Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that was crafted mainly by Europeans and North Americans, but that never achieved mainstream acceptance in the West. It was, instead, in the Arab states and Iran that Holocaust denial entered into conventional public opinion and politics. The false claim that Jews had “invented” the Holocaust both to extort money from wealthy countries and to justify the founding of Israel became a cornerstone of postwar antisemitism. In this, deniers recapitulate the logic of Nazi ideology in attributing a pervasive, hidden power to “the Jew.” The instrumental appeal of this to geopolitical foes of Israel explains why this conspiracy theory gained broader legitimacy in the Middle East than in Europe or North America.