Holocaust

A conference has opened in Tehran, the Iranian capital, the subject matter of which made my jaw drop.

It is to discuss the Holocaust [the pre-meditated murder of 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945], and whether or not it actually took place. The Iranian president, Mahmood Ahmadinejad, has openly questioned whether the Holocaust actually took place. He has organised the event to "test the West's freedom of speech". Attending the conference are a number of speakers from Europe who have been convicted of Holocaust denial (a crime in many European countries) and defamation of the dead. Holding up this hall of infamy on the part of the United States is David Duke, the Ku Klux Klan white supremacist leader.

Counterbalancing is a British rabbi, who is there to sustain the case for the occurrence of the Holocaust. He stated that although he had lived through the Holocaust, it was in no way a justification for the alleged maltreatment of the Palestinians.

Mr Ahmedinajad is a virulent opponent of the state of Israel, and is on record as calling for its destruction.

I have written about the Iranian president before, and in less than glowing terms. As a European, I find it unacceptable for any head of state to deny the Holocaust. However, I'll step over my disgust to try to discover the reasoning behind Mr Ahmadinejad's tirades.

He has recently published a long-winded letter to the American people on his blog, in an entry dated 28 November 2006. When you visit the site, click on [English] to switch over. I have to commend him for allowing comments like "You're an idiot" to appear on the blog.

Looking at the vexed question of Palestine, it's impossible to apportion blame on just the one party. The Palestinians were kicked off their land in 1948, following a 45-year insurrection by militant Jewish groups. In actual fact, it is necessary to go even further back, to the 11th and 12th century Crusades, when European knights would sail across to the Levant to re-occupy the Holy Land.
Palestine was a British protectorate, until 1948, when the State of Israel was proclaimed. It occupied territory, previously held by Palestinian Arabs, both Muslims and Christian-allied faiths. Incoming Jews, escaping the horrors of Nazi occupation in the Europe of the early 1940s kicked resident Palestinians out of home and hearth, to be couped up in 'refugee camps', which remained in situ for decades.

The Jewish state, strongly backed by sponsors in the USA, flourished, but was always on the defensive against its hostile Arab neighbours. Having dealt a few bloody noses to Syria, Jordan and Egypt in 1967 and 1973, the offensive shifted to a guerilla warfare from southern Lebanon and the Gaza strip. Although there is a Palestinian authority, it is in a fatal stranglehold by the Israelis, and will never be able to exercise real power in controlling extremist groups in its midst.

The Iranian president claims to champion the Palestinian cause, and the gross mismanagement of the Palestinian question over the decades has given airtime to extreme thinkers like Mr Ahmadinejad. Causing offense isn't going to help.

Ideally, but perhaps I'm too naive (sigh), you'd expect people to shut up the hotheads, sit around the table and thrash out a solution. I am by nature favourably inclined towards the Israelis, although I clearly see what wrong is at work in the area, and the Israelis carry as much blame as everybody else.

Tags: iran holocaust conference