Holocaust deniers gather in Iran for 'scientific' conference
Pastor Dale Morgan
Holocaust deniers gather in Iran for 'scientific' conference*
· Visitors include ex-KKK chief and radical rabbis
· Israel calls for action against 'sick phenomenon'
Robert Tait in Tehran
Tuesday December 12, 2006
The Guardian
Rabbi Moishe Arye Friedman, left, from Austria, give his business card
to a Muslim clergyman, as Rabbi Ahron Cohen from England, looks on, at
the Holocaust conference in Tehran, Iran
Rabbi Moishe Arye Friedman, left, from Austria, give his business card
to a Muslim clergyman, as Rabbi Ahron Cohen from England, looks on, at
the Holocaust conference in Tehran, Iran. Photo: Vahid Salemi/AP
An international cast of established Holocaust deniers and implacable
foes of Israel were given an open forum by Iran yesterday to support
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's contention that the murder of six million Jews by
the Nazis was a "myth".
The foreign ministry opened a two-day conference, Review of the
Holocaust: Global Vision - which senior officials portrayed as
scientific scholarship but which Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister,
denounced as a "sick phenomenon". Visiting Berlin, Mr Olmert urged
Germany to sever diplomatic ties with Iran.
Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, insisted the event was
necessary to counter an alleged lack of free speech in the west about
the Holocaust, which Iranian officials argue is used to justify Israel's
oppression of the Palestinians.
"Today people who claim to be against Nazism have a record of
colonialism and racism," he said. "The objective for organising this
conference is to create an atmosphere to raise various opinions about a
historical issue. We are not seeking to deny or prove the Holocaust."
But pretensions to scholastic objectivity were undermined by the
background of some among the 67 foreign visitors from 30 countries,
including Britain. They included David Duke, a former imperial wizard of
the Ku Klux Klan; Robert Faurisson, a French lecturer stripped of his
academic tenure for his anti-Holocaust opinions; and Michele Renouf, a
London-based associate of the British author David Irving. Irving is
currently serving a jail sentence for Holocaust denial in Austria.
A group of radical anti-Zionist rabbis, Jews United Against Israel, who
oppose a Jewish state on religious grounds, were given a prominent role.
Among them was Rabbi Ahron Cohen, a retired former lecturer at the
Jewish religious college in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. Rabbi Cohen
acknowledged that the Holocaust had happened but said he saw nothing
anti-semitic in Mr Ahmadinejad's comments.
However, exhibitions on the conference's fringes conveyed a different
message. A series of posters carried the words "myth" and "truth"
juxtaposed. Under "myth" were widely accepted verities of the Holocaust
while under the "truth" label were opposing contentions.
One poster, simply headlined "truth", carried photos of Irving and Ernst
Zundel, a prominent German neo-Nazi also now in jail. Two of Irving
books, Hitler's War and Nuremberg: The Last Battle, were displayed along
with several other Holocaust revisionist works. There were no books by
orthodox historians on the Nazi era.
A video referred to the "supposed gas chambers" and the "alleged final
solution". A series of photos showed British soldiers "forcing" German
prisoners to remove corpses from a mass grave. The caption suggested
that the British were responsible for the deaths, saying: "The
interesting point is that the grave was established in the last days of
the war just as the camp was being opened by British soldiers." Another
picture, purportedly of Dachau concentration camp, shows a smiling,
well-fed group of inmates.
Few visitors were apologetic. Mr Duke praised the event as an exercise
in free speech. "It's a shame that Iran, a country we often call
oppressive, has to give this opportunity for free speech," he said. "I
think Israel is a terrorist state. It is the number one terrorist state
in the world."
Ms Renouf said "terrible things" had happened to the Jews during the
second world war but claimed their own leaders had brought it upon them.
"If people become anti-semitic, it's because they believe the leaders of
the Jews and are reacting to the anti-gentile nature of Judaism," she said.
Moshe Ayre Friedman, an Austrian rabbi, argued that the figure of six
million Jewish dead had come from a prophecy by Theodore Herzl, founder
of modern Zionism, long before the second world war. He said recent
research suggested the true figure was about one million. "Politically
and historically, the land of Palestine doesn't belong to the Jews and
should be returned to Palestinians," he said.
But Moris Motamed, Iran's sole Jewish MP, labelled the gathering a "huge
insult".
In Britain, Stephen Smith, chairman of the Holocaust memorial day trust,
said the conference contrasted with a high awareness of the Holocaust
among young Britons. "Three-quarters of young people know when the
Holocaust took place and 84% have heard of Auschwitz. Knowledge is the
first step to prevention. Denial is the first step to repetition," he said.