Holocaust Deniers and Skeptics Gather in Iran

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TEHRAN, Dec. 11 — Holocaust deniers and skeptics from around the world gathered at a government-sponsored conference here today to discuss their theories about whether six million Jews were indeed killed by the Nazis during World War II and whether gas chambers existed.

In a speech opening the two-day conference, Rasoul Mousavi, head of the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s Institute for Political and International Studies, which organized the event, said it was an opportunity for scholars to discuss the subject “away from Western taboos and the restriction imposed on them in Europe.”

The foreign ministry had said that 67 foreign researchers from 30 countries were scheduled to take part. Among those speaking today are David Duke, the American white-supremacist politician and former Ku Klux Klan leader, and Georges Thiel, a French writer who has been prosecuted in France over his denials of the Holocaust.

Mr. Duke’s remarks late this afternoon are expected to assert that no gas chambers or extermination camps were actually built during the war, on the ground that killing Jews that way would have been much too bothersome and expensive when the Nazis could have used much simpler methods, according to an advance summary of his speech published by the institute.

“Depicting Jews as the overwhelming victims of the Holocaust gave the moral high ground to the Allies as victors of the war, and allowed Jews to establish a state on the occupied land of Palestine,” Mr. Duke’s paper says, according to the summary.

One of the first scheduled speakers, Robert Faurisson of France, also called the Holocaust a myth created to justify the occupation of Palestine.

The conference is being held at the behest of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who likewise called the Holocaust a myth last year, and repeated a well-known slogan from the early days of the 1979 revolution in Iran, “Israel must be wiped off the map.” He has spoken several times since then about a need to establish whether the Holocaust actually happened.

Most of the speakers at the conference today praised Mr. Ahmadinejad’s comments.

Bendikt Frings, 48, a psychologist from Germany, said he believed Mr. Ahmadinejad was “an honest direct man,” and said he had come to the conference to thank him for what he had initiated.

“We are forbidden to have such a conference in Germany,” he said. “ All my childhood, we waited for something like this.”

Toben Feredrick, from Australia, said Mr. Ahmadinejad has opened an issue “which is morally and intellectually crippling the Western society.”

“People are imprisoned in Germany for denying the Holocaust,” he added.

Mr. Feredrick said he was jailed for six months in 1999 because of his ideas, and that a court in Germany has ordered him arrested if he speaks out publicly again denying that the Holocaust took place.

Other Western “revisionists” presented what they called new facts about the Holocaust at the conference, which also attracted attendees from some ultra-Orthodox Jews belonging to anti-Zionist sects that reject the state of Israel. One participant wearing the traditional long black coat and hat of such groups wore a badge saying: “A Jew, not a Zionist.”

It was not entirely clear how the lineup of speakers at the conference was set. The Institute’s website had invited scholars and researchers to submit papers in advance for consideration, but revealed little about how they were evaluated. The Iranian foreign ministry also provided little information about participants, saying that it feared they would be prosecuted by their home countries.

The conference included an exhibition today of various photos, posters and other material meant to contradict the accepted version of events, that the Nazis murdered millions of Jews and other “undesirables” in death camps during the war. New captions in Persian on some familiar photos of corpses at the camps argued that they were victims of typhus, not the German state.

Anti-Zionist literature, including a 2004 book by the American author Michael Collins Piper, about Zionist influence in America, was offered for sale to visitors at the conference. So, apparently, was a video recording of 12 Holocaust survivors telling their stories, suggesting that the views represented at the conference may not have been entirely one-sided.

The conference prompted outrage in the West. The German government summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires in Berlin to complain. The French Foreign Minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, warned that the conference would be strongly condemned if it propagated claims denying the Holocaust.

Iran also organized an exhibition last summer of cartoons about the Holocaust, which outraged Jews inside Iran and out.

Iranian Jewish leaders reacted angrily to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust-denying comments last year, issuing a statement saying that his words were spreading fear among Jews in Iran.

“We consider the Holocaust as a fact and a disgrace for humanity,” Haround Yashayai, a leading voice among Iranian Jews, said today. “We cannot say that such a conference cannot be held here. We have condemned similar events in the past, and see no reason to condemn it again.”

[ACCtuary]

You posted it. What is your opinion of it? How does this affect your opinion of Iran's ambitions in the middle east?

