“Israel has also committed mass killings. It is undeniable,” said Bunglawala.

LONDON, January 26 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – While roundly condemning the “abhorrent” Nazi crimes against the Jews during World War II, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) called Wednesday, January 26, for commemorating all mass killings around the world, in Bosnia, Rwanda and in the occupied Palestinian territories.

“The MCB's principled position from the outset since 2001 - when the Holocaust Memorial Day was first commemorated - has been for the memorial day to be inclusive of the sufferings of all people and urged that it be named the ‘Genocide Memorial Day’,” the MCB said in a statement, posted on its Web site.

The 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz will be observed this year as Holocaust Memorial Day with world leaders attending ceremonies in Poland Thursday, January 27.

“The best living memorial for the victims of the Nazi Holocaust is trying to ensure that we make the cry ‘Never Again’ real for all people who suffer, everywhere. We honor the dead most sincerely by working to end suffering and bring peace with justice to those who live without hope today,” the MCB added.

On Monday, January 24, French Muslim activists said the commemoration should not eclipse crimes against humanity committed in such areas as the occupied Palestinian territories, Bosnia and Chechnya.

“Abhorrent”

The MCB said that people worldwide saw eye-to-eye on the fact that the Nazi Holocaust was a “truly evil and abhorrent crime.”

“We stand together with our fellow British Jews in their sense of pain and anguish. None of us must ever forget how the Holocaust began,” said the statement.

“We must remember it began with a hatred that dehumanized an entire people, that fostered state brutality, made second class citizens of honest, innocent people because of their religion and ethnic identity.”

The MCB had earlier turned down an invitation of the British Home Office Minister Charles Clarke to attend the Holocaust Memorial Day.

“We are not belittling the Holocaust. We share the immense pain and anguish felt in the Jewish community about the Holocaust, but feel Britain is a multi-faith country and everyone should be involved,” MCB Inayat Bunglawala told Reuters.

Bunglawala said the world should not also turn a blind eye to the atrocities committed by Israeli occupation troops against an entire people in occupied Palestine.

“Israel has also committed mass killings. It is undeniable,” he said. “It has dispossessed a Palestinian nation. It is an insult to them if we don't recognize their deaths. The cry 'Never Again' should be for all people.”

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the Holocaust refers to “systematic state-sponsored killing of Jewish men, women, and children and others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II.”

The commonly used figure for the number of Jewish victims is six million.

However, the figure was questioned by some historians and intellectuals, chiefly French Muslim author Roger Garaudy.