Holocaust Denial Is No Joke

[Behind the Aegis]

The Iranian Holocaust conference is sordid and cynical, but we must take it seriously.

On Monday, the Iranian foreign ministry held an international conference. There's nothing unusual in that. Foreign ministries hold conferences, mostly dull ones, all the time. But this one was different. For one thing, the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust dealt with history, not current politics. Instead of the usual suspects—deputy ministers and the like—the invitees seem to have included David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader; Georges Thiel, a Frenchman who has called the Holocaust "an enormous lie"; and Fredrick Töben, a German-born Australian whose specialty is the denial of Nazi gas chambers. The guest list was selective: No one with any academic eminence, or indeed any scholarly credentials, was invited. One Palestinian scholar, Khaled Ksab Mahamid, was asked to come but was then barred because he holds an Israeli passport—and also perhaps because he, unlike other guests, believes that the Holocaust really did happen.

In response, the United States, Europe, and Israel expressed official outrage. The German government, to its credit, organized a counterconference. Still, many have kept their distance, refusing to be shocked or even especially interested. After all, the Holocaust ended more than six decades ago. Since then, the victims of the Holocaust have written hundreds of books, and the scholarship on the Holocaust has run into billions of words. There are films, photographs, documents, indeed whole archives dedicated to the history of the Nazi regime: We all know what happened. Surely Iran's denial cannot be serious.

Unfortunately, Iran is serious—or at least Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is deadly serious. Holocaust denial is his personal passion, not just a way of taunting Israel, and it's based in his personal interpretation of history. Earlier this year, in a distinctly eerie open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he lauded the great achievements of German culture and assaulted "the propaganda machinery after World War II that has been so colossal that has caused some people to believe that they are the guilty party." Such views hearken back to the 1930s, when the then-Shah of Iran was an admirer of Hitler's notion of the "Aryan master race," to which Persians were meant to belong. Ahmadinejad himself counts as a mentor an early revolutionary who was heavily influenced by wartime Nazi propaganda. It shows.

Of course, Holocaust denial also has broader roots and many more adherents in the Middle East, which may be part of the point: Questioning the reality of the Holocaust has long been another means of questioning the legitimacy of the state of Israel, which was indeed created by the United Nations in response to the Holocaust, and which has indeed incorporated Holocaust history into its national identity. If the Shiite Iranians are looking for friends, particularly among Sunni Arabs, Holocaust denial isn't a bad way to find them.

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[Kagemusha]

1. Now this is a more accurate description than panicked reports

Iran's President is a bad man, in terms of Western values, but he isn't doing this because he's insane; he's doing this because it's a cold political calculation, as well as indulging in a passion that excites him, like certain eccentric Hollywood actors. It's the cold political calculation part that should have the rest of the world's real attention.

And it's safer than lobbing missiles at Israel.

[everythingsxen]

3. My fear however...

Is that the rhetoric will spill over into lobbing missiles at Israel.

[Wilms]

2. .

Nuremberg Tribunal document L-3 or Exhibit USA-28

"Our strength consists in our speed and in our brutality. Genghis Khan led millions of women and children to slaughter — with premeditation and a happy heart. History sees in him solely the founder of a state. It's a matter of indifference to me what a weak western European civilization will say about me.

I have issued the command — and I'll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad — that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations in readiness — for the present only in the East — with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

- Adolf Hitler

http://www.armenian-genocide.org/hitler.html

Armenia asks Israel to recognize Turkish genocide

Only days before the official commemoration of the 1915 Turkish massacre of 1.5 million Armenians, on Saturday, Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian has called on Israel to officially recognize that there was a genocide.

"There is some discrepancy between their words and their deeds on genocide. Israel has to show a moral authority since we have gone through similar history and experience," he said in an interview.

"Armenians are especially hurt that the Israeli government, for whatever reason, in some ways is lending itself to collaborating in the coverup or non-recognition ," said Richard Hovannisian, a professor of Armenian history at the University of California, Los Angeles. "It is doubly painful in light of the Jewish experience."

http://www15.dht.dk/~2westh/uk/armenia_asks_israel_to_recognize-e.html

[everythingsxen]

4. ..

It seems that quite a few Israelis condemn the Armenian Genocide, however Israel's policy is to not push Turkey on the issue. I doubt that it is that Israel is unsympathetic, I believe it is a pragmatic decision, since if they anger Turkey they lose one of the few countries in the area that is not hostile to them.

[Wilms]

10. ;) n/t

[JCMach1]

5. Ahmadinejad is whacked... If anything, the holocaust

became the catalyzer for the Zionist movement... And yes, violence became part of it...

In a way, the violence in the Middle-East is Hitler's gift to the world, continued.

[everythingsxen]

6. Do not forget..

the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was a friend and supporter of the 3rd Reich. After returning to Jerusalem he began inciting riots and trying his own hand at genocide. One of his minions was Yasser Arafat who later of course founded the PLO and its dozens of splinter organization. Nazi influence in anti-Israel movements is pretty easy to see, from the recycled propaganda to the classic Nazi salute.

[JCMach1]

8. The web of evil that Hitler wove is still being untangled today

:(

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JCMach1]

9. OF course, as long as Ahmadinejad is politically useful

to the Mullahs in Tehran he will remain in power. I have the feeling his time is growing short though.

He is quickly becoming a liability

[eridani]

11. The common feeling in the Middle East that Achmedinajad is milking--

--for all it's worth is quite reasonable. The Holocaust was carried out by Europeans, so why should Middle Easterners have to pay the price for it? What doesn't make sense to me is questioning the obvious facts of the historical record--the basic point stands whether 500,000 or 500 million died.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[geek tragedy]

27. He called it a myth and invited every prominent

pro-Nazi amateur historian on the planet to this conference.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[geek tragedy]

29. The Nazis murdered over 3 Million Polish Jews, genius.

So, the fact that there weren't 6 Million Jews living in Germany in no way casts doubt on the 6 Million figure--which is not a source of controversy amongst sane people (the accepted range is 5-7 Million).

You had better stop defending Holocaust deniers.

[fujiyama]

30. What bullshit

This was not a forum for serious thinkers or scholars....unless you consider David Duke one.

[cali]

13. Factually, you're just wrong

about historians and academics not being disturbed about this repugant little exercise in hate that Ahmadinejad is holding in Iran. Of course, they're not violently up in arms. That's just silly, but Raul Hilberg, author of the seminal work, "The Destruction of European Jewry", is attending the German conference this week, expressly because of his concern with the Iran conference. So are other experts. As for your laudatory comments about Irving (I see you're not even familiar enough with him to know his name), he is most certainly not any kind of serious threat in the field of Holocaust studies. I suggest you start here to learn a wee bit more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving

I won't even touch the rest of your bizarre little post.

[geek tragedy]

20. No, your interpretation is silly and moronic.

David fucking Duke is there telling them that there were no gas chambers.

You're in denial about the Holocaust Deniers.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

23. citing David Duke

does little to support the claim that this is a serious effort at Holocaust denial.
I find Lex's observation quite credible.

[geek tragedy]

25. David Duke, David Irving, Frederick Toben, Robert

Faurisson.

You have no argument, and neither does Lex. You are in denial about Holocaust deniers. Whether that is born of ignorance or malice I cannot say.

[geek tragedy]

26. David Duke, David Irving, Frederick Toben, Robert

Faurisson.

You have no argument, and neither does Lex. You are in denial about Holocaust deniers. Whether that is born of ignorance or malice I cannot say.

[fujiyama]

31. You're wrong

Why else would he have invited a bunch of holocaust deniers to his little get together?

And what the hell do you mean by Irvine being a "serious challenge to the factuality of the matter in history". He, himself has shown he has no respect for the facts, by denying the holocaust.

Your post is fairly typical of leftist veiled antisemitic remarks...by trying to legitimize Ahmed-jad.

Sickening.

[JNelson6563]

14. It's pure politics

But still, seems it would demolish credibility with would-be sympathizers. Millions of Jews "vanished" and this guy's denying the only known/possible fate of them.

Crazy stuff.

Julie

[Clark2008]

15. Oh - he's crazy, all right. Crazy like a fox.

It's playing well on Main Street, or rather Riyadh Street, in the downtown centers of Middle Eastern towns.

It's rhetoric - and effective rhetoric as an answer to American aggression in the Middle East. It has very little to do with Jews or Israel. This the political theater.

[cali]

16. You're wrong.

His conference may be partly about U.S. agression, but it's largely about Israel, and of course it's about anti-semitism, and the stance of the the Supreme Leader and the Guardian Council.

[JNelson6563]

17. It kills many birds with one stone

Lots of attention on the world stage is another result of this conference.

Julie

[HuffleClaw]

18. for the media to even report on it gives it a 'credibility' it doesn't deserve

it IS a joke, and not a good one. that said, i feel the media's coverage of this has more to do with a propaganda campaign against iran (as the bush administrations' latest designated asshole) than any real concern about some nutters denying the holocaust.

[cali]

19. I doubt it. It's not just the U.S,. media

it's being covered extensively in many, many countries. And I don't agree that it's merely a joke. It's a loud statement by the powers that be in Iran. Like it or not, it's news. In Germany they're holding a conference aimed at countering the conference in Tehran. Many historian of the period are speaking out against this faux meeting of "scholars".

[geek tragedy]

21. Iran's president is trying to rehabilitate Hitler's

historical legacy.

I think that merits press coverage.

[donsu]

22. the world is watching - let them give themselves enough rope to hang

themselves

[David Zephyr]

24. K&R.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a sick and dangerous man. Anyone that thinks otherwise is a fool.

[Zhade]

32. Agreed - it's not funny.

Neither is wanting to wage war on an entire country because of its illegitimate leader(s) (as we did in Iraq, and some wish to do in Iran, and no that doesn't mean I'm saying YOU support such an insane idea).

Both are very, very serious.