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In the name "Freedom of Speech":

Iran's foreign minister has rejected criticism of a two-day conference being held in Iran to examine whether the Holocaust actually happened.

Manouchehr Mottaki told participants the event did not seek to confirm or deny the Holocaust, but rather to allow people to "express their views freely".

Israel's prime minister has condemned the gathering as "a sick phenomenon".

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has questioned the scale of the Holocaust, in which six million Jews died.

According to the foreign ministry in Tehran, 67 researchers from 30 countries are attending the conference in Iran, which is home to 25,000 Jews.

Participants include a number of well-known "revisionist" Western academics. American David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, is to present a paper.

But a number of Jewish rabbis are also there. One, British Rabbi Ahron Cohen, said he had come to the conference to put the "Orthodox Jewish viewpoint" across.

"We certainly say there was a Holocaust, we lived through the Holocaust. But in no way can it be used as a justification for perpetrating unjust acts against the Palestinians," he said.

'Express views freely'

Opening the conference, Mr Mottaki said the aim of the conference was "not to deny or confirm the Holocaust".

"Its main aim is to create an opportunity for thinkers who cannot express their views freely in Europe about the Holocaust," he said.

Mr Mottaki dismissed foreign criticism as "predictable", telling delegates there was "no logical reason" to oppose the conference.

In a recorded address broadcast to the nation, President Ahmadinejad questioned why the West would not allow "any investigation" into the Holocaust.

Mr Ahmadinejad has repeatedly downplayed the extent of the Holocaust, describing it as a myth used to justify the existence of Israel and oppression of the Palestinians. He has called for Israel to be dismantled.

But in a number of European countries - including Germany, Austria and France - it is illegal to deny the Holocaust. An Austrian court jailed Briton David Irving for three years on charges of Holocaust denial.

'Negative impression'

Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert condemned the conference as "a sick phenomenon that shows the depths of hatred of the fundamentalist Iranian regime".

Norbert Lammert, president of the German parliament, sent a letter to Mr Ahmadinejad criticising the event.

Members of a Jewish group listen to the conference speeches
Some Jewish rabbis are at the conference to put their views across
"I condemn any attempt to offer anti-Semitic propaganda a public forum under the pretext of scientific freedom and objectivity," he wrote.

A number of prominent Holocaust historians are attending a rival gathering taking place in Berlin, backed by the German government, in protest at the Tehran conference.

The US state department last week described the Iranian event as "yet another disgraceful act on this particular subject by the regime in Tehran".

Iran knows this conference is going to cause outrage abroad but it says it wants to test the limits of the West's commitment to freedom of speech, says the BBC's correspondent in Tehran, Frances Harrison.

Iran is drawing a parallel with the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, which provoked outrage in the Islamic world but were defended by Western liberals, she says.

Iran's one Jewish MP, Morris Motamed, told the BBC he opposed the conference.

"Holding this conference after having a competition of cartoons about the Holocaust has put a lot of pressure on Jews all over the world and it can give nations and governments a very negative impression of Iran," he said.

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Originally Posted by ACCtuary

You posted it. What is your opinion of it? How does this affect your opinion of Iran's ambitions in the middle east?

I don't have a very positive opinion of Iran's ambitions in the middle east (or that of most Muslim countries' in general).

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BTW, I'm yet to find any conclusive evidence that Ahmedinutjob is an antiSemite.

[2pac Shakur]

Originally Posted by Sold-out

I don't have a very positive opinion of Iran's ambitions in the middle east (or that of most Muslim countries' in general).

They probably feel that way about us.

[The Drunken Actuary]

Originally Posted by 2pac Shakur

They probably feel that way about us.

Yeah, but see, there's this one thing that's impotent i mean important here I mean impotent important and that is that they, and i mean THEY with a capital T-H-E-Y hate freedom. Not just hate, but HATE with a capital H-A-T-E. Seriously.

Thanks!

[Jack]

http://www.actuarialoutpost.com/actu...ad.php?t=98148

[SamTheEagle]

Originally Posted by Sold-out

BTW, I'm yet to find any conclusive evidence that Ahmedinutjob is an antiSemite.

[The Diabolical Biz Markie]

I reserve judgment until 2pac gets back from the conference and tells us how it went.