Matthias Küntzel wrote a highly interesting article for The Weekly Standard:
On December 12, 2006, 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.” Finally, the Belgian Leonardo Clerici had offered the following explanation in his capacity as a Muslim: “I believe that the value of metaphysics is greater than the value of history.”
If this motley crew had assembled in a pub in Melbourne, nobody would have paid the slightest attention. What gave the event historical significance was that it was held by invitation, at the Iranian foreign ministry: on government premises, in a country that disposes of the world’s second-largest oil reserves (after Saudi Arabia) and second-largest natural gas reserves (after Russia). And in this setting, the remarks quoted above provoked not dismissive laughter, but applause and attentive nods. On the walls hung photographs of corpses with the inscription “Myth,” and others of laughing concentration camp survivors with the inscription “Truth.”
The Tehran deniers’ conference marks a turning point not only because of its state sponsorship, but also because of its purpose. Up until now, Holocaust deniers have wanted to revise the past. Today, they want to shape the future: to prepare the way for the next Holocaust.
In his opening speech to the conference, the Iranian foreign minister, Manucher Mottaki, left no doubt on this point: If “the official version of the Holocaust is called into question,” Mottaki said, then “the nature and identity of Israel” must also be called into question. The purpose of denying, among all the Nazis’ war measures, specifically the persecution of the Jews is to undermine a central motive for the establishment of the state of Israel. Auschwitz is delegitimized in order to legitimize the elimination of Israel–that is, a second genocide. If it should turn out, however, that the Holocaust did happen after all, Ahmadinejad explains that it would have been a result of European policies, and any homeland for the Jews would belong not in Palestine but in Europe. Either way, the result is the same: Israel must vanish…
In his closing speech, Ahmadinejad formulated it with perfect clarity: “The life-curve of the Zionist regime has begun its descent, and it is now on a downward slope towards its fall. . . . The Zionist regime will be wiped out, and humanity will be liberated.”
He goes on to explain that the Mullahs seem to be willing to sacrifice Iran for the ‘greater good’ – meaning the destruction of Israel / the victory of what they consider to be true Islam.
An example:
Khomeini: “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.”
Former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani also said something nice about this (back in 2001) – in short, using a nuclear weapon against Israel will destroy Israel, ‘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.’
Mohammad Hassan Rahimian, representative of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said in November 2006 that “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.”
This article is a must read. Küntzel carefully explains the extremely anti-Semitic ideology of Iran’s leaders and, by doing so, the danger Iran poses to Israel (and the region and the world). He rightfully describes Ahmadinejad as the most anti-Semitic state leader since World War II… but, the other Iranian leaders aren’t much better.
He concludes:
The alarm cannot be sounded loudly enough. If Iran is not put under pressure without delay and forced to choose between changing course and suffering devastating economic sanctions, the only remaining alternatives will be a bad one–the military option–and a dreadful one–the Iranian bomb.
Meanwhile, One Jerusalem posted the audio of a bloggers’ conference call with former Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. According to Scott at PowerLine Netanyahu focused on this very subject as well (why “according to Scott” you ask? Because for some reason my computer refuses to play the audio).
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