Ignore Him at Your Own Peril

"Iran leader: Holocaust a 'myth'

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has described the Holocaust as "a myth" and suggested that Israel be moved to Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska.

Germany, the European Commission and Israel condemned the remark, with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier calling it "shocking and unacceptable."

The Israeli government said Ahmadinejad's regime had "a distorted sense of reality."

Ahmadinejad sparked widespread international condemnation in October when he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

Last week he also expressed doubt about the killing by the Nazis of six million Jews during World War II, but Wednesday was the first occasion when he said in public that the Holocaust was a myth.

"They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to thousands of people in the Iranian city of Zahedan, according to a report on Wednesday from Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).

"If somebody in their country questions God, nobody says anything, but if somebody denies the myth of the massacre of Jews, the Zionist loudspeakers and the governments in the pay of Zionism will start to scream," he said."

I am very curious to see where this leads. This is not the type of rhetoric that should be ignored. In fact some could argue that he is testing the water to see what type of reaction he will receive. It is very troubling.

If you follow Daniel Pipes column then you are probably familiar with his remarks about Kofi Annan. Here is a brief excerpt.

"There is a right way and a wrong way, strangely, to call for the elimination of Israel.

The secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, provided an example of both ways in recent weeks. When the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stated on October 26 that "the regime occupying Jerusalem must be eliminated from the pages of history," Mr. Annan replied by expressing "dismay." Again on December 8, when Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be moved to Europe, Annan responded with "shock."

But dismay and shock at Ahmadinejad's statements did not prevent Annan from participating on November 29, just between the Iranian's outbursts, in a U.N.-sponsored "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People." Anne Bayefsky of "Eye on the UN," reports that Annan sat on the dais with an Arabic-language "Map of Palestine" nearby that showed a Palestine replacing Israel. It cartographically achieved exactly what Ahmadinejad called for: the elimination of the Jewish state.

Annan's contradictory actions result from the fact that, since 1993, explicit calls for the destruction of Israel have become offensive, but implicit ones have become more acceptable. The latter include:

• Demands for a Palestinian "right of return" (demographically overrunning the Jewish state with anyone claiming to be a Palestinian);
• Declaring a "jihad to liberate Jerusalem";
• Commemorating the creation of Israel as Al-Nakba ("the disaster");
• Proposing a "one-state solution" (i.e., no more Israel);
• Tributes to "all those of who have given their lives for the cause of the Palestinian people" (including suicide bombers); and
• Maps that do not show Israel."

The lessons of the past mustn't be ignored. When world leaders make such nefarious and crazy claims they must be taken seriously and responded to because too many lives are at stake to ignore them. Humanity is not yet so civilized to have set aside violence and murder as political tools to be used for gain.