Holocaust Denial and Palestine Denial

I was speaking to an aging Palestinian man today who said he didn't believe 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis. His reasoning was that it was war, and although Jewish people certainly died during that period, they were just one group among Germans, Russians, French & British.

I haven't talked to many people about this subject, but I assume that such views are not uncommon here. It's easy to just dismiss them, which is what I did at the time of this conversation. After all, witnessing the daily violence that Palestinians endure, it's not hard to imagine why they would be inclined to disbelieve or dismiss any accounts of Jewish suffering.

However, it later occurred to me that there may actually be a much more subtle reason for dismissing this historical event. In this particular geographical context, the history of the Holocaust is inextricably intertwined with the history of the Zionist colonization of Palestine. This second historical narrative, almost a shadow to the first, simply expunged (discursively) the Palestinians from Palestine, (e.g. a land without a people for a people without a land; making the desert bloom). Palestinians have now lived for many years trying to communicate with a world that, largely on account of this Zionist discourse, does not believe or recognize their existence.

Is Palestine denial any less despicable than Holocaust denial?