Monday, December 11, 2006

[holocaust denial] iran kindly hosts conference on השואה

Khaled Kasab Mahameed, a Palestinian lawyer who has established the Arab Institute for Holocaust Research and Education in Nazareth, the Arab world’s first Holocaust museum, learnt from the Iranian Foreign Ministry - which had invited him to speak during a conference that opens in Iran today on whether the Holocaust ever happened - that he would not receive a visa. No reason was given.

Irving was understood to be on the original invitation list to the Tehran conference when Ahmadinejad first proposed the gathering last January but a month later was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in Austria after disputing the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz. Ahmadinejad has described the Holocaust as a myth, calling Israel a “tumour” that should be either “wiped off the map” or moved to Europe or Alaska.

There are two entirely separate issues here:

1] Look, there’s been film footage [I’ve seen it with my own eyes], photographs abound, there were reports by liberating armies, there were eyewitness accounts of this total abomination and descent to bestiality. There is not the least doubt that the holocaust occurred. Hitler and Himmler’s notes confirm it. So what’s with this ridiculous denial? What on earth are they trying to do? And why now, after so many years?

Denial of this nature is either political, psychological or both. To translate it into real-speak, it has to be either evil, insane or both. Calling for Israel to be wiped off the map is not strictly insane – it shows dislike only. But to blindly deny, to refuse to look at the photographic and documentary evidence – this is beyond normal and shows how deeply entrenched in their positions humans can become.

Another example of this is that yesterday, a day with many visitors to this site, I wrote to readers and gave eleven linked sources to look at. There were reader comments on posts further up, there were comments on posts below but on that challenging post – Nil. Nothing. Zilch. Not a sausage. So what hope is there?

2] The second issue is throwing people in prison for this evil insanity. Whatever happened to the Voltaire maxim about defending to the death the right to say something? The same people who are up in arms about Putin restricting freedom of speech happily go along with Irving being thrown into prison. Say something against Putin – you’re incarcerated. Say something against the Holocaust – you’re incarcerated. Same thing in my book.

3 comments:

  1. Holocaust denial is utterly mad but I suppose it whips up a crowd. I think Irving should just be treated as the idiot he is.

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  2. Shoah deniers scarcely deserve to be credited with memebership of the human race, but criminalising that denial gives them the attention they crave, and by saying that an area of history cannot be debated serves to achieve precisely the opposite.

    As a footnote, I've spoken to a Shoah survivor.

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  3. Have you really? I wish you'd tell me what was said? Did it surprise you any? Was it maybe not quite what you'd expected?

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