a "myth", confirmed Sunday, January 15, that it is organizing a conference on the scale and "the scientific evidence" of the Holocaust.
"Iran’s Foreign Ministry has decided to hold a conference on the Holocaust to assess its scale by scientific means and discuss its consequences," explained Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi.
The announcement came a day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Jews living in Israel of being "occupiers under the pretext of the Holocaust," at a press conference, where he also defended his country’s nuclear program.
Ahmadinejad already caused international outrage last month when he said the Holocaust — the killing of six million Jews by the Nazis and their allies between 1933 and 1945 — was a myth and suggested Israel be moved to North America or Europe.
"STRANGE WORLD"
"It is a strange world … It is possible to discuss everything but the Holocaust," Asefi said, adding there were unanswered questions about the scale of Holocaust which Europeans should answer.
Ahmadinejad, a former Revolutionary Guardsman who was elected president by a landslide in
June, said last year that Israel was a "tumor" that must be "wiped off the map". Analysts say the president may use the rethoric to increase his influence in the region.
The Iranian government’s backing for the conference came despite an appeal from the chairman of Israel’s Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, Avner Shalev, that the world must act "to prevent genocidal intentions from becoming genocidal" capabilities.
Yad Vashem, or "a monument and a name" was established in 1953 as Israel’s national Holocaust memorial.
Its name comes from the Bible’s Isaiah 56:5: "I will give them, in my house and in my walls, a monument and a name, better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall never be effaced."
GROWING CONCERN
In remarks published by the Israel News Agency, Shalev said that "Yad Vashem views with growing concern Iran’s continued Holocaust denial, and particularly its attempt to paint its radical agenda with a scholarly brush."
He said reports that the "Association of Islamic Journalists of Iran [with the government] is convening an international conference of Holocaust deniers to ‘examine in-depth this myth’ illustrate how deeply entrenched Holocaust denial is in radical Islamist circles."
Iran earlier embraced historians including David Irving, who was found by a British court to be an "an active denier of the Holocaust" as well as an "anti-Semitic and racist". Irving was arrested in November on similar charges in Austria, where his trial is to start in February. Denying the Holocaust took place is a crime under Austrian law and, if convicted, Irving could face at least 10 years in prison.
"SHAM HISTORIANS"
"These sham historians – totally discredited in the West – find a responsive audience in Iran, where senior officials have called the factual events of the Holocaust ‘a matter of opinion,’" said Shalev.
"The UN, and through it most of the world, has recently recognized the importance of Holocaust remembrance as a safeguard against the breakdown of the basic human values that underpin our civilization. The dismissal of the veracity of the Holocaust and its legacy represents a clear rejection of those values. The international community must act to prevent genocidal intentions from becoming genocidal capabilities,” he added.
Influential American television evangelist Pat Robertson said this week Iran’s activities were part of anti-Semitism around the world. "Right now, I see looming in the distance grave threats against the nation of Israel, not only from militants in Hamas and Hezbollah and the nuclear ambitions of the leaders of the nation of Iran, but also the virulent anti-Semitism which is so frequently expressed throughout the Muslim world, Europe and the United Nations."
PRAYERS SAID
He said he was praying for the security of Israel. The growing tensions with Iran came as doctors on Sunday, January 15, performed a tracheotomy on comatose Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a surgical procedure that could help eventually wean him off a respirator, a hospital statement said.
Doctors at Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital have so far been unsuccessful in trying to awake Sharon from a coma that was medically induced to prevent his brain from swelling after a series of surgeries following his massive stroke earlier this month.
Sharon’s health crisis has led to questions over a political direction for Israel and the Middle East peace efforts. The country is due to hold general elections March 28. (With reports from Israel, Iran, BosNewsLife Research and BosNewsