Iran Hosts Large Meeting of Holocaust Deniers

[Amianthus]

by Mike Shuster

All Things Considered, December 11, 2006
Iran is hosting a two-day conference that brings together Holocaust deniers and foes of Israel from around the world.

Sparked by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's frequent challenges to the widely held history of the Holocaust, the conference includes former Ku Klux Klan member David Duke, as well as ultra-Orthodox Jews who oppose the Zionist movement that created modern Israel.

Iranian leaders say the "Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision" conference, organized by Iran's Foreign Ministry, displays the country's commitment to intellectual freedom, in contrast to some European nations that have jailed Holocaust deniers.

From Syria to Australia, Morocco to Malaysia, most participants share a single passion: a desire to prove that the Holocaust never happened.

One participant from France said that there is no proof of the mass killings. Another, from Australia, was asked what he thought about the Holocaust. He said simply, "It's a lie."

The Iranians themselves were weighing their words a bit more carefully. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki opened the conference by declaring that the meeting is meant neither to deny or to prove the Holocaust took place.

For Iran, the conference seems to have a political goal: to raise questions about the Holocaust in order to challenge the historical reasons for establishing the state of Israel in 1947.

Since President Ahmadinejad's election last year, Iran's government has sought to portray itself as the Muslim world's pre-eminent supporter of the Palestinian struggle against Israel.
Article

[Amianthus]

by Emily Harris

All Things Considered, December 11, 2006
After World War II, Germany took on a special responsibility not only to remember the Holocaust, but to counter those who question its scope. This is, in large part, the "official history" that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the world is not free to question.

Monday, Germany's Federal Office for Civic Education puts on a conference specifically designed to counter the Holocaust conference in Tehran -- and to explore ties or shared ideology between those considered neo-Nazis in Europe and views such as Ahmadinejad's, that the Holocaust has been exaggerated.
Article

[kimba1]

I remember a few years back somebody saying the worst those camps did was make jews sweep floors as punishment.
does this mean all those physical evidence is gone??
does the museum contain those items??

[domer]

This is a very alarming event. Beyond cavil, of course, the Holocaust has more evidentiary pedigree than virtually any other movement in the history of mankind. Put to a fair intellectual test in a suitable venue, the Holocaust's actuality would be conclusively proven. The problem does not lie with the evidence, but with the minds of the observers. Changing the minds of many of those individuals would be like prying the prize delusion away from a decompensated schizophrenic: most likely beyond hope even if you had the time. So, the matter must be addressed on a political level: circumscribe the arenas where these delusions can play. Coupled with the blatant anti-Semitism -- hatred -- that gives rise to these ideations, an omnibus "convention" to reinforce one's preconceptions is the first step down a political path -- into the realm of actions rather than ideas -- that is deeply disturbing.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Ahmedinejad must be doing this to jerk Juniorbush's chain.

The Holocaust has already passed into what can only be called "myth", which does not mean something untrue, but something legendary and instructional. The main less of the Holocaust is for people to be aware when something like it is about to happen and do what is necessary to avoid it.

Being as there has been a lesser Holocaust of sort in Cambodia and another in Rwanda and it seems another in progress in Somalia, this message seems not to be getting through all that well.

There is no practical reason for Iran to do this: it's all propaganda, and will diminish sympathy for Iran in the long run.

[Lanya]

I found out a couple of years ago that there were some kids I grew up with who believed that crap.

Go to Stormfront and get a shock.  At least I was shocked; I didn't know anyone here believed that.  Didn't our fathers or grandfathers fight the Nazis?  Didnt' we know what the Nazis did?