Posted on 12/18/2005 5:54:11 AM PST by F14 Pilot
When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a "myth" this week, he wasn't only embracing one of the key tenets of modern anti-Semitism. Experts say his harsh rhetoric was also an effort to signal that Iran, not al-Qaida, is the leading force behind militant Islam...And by appealing to Muslims worldwide, he aimed to bolster his regime at home and win support from Arab nations against the West.
When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a "myth" this week, he wasn't only embracing one of the key tenets of modern anti-Semitism. Experts say his harsh rhetoric was also an effort to signal that Iran, not al-Qaida, is the leading force behind militant Islam.
And by appealing to Muslims worldwide, he aimed to bolster his regime at home and win support from Arab nations against the West.
Although Iranian clerics and politicians have previously questioned the existence of Nazi death camps, the experts noted, Ahmadinejad is the country's first chief of state to do so publicly.
His statement Wednesday was the most explicitly anti-Semitic, experts said.
"If somebody in their country questions God, nobody says anything," Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast on state television.
"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." His remarks were "unacceptable" to anyone with hopes for peace in the Middle East, said Sanam Vakil, a scholar of Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. But the remarks also were unsurprising, given Ahmadinejad's political aims and the increasing embrace by militant Islam of European-style anti-Semitism.
"This is no aberration," Vakil said. "He is definitely trying to make a statement."
State-run media in many Islamic nations regularly broadcast insults and slanders against Jews.
The Frenchman Roger Garaudy, a former communist and convert to Islam, has been lauded throughout the Middle East for his books attacking what he considers the "myths" of the Jewish state, including the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf is a best-seller in Turkey.
Efforts to rewrite the history of the Nazis' treatment of the Jews are not harmless, members of the American Jewish community warn.
"Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism are completely linked," said Amy Berkowitz Caplan, director of the Holocaust Awareness Institute at the University of Denver.
"Where there is a rise in anti-Semitism, there is a rise in Holocaust denial. We often hear about this, and we write this off. The reality is, if we continue doing that, it shows we've learned nothing from the Holocaust."
Columnist Jonathan Freedland, this week in The Guardian in London, said rejecting the Holocaust is more than just historical blindness.
"It is a stance that seeks to deny Jews their history, their suffering, almost their very being," he wrote.
"Like denying that African-Americans were ever slaves, it is a move made by those who wish only harm."
Marius Deeb, who teaches courses on Islam and politics at Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies, said Muslims who reject co-existence with Israel have increasingly embraced "racists, neo-Nazis" or whoever criticizes the Jewish state, regardless of their other views.
"There is a tremendous, powerful anti-Semitism" in the Muslim world, he said. "And this is an expression of it, unfortunately."
It might be tempting, experts said, to dismiss the Iranian leader as simply ill-informed. As mayor of Tehran, Ahmadinejad ran for president on a platform of economic reform and political populism.
But both Vakil and Deeb said Ahmadinejad probably hopes his comments will prop up public support for his government.
From Iranian hard-liners' perspective, "Making statements like this is good, because it makes the West critical of Iran," Deeb said.
"Then they can say, 'You see what happens? They are always attacking us.' It mobilizes people. It generates support, particularly for the radicals."
The Bush administration and many other Western governments suspect that Iran, despite its denials, is trying to build nuclear weapons.
Ahmadinejad, Vakil said, has worked hard since his election in June to bridge the historic divide between Persian-speaking, predominantly Shiite Iran and the nation's Arabic-speaking, Sunni neighbors to the west and south.
His aim, she said, appears to be to enlist the support of the Arab states in Iran's resistance to International Atomic Energy Agency controls.
That means burnishing his credentials as militantly anti-Israel.
"He is trying to be more Palestinian than the Palestinians, more Arab than the Arabs, to break down the separation between Persians and Arabs," she said.
"People have very much underestimated Ahmadinejad."
Over 14 centuries, how many Jews have the Muslims killed?
Starts out a bit repetitive : ~ )
"Experts say his harsh rhetoric was also an effort to signal that Iran, not al-Qaida, is the leading force behind militant Islam."
Hmmm...imagine that...
surprisingly, according to historians, not that many. of course one of anyone is too much to kill for no reason. mr. almanajahed is certainly going for broke, this is clear to me even at this distance. he thinks he nuclear device is going to make him the counterweight to us power in the region. he very well may be right, depends on what the usa does. the problem with this type of person is that by saying hes going to hit you so many times, he must hit you sooner or later to keep his construct foremost in his followers eyes. he has a huge ego and would have been far more successful if he had waited till later to drop this dime on everyone publicly, but hey, muslims are not afraid of the rest of the worlds opinions, after all, he really thinks he owns the world in trust for allah. if allowed, this person will do exactly what hes telling everyone he will do. no one believed hitler either, but he also told the world what he was going to do and he did it. in fact he wrote a book about it and still people are stunned with disbelief, that is simply amazing to me.
Correct answer:
Everyone they could.
Islam is NOT our friend. I just pray democracy will be the beginning of the end of that ugly "religion".
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