Matthias Küntzel, whom we’ve cited previously regarding an interesting TNR article, addresses a weird spectacle even by the standards of public Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad personally brought to a close the infamous Holocaust deniers’ conference in Tehran. A strange parade of speakers had passed across the podium: former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, the nutty followers of the anti-Zionist Jewish sect Neturei Karta, and officials of the neo-Nazi German National party, along with the familiar handful of professional Holocaust deniers. Frederick Töben had delivered a lecture entitled “The Holocaust–A Murder Weapon.” Frenchman Robert Faurisson had called the Holocaust a “fairy tale,” while his American colleague Veronica Clark had explained that “the Jews made money in Auschwitz.” A professor named McNally had declared that to regard the Holocaust as a fact is as ludicrous as believing in “magicians and witches.”…

in December 2001, former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani first boasted that “the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything,” whereas the damage to the Islamic world of a potential retaliatory nuclear attack could be limited: “It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.” While the Islamic world could sacrifice hundreds of thousands of “martyrs” in an Israeli retaliatory strike without disappearing — so goes Rafsanjani’s argument — Israel would be history after the first bomb.

It is precisely this suicidal outlook that distinguishes the Iranian nuclear weapons program from those of all other countries and makes it uniquely dangerous. As long ago as 1980, Khomeini put it this way: “We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.”

Anyone inclined to dismiss the significance of such statements might want to consider the proclamation made by Mohammad Hassan Rahimian, representative of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who stands even higher in the Iranian hierarchy than Ahmadinejad. A few months ago, on November 16, 2006, Rahimian explained: “The Jew” — not the Zionist, note, but the Jew — “is the most obstinate enemy of the devout. And the main war will determine the destiny of mankind…The reappearance of the Twelfth Imam will lead to a war between Israel and the Shia.”

Though the parade of misfits at the Teheran conference looks strange to Western eyes, Holocaust denial seems an eminently sensible strategy for the Iranian theocrats. Not only does it satisfy the conspiratorial bent of their thinking (those 2000 Zionists who control the world), but the low cost solution to making Palestine an entirely Muslim land is to get the Israelis repatriated to Europe. Holocaust denial is the Daily Double for European repatriation. As Ahmadinejad says all the time, if the Holocaust happened, it is the European countries, not Palestine, that should pay the price. If the Holocaust was a ruse, then equally Israel should disappear.

You may disagree with Ahmadinejad, but his logic is not without a rationale. It continues to be the height of folly to breezily dismiss the statements of the Iranian regime as some form of meaningless political rhetoric for domestic consumption.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 11th, 2007 at 10:57 am and is filed under General, Iran, Religion, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.