Holocaust documents released

Recently Recliner Commentaries posted The "Logic" of Iran's Holocaust Denial. New information about the Holocaust has just been released:

"For the first time, secrets of the Nazi Holocaust that have been hidden away for more than 60 years are finally being made available to the public. We’re not talking about a missing filing cabinet - we’re talking about thousands of filing cabinets, holding 50 million pages. It's Hitler’s secret archive."

Read the entire article at CBS news. Sounds like 50 million more reasons to call Ahmadinejad and his Holocaust deniers evil idiots!

The “logic” of Iran’s Holocaust denial

The following are excerpts from an excellent speech (December 14) by Yigal Carmon, founder and president of the Middle East Media Research Institute. If you have time, please read the entire speech at the MEMRI website. Otherwise, read the excerpts below:

"When we, at The Middle East Media Research Institute, collect and analyze the statements made by Ahmadinejad and others in the Iranian regime, we can distinguish two major goals, both of which lead to the same conclusion: the Iranian regime's Holocaust denial is not a manifestation of irrational hatred, but a premeditated and cold-blooded instrument to achieve its goals."

"The first of these goals is the attempt to deny any legitimacy to the creation and continued existence of the State of Israel as a safe haven for the Jews after the Holocaust. In order to achieve this goal, he proclaims that no Holocaust occurred, and that if Jews were indeed harmed in World War II - a claim that requires thorough and "objective" research - this was no different than the experience of others in World War II. At any rate, Ahmadinejad and other top Iranian officials claim that this "myth" cannot justify the establishment of Israel in Palestine."

"The second goal is - as often proclaimed by Ahmadinejad - to "wipe Israel off the map." His Holocaust denial is therefore planned, intentional, and premeditated. He is aware that as long as the world remembers the Holocaust, it will resist any new attempt to perpetrate another genocide against the Jews."

"In order for Ahmadinejad to bring his plans to fruition, however, he has to demonize the Jews and the State of Israel. Demonization is a necessary precondition for genocide. As we well know, Hitler first engaged in a major campaign of demonization of the Jews before actually murdering them en masse. Ahmadinejad and the Iranian regime are taking the same path, and are conducting a similar virulent, antisemitic campaign of demonization."

"To this end, Iranian state-controlled television produces various TV series dedicated to the demonization of Jews. These include classic blood libels, depicting Jews as using the blood of non-Jewish children to bake their Passover matzos, and as kidnapping non-Jewish children to steal their body parts. Jews are reduced to sub-human levels, depicted as pigs and apes. They are accused of persecuting the Prophet Muhammad in voodoo ritualistic scenes, and as tormenting a historic figure reminiscent of Jesus on the Cross. All these TV series exist alongside others that deny the Holocaust."

"However, it is not possible to demonize a people as long as it is viewed as a victim of the Holocaust. Therefore, as long as the Jews are perceived as victims of the Holocaust, this demonization cannot take root. Holocaust denial is thus vital, in order to wipe out the image of the Jews as victims."

"In essence, the speech made by Ahmadinejad at the Holocaust denial conference best illustrates the role of Holocaust denial in the ideology and strategy of the Iranian regime. He begins his speech by addressing the Holocaust deniers participating in the conference: 'Iran is your home, and here you can express your opinions freely, in a friendly manner and in a free atmosphere.' Then, without batting an eyelid, he adds: 'The life-curve of the Zionist regime has begun its descent, and it is now on a downward slope towards its fall… I tell you now… the Zionist regime will be wiped out, and humanity will be liberated."

Holocaust denial: the face of Evil

Today was the end of Iran’s conference on the Holocaust. I agree completely with a TimesOnline article in which the author writes:

"There can be little as nauseating as the hypocrisy coming from Iran over the conference it has organised on the Holocaust. With spurious objectivity and mendacious intent, Manouchehr Mottaki, the Foreign Minister, said that the aim was not to deny or confirm the Nazi killing of six million Jews, but to create an opportunity for thinkers “who cannot express their views freely in Europe about the Holocaust."

As a CBC article reports, "Ahmadinejad has repeatedly expressed anti-Semitic opinions, said he didn't believe in the well-documented genocide of millions of Jews during the Second World War and has called for the state of Israel to be 'wiped off the map.' He has also claimed the Holocaust was used to justify the creation of Israel at the cost of Palestinian lands, a view popular among hard-line Iranians."

Similar male-bovine-excrement poured forth from the Iranian president’s mouth at the end of the conference today.

Some excerpts from Jerusalem Post article by Robert Rozett provide a more personal perspective on the whole issue. Mr. Rozett writes:

"I am a scholar of the history of the Holocaust, and I am also a child and grandchild of Holocaust survivors. My father suffered cold, hunger, disease, despair and gratuitous cruelty as a Jewish slave laborer attached to the Hungarian army during World War II. Some 80 percent of the men who served in units similar to his did not return home from the Eastern Front, to which they were sent simply because they were Jews."

"My grandmother miraculously survived Auschwitz, a labor camp in Trautenau, and the horrible last weeks of the war in Bergen-Belsen, where tens of thousands of camp inmates were dumped by the Nazis and unceremoniously left to die of starvation and typhus."

"WORDS ARE inadequate to express the feeling of insult, sacrilege and anger that I feel when Ahmadinejad and his ilk call this history into question. It is my family's history, the history of my people, and the shared history of much of the world. It is also the history that my colleagues and I at Yad Vashem can verify and recount in great detail, based on the 110,000 published titles and the 70 million pages of documentation in our collection, and the personal records of a sizable percentage of the individual Jews who were murdered."

"DENYING and ridiculing the Holocaust and refusing to comply with international conventions regarding developing nuclear capabilities are merely expressions of the same arrogance, born of ignorance. Ahmadinejad and his crew have amply demonstrated that they will not be swayed by reasonable argument, but will do whatever they want, regardless of the price for mankind."

"The leaders of the world have yet to find a way to deal with the threat Ahmadinejad poses. The question is: Since words have proven futile, will the world take concerted action before it is too late?"

Make no mistake about it, when we look into the face of Holocaust denial we are looking in to the face of remarkable stupidity or pure Evil, the likes of which we have not seen since the days of Adolf Hitler. And unless the world acts decisively, the Iranian incarnation of Evil may end up with nuclear weapons.