Author Topic: What is the significance of the Holocaust?  (Read 9110 times)

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Plane

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What is the significance of the Holocaust?
« on: September 23, 2006, 03:40:36 AM »
Iranian leader defends controversial stands
Thu. 21 Sep 2006
Washington Post: In a feisty session with leading foreign policy experts, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defiantly stuck to his hard-line positions on issues including Iran's nuclear program and a need for further study to confirm the Holocaust.
 
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/index.php?storytopic=4

Plane

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Re: What is the significance of the Holocaust?
« Reply #1 on: September 23, 2006, 03:50:41 AM »
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8714





 Ahmadinejad proposed that the United States shut down its nuclear fuel system and that Iran in five years would send its fuel at a 50 percent discount.


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Hmmmmmmm...........


We might ought to take this deal.

A great deal of the radioactive contaminated waste produced by the power industry is from the enrichment process.

If we are buying it already made this much of the headache would be someone eleses business.

If we were buying the fuel from Iran and selling the waste to France we could use Yucca mountain for hotels .

Plane

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Re: What is the significance of the Holocaust?
« Reply #2 on: September 23, 2006, 03:59:27 AM »
An exhibit of cartoons on the Holocaust in Tehran has attracted few Iranians spectators.

Three weeks after the works went on display, only about 50 people a day are visiting the exhibit, The Independent reports. When it first opened, the exhibit attracted fewer than 300 daily visitors.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested a Holocaust cartoon contest as a response to cartoons published last year by a Danish newspaper on Mohammed, which caused an uproar in the Muslim world.

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8643



To Iran and many other Muslim or Arab concerns the impact of the Holocaust has been Israel ,is the denial of the Holocaust a denial of Israels right to exist and a denial of its reason to exist?


Jews were already returning to Israel before the war, if there had been no huge war and no geonocidal campaign against the Jews of Europe  would Israel have come to be anyhow?

Would a more gradual introduction of Israel into existance have been more tolerable?

Michael Tee

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Re: What is the significance of the Holocaust?
« Reply #3 on: September 23, 2006, 10:56:42 PM »
I think it's pretty sad that people would question the Holocaust, and sadder still that anyone would sponsor a Holocaust cartoon contest with the object of mocking the incredible suffering of the victims. 

But if I were to think of the worst features of Iran today, Holocaust mockery would be far from the top of my list - - I'd think of the 16-year-old girl personally hanged by the judge himself because of her "sharp tongue," and I'd think of Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi tortured to death in a Teheran jail, and I'd think of young Bahai women raped, tortured and murdered in prison because they refused to give up their faith.  That trumps Holocaust mockery (which is only a misguided opinion or state of mind) any time.

Holocaust mockers and deniers are found all over the world.  In Iran, Canada, Germany, and yes in the U.S.A. as well, as you probably know.  Neo-Nazis now play Austrian-designed computer games like KZ Lager whose object is to see which player can round up and gas the greatest number of Jews.  It's an inevitable consequence of freedom of speech, and I suppose we should all be glad that we live in a world where even such opinions are tolerated.  Iran did not invent anti-Semitism, the Holocaust or the denial of the Holocaust, and I think as long as there are dedicated scholars and researchers who continue to document the Holocaust, there should be no problem with anyone like Ahmedinejad who calls for more research into the subject.  It is definitely a fit subject for research, the lessons of which are applicable to a wide variety of situations.

Plane

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Re: What is the significance of the Holocaust?
« Reply #4 on: September 23, 2006, 11:45:11 PM »
Well said T.

Do you see any causal relationship between the Holocaust and the condition of Israel?

Michael Tee

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Re: What is the significance of the Holocaust?
« Reply #5 on: September 24, 2006, 12:01:27 AM »
<<Well said T.>>

Thanks, plane.

<<Do you see any causal relationship between the Holocaust and the condition of Israel? >>

Did you mean the creation of Israel?  Absolutely.  No Holocaust, no Israel.
 
 
 

Plane

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Re: What is the significance of the Holocaust?
« Reply #6 on: September 24, 2006, 12:04:35 AM »
Israel was already a project of the Zionists and people like Balfor and Ben Girdion before the war.


But in your opinoin it would have never have amounted to anything without the Holocaust?



Could there not have been a slower and more peacefull settlement that would produce the same thing but with less sudden displacement of others?

Michael Tee

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Re: What is the significance of the Holocaust?
« Reply #7 on: September 24, 2006, 01:30:06 AM »
<<Could there not have been a slower and more peacefull settlement that would produce the same thing but with less sudden displacement of others?>>

Definitely.  It could have been done with more justice and sensitivity, much more gradually.  There was Arab opposition to the project, sometimes violent opposition, but it wasn't universal and it's not unrealistic to think it might have been managed. 

The politics of the region even then were complex.  Britain and France were the colonial occupiers, with vast holdings in the region.  Their enemy was Germany.  The Zionists, who were almost all secular Jews, based their claim to the land primarily upon a concession from the British Government, the Balfour Declaration.  It was inevitable that they would be seen by the locals as agents of the colonial powers, particularly since their enemy was also Germany, even though the Zionists were (before and after the actual hostilities of WWII) killing British soldiers who were trying to strike a neutral course between the Jews and the Palestinians.   Inevitably, there were local nationalists throughout the region who believed that Germany was winning the war (during its early years) and would be their best bet for the future.  The local rulers, almost all of whom were installed by either the British or the French, would be naturally inclined to favour the cause of their colonial patrons.  Some of the native ruling class, including liberal professionals and academics, believed that the Jews were a modernizing force in the region and would be instrumental in bringing the Arab world into the 20th Century.  For the Palestinian occupants of the land, many of whom were being turfed out after the land was sold out from under their feet by absentee landowners in Beirut, Cairo, Damascus  and Istanbul, the Jews were obviously the enemy, and the enemy of their enemy (Germany) was naturally their friend.

The upshot was that there were various currents and factions in the Arab and Palestinian populations, which could have been exploited for alliances and assistance.  This never happened.

Israel was never an attractive destination for Western European or North American Jews before the War.  But the victims of the Holocaust had no options.  They simply no longer wanted to live in Europe.  More, they felt in their bones, they COULDN'T live in Europe.  This was strictly because of the Holocaust.  They were desperate to leave Europe.  It was literally the graveyard of their families.

The other effect of the Holocaust was less obvious.  It destroyed many Jews' faith in human nature.  They felt that no one gave a shit whether they lived or died, and those were the benevolent ones.  Others still actively wished them dead.  As that attitude took hold, the corollary quickly developed - - "Fuck the world, they stood by and watched what happened to us."  This led to a lack of empathy for the Arabs, an inability to see them as human beings with understandable problems and concerns, people who had to be reasoned with, compromised with, placated.  The Jews had come out alive where most of their relatives had perished in a kill-or-be-killed world and their attitudes were irrevocably altered by the experience.  The new attitude was not one that was focused upon building a lasting peace with their neighbours.

Plane

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Re: What is the significance of the Holocaust?
« Reply #8 on: September 24, 2006, 07:38:33 PM »
   Is there no way to there form here?

    An Israel that was a good neighbor or was even intermingled with Arabs who were full citizens doesn't seem impossible from here where have learned to get along with worse disimularity.

    But it seems very hard after a close look at the trends of Israeli and Arab leadership , the Israelis on their part will alternately elect a hawk then a dove because there is a strong faction for strength and a strong faction for reconcilliation.

     Yet the doves of Egypt and Israel have been shot by their own countrymen who fear peace worse than death.

_JS

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Re: What is the significance of the Holocaust?
« Reply #9 on: September 25, 2006, 11:31:15 AM »
It is interesting to note that we look at Iran in horror (and rightly so) when they refute the holocaust. It is actually a crime in many European countries and is a European Union crime as well to refute that the Holocaust ever took place. There were many who suffered in the chambers of the Nazi Death camps, some who rarely get mentioned and some who were devestated (especially the European Jewish communities). The Germans weren't alone in their anti-semitism, nor in their war crimes of rounding up people for certain death.

What is rarely expressed is that there were other atrocities, for which refutation is common, yet no condemnation is afforded. It is one of those bizarre double standards. A good example is the Rape of Nanking and the pillaging and rape of the Korean people by the Japanese Imperial military. There is little doubt that both events took place. In fact, Nanking was well-documented by both major Chinese factions (nationalists and Communists) as well as foreign reporters, including Americans and Brits. Yet, Japanese professors who taught it were punished. History books made no mention of it (or the rape of Korea) and the American government and American people rarely spoke against it.

Imagine Germany doing the same thing?

The other good example is the Ottoman Turk genocide of the Armenian people, for which only academic pressure has been placed on Turkey to even acknowledge and they still do not. In fact, Turkish professors still maintain that the Ottoman military attempted to "save" the Armenians but that the Allied powers prevented them from doing so. Due to Turkey's strategic importance and non-Islamist government there is little pressure on them to even acknowledge the genocide ever took place.

So, I find a lot of people's ire about Iran's comments simply false indignation only to bolster support for a very undemocratic Israeli regime. Or, simply to throw mud at the Iranians, and using the holocaust as a means to an end.

Typical politics of the self-interested.
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BT

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Re: What is the significance of the Holocaust?
« Reply #10 on: September 25, 2006, 11:45:15 AM »
Interesting and well written reminders of other atrocities and subsequent denials.

However, i don't see where these examples allow for a dismissal or minimization of current Iranian rhetoric.

There is a reason for the mantra of "Never Forget".

_JS

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Re: What is the significance of the Holocaust?
« Reply #11 on: September 25, 2006, 12:03:09 PM »
Yes, but just as the President of Iran uses the holocaust to meet his own political ends. I suggest that many others use the holocaust, or false indignation surrounding the holocaust to meet their own political ends.

How many people here were actively discussing or reading about the holocaust before the Iranian President spoke about it? Before the term "Islamofascist" came into the lexicon? Before the Israeli/Lebanese war?

Just rhetorical questions that require no answer, but I suggest that using the holocaust as a political tool in such a manner, is little better than the manner in which the Iranian President uses it.
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BT

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Re: What is the significance of the Holocaust?
« Reply #12 on: September 25, 2006, 03:43:52 PM »
Quote
JS says: How many people here were actively discussing or reading about the holocaust before the Iranian President spoke about it? Before the term "Islamofascist" came into the lexicon? Before the Israeli/Lebanese war?

Thinking back through the histories of the Cafe, PIC and now 3DHS i would feel comfortable stating that holocaust deniers were given short shrift every time the subject came up, including the tie in to Gibson for the sins of his father.

I don't think this tangent is anything new.