Holocaust denial conference. There are those who object
Photo: AFP
Ahmadinejad. 'Gained support of horde'
Photo: AP
Iranian: How do we benefit from Holocaust denial?
Lone voices in Iran, Arab world slam Shoah denial conference which took place in Tehran: 'It doesn’t matter if Nazis murdered six million or six people. He who kills one soul kills an entire world'
On the same week when Arab academics attended the Holocaust denial conference in Tehran, there were several lone voices that came out against it, in Iran and in the Arab world.
"How do we benefit from Holocaust denial?" Iranian reformist Abbas Abadi wrote in an article published in an Iranian newspaper.
"Does this denial contribute to the lack of legitimacy for Israel's crimes against the Palestinians? Doesn’t this denial only contribute to the interest of Hitler and the Nazis?
Participants of Tehran conference (Photo: AP)
"Even if I were a Palestinian, there is no better way to confront Israel's crimes than condemning the Holocaust and taking every opportunity to mention it. I don’t remember that in all the years that passed (before Ahmadinejad's rule) an Iranian official denied the Holocaust, as the Iranians did not need to deny the Holocaust in order to condemn Israel's crimes."
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A clearer stance was voiced by Adel Darwish in an article published Saturday in the London-based Arabic-language daily al-Sharq al-Awsat.
Under the title "Holocaust: What danger do Muslims face for recognizing it?" Darwish did not hesitate to voice firm positions.
According to him, "Whether the number of Jews and other killed in the Nazi Holocaust and in the gas chambers in Auschwitz – which is documented in pictures taken by the allies and the Red Army at the end of the war – was six million or six people, it is still a crime."
"Minimizing the number (which is done by neo-Nazis and many Holocaust deniers) does not minimize the extent of their terrible crimes, as all religions will surely agree that he who kills one soul kills an entire world, and he who saves one soul saves an entire world," Darwish wrote.
"The extent of abomination in the Nazis' crimes is different than any other war crime in history. The Nazis' crimes cannot be compared to a violation of the Geneva Convention or harming civilians deliberately or accidentally.
'People of hatred and evil'
"The crimes of the Holocaust are manifested in the fact that it was a meticulous planning of an organized strategy which was implemented in complete precision, in accordance with the famous German organization skills, in order to bring about a collective and personal destruction under the banner 'the final solution for the Jewish problem,' 'cleansing the Aryan race' or 'cleaning the Third Reich's empire,'" Darwish added."Many of Ahmadinejad's guests, who came from 30 different countries, should not only study the court rulings of the Nuremberg Trials, but should also think about the legal logic which turned the Holocaust into a one-of-a-kind crime.
"The simple question is: Are those who committed these crimes not considered murderers if they killed six people and not sixty? Are they considered murderers if they killed one person or six million victims?
"The extreme Iranian president may have achieved propagandic gains among the horde in the satellite channels spreading hatred. But alongside the diplomatic damage he caused to his country in an embarrassing timing to its foreign policy, he caused the Muslims even greater damage, as he created a diplomatic and cultural atmosphere which created feelings of hatred… and made false diplomatic claims.
"Ahmadinejad and the others claimed that it was only a convention for a political debate examining the West's openness to the freedom of speech. Are the people of hatred and evil and the politicians invited researchers or historians?
