camps.

Leaders, former heads of state and delegates from 30 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia hailed the initiative, dubbed Project Aladdin, at a ceremony at UNESCO's Paris headquarters marking the launch of the site.

The site will also include a history of Muslim-Jewish relations in English, French, Arabic and Farsi, as well as online Arabic and Farsi translations of books including The Diary of Anne Frank and Primo Levi's If This Is a Man, organizers said.

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade underscored the long history of cohabitation between Jews and Muslims and said the challenge was to build on that common past to create the base of a sincere dialogue to overcome distrust and fight all kinds of extremism and learn to live together again.

Wade also heads the world's largest Muslim organization, the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Former French President Jacques Chirac and Auschwitz survivor Simone Veil, one of France's most influential woman politicians, were among other dignitaries at the event.

Concerns about Holocaust denial captured headlines earlier this year when the Vatican lifted the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop. Holocaust-denying comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have also sparked worldwide outrage.

In France earlier this week, far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen repeated his belief that the gas chambers where millions of Jews perished during World War II were a detail of history. Le Pen, 80, has been convicted of racism or anti-Semitism at least six times.

In his address, the former French president alluded to Le Pen's remarks, denouncing the intolerable apartheid of memory of those who think the Holocaust is (just) a Jewish problem.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton hailed Project Aladdin, which he said in a letter has the potential to play a vital role in countering denial with facts and putting a human face on something that otherwise might seem too terrible to believe.

The initiative is partially sponsored by France's Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah.

More than 200 people, many prominent public figures from across the Muslim world, have joined the project's so-called conscience committee, organizers said. Jordan's Prince El Hassan Ben Talal and former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder are among the project's sponsors, organizers said in a statement.