These days Holocaust is taken to mean the genocide of European Jews by the Nazis during World War II. As Emanuel Litvinoff opined: "Israel emerged from the Holocaust and is defined in relation to that catastrophe."

Holocaust denial is illegal in a number of European countries such as Austria, Belgian, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerland as also Israel. Punishments of imprisonment from few month to several years up to ten years are prescribed treating the criticism of holocaust as inciting to racial hatred. 

 Popes had been against Jews for centuries but not any more. In his book THE POPES AGAINST THE JEWS: 
The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism 
is described

Many of these countries have repealed punishments for blasphemy that used to be death in mediaeval period and later a fine or imprisonment. And they have broadened laws to treat denial of holocaust as a crime as serious as libel or inciting racial hatred. 

It is alleged that a number of countries such as Austria, Germany, France, Poland, Romania and Slovakia were among the perpetrators of the Holocaust. Although the persecution of Jews and Muslims in Europe had continued over the last many centuries, the Jewish historians are said to have recorded the atrocities and discriminatory laws and rulings against Jews with exaggeration or distortion and completely ignored the persecution of or discrimination against Muslims and their genocide in Europe. The 
horrors of the recent war in former Yugoslavia between Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia show how civilized people can commit atrocities worse than savages and barbarians.  

Popes had been against Jews for centuries but not any more. In his book THE POPES AGAINST THE JEWS: 
The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism 
is described by David I. Kertzer. Dead Sea Scrolls that 
are claimed to have been discovered in the mid of 20th 
Century near Jordan paved the way for conciliation 
between Vatican and Jewish Rabbis. 

Skeptics say that deceit, fraud and forgery were used in making the Christians believe that Christianity had started as a sect of Judaism. Late Malachy Martin SJ is said to be have been in liaison with Jewish authorities at the Vatican Councils that expunged criticism of the Jews from Roman Catholic teaching etc. Martin is said to have regretted on this mistake.   

As a Muslim scholar says Anti-Semitism is bigotry and racism. 

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When distortions and exaggerations in the Holocaust 
accounts are pointed out by unbiased and learned 
scholars, they are attacked and labeled as Deniers 
of Holocaust and anti-semite and also accused of 
spreading racial hatred.  The American Scholar 
Noam Chomsky, a Jew himself, criticized this 
attitude in his articles and defended the right 
of free speech.

As pointed by a scholar one of the causes of hatred of Jews among Christians was that in the Hebrew Bible, Micah (Chapter 3:1-12) and Hosea (Chapter 8:1-14), it was indicated that the prophets condemned the Jews “who abhor justice and pervert all equity” and who “build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong.” These prophets cursed Israel as a “useless vessel 
among nations,” and called for the curse of God to “send a fire upon [Judah’s] cities” and to make Jerusalem “a heap of ruins.”

Before the rise of secularism in Europe many historians had given biased accounts about Judaism and Islam as is evident from the following quotes:

De Lacy O'Leary in 'Islam at the Crossroads,' London, 1923.  History makes it clear, however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically 
absurd myths that historians have ever repeated. 
 
"The picture of the Muslim soldier advancing with a sword in one hand and the Qur'an in the other is quite false."  _A. S. Tritton in 'Islam,' 1951  

Thomas Carlyle in 'Heroes and Hero Worship and 
the Heroic in History,' He also wrote"

"The lies (Western slander) which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man (Muhammad) are disgraceful to ourselves only."    

With the growth of secularism in the Western world during 19th and 20th centuries, religious prejucices sub-sided but those on account of race and ethnicity continued. In the the world wars 1 and 2 about a hundred million people died. 

During World war 2 out of 62 Million dead about 10%  i. e. 5,754,000 were Jews and the deaths of all of them are attributed as Holocaust or genocide of Jews by Nazis. But among the 8 Million Germans killed in World War 2 only 160, 000 were German Jews. Almost 11% of total German population was wiped out due to bombing, air-raids and attacks by Allied Forces.

The war always brings the unpredictable, unexpected, unintended and unavoidable horrors. The war crimes of Allied Forces against not only the prisoners of war but also the civilians in the captured terrotories in Germany, Japan, and Italy are not accepted even 
though they may have been unintended by their governments.  
 
When distortions and exaggerations in the Holocaust accounts are pointed out by unbiased and learned scholars, they are attacked and labeled as Deniers of Holocaust and anti-semite and also accused of spreading racial hatred.  The American Scholar 
Noam Chomsky, a Jew himself, criticized this attitude in his articles and defended the right of free speech. He had written:" "I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers or even denial of the Holocaust. Nor would there be anti-Semitic implications, per se, in the claim that the Holocaust (whether one believes it took place or not) is being exploited, viciously so, by apologists for Israeli repression and violence." 
(quoted in Noam Chomsky's Search for the Truth).

However, most Western leaders have maintained that freedom  of speech to propagate denial of crimes against humanity is contrary to the spirit in which such freedom is allowed in the first place and thatthe reliance on free speech in such cases would thus constitute an abuse of a fundamental right.

As a Muslim scholar says Anti-Semitism is bigotry and racism. It is wrong and it has no place in Islam or in Islamic scripture. The Qur’an does not allow hate against any race, nationality or color. 
Anti-Semitism. Racism, ethnic cleansing, genocide and Holocaust, which have been suffered by Jews and non-Jews alike over the past several centuries,  are against the fundamentals of Islam. 

Shah N. Khan