[images and captions added by this website] All Headline News January 26, 2007 6:07 a.m. EST Italian Government Approves Law Making Holocaust Denial Illegal Ryan R. Jones - All Headline News Middle East Correspondent Jerusalem, Israel (AHN) - The government of Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi on Thursday unanimously approved new anti-racism legislation that, among other things, makes denial of the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews a crime punishable by up to four years in prison. The bill, which will now be brought before parliament for final approval, brings Italy's official position on Holocaust denial in line with other European powers such as Germany, France, Spain and Austria. As the current leader of the European Union, Germany is pushing for harsher continent-wide laws targeting the perpetrators of racist crimes, including denial or approval of the Holocaust, reported Ynet. In a Memorial Day speech to students in Rome, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano noted that anti-Semitism today often takes the form or anti-Zionism or irrational criticism of Israel. "Anti-Semitism means denying the base on which the Jewish country is built, the reason for its establishment, and its need for security even today, regardless of which government is currently leading Israel," said Napolitano. The government decision on the new legislation comes just days after British historian David Irving, (left) a leading Holocaust denier, told an Italian news program that Auschwitz was a German tourist site, and not a death camp where more than one million Jews were mass murdered. Irving was only recently released from an Austrian jail for publishing a book in that country calling into question the genocide of European Jewry during World War. However: Italian lawmakers nix this "thought crime" plan Our dossier on the origins of anti-Semitism Our dossier on Mr Irving's arrest, imprisonment and appeal victory in Austria   Hate crimes not a crime in Slovakia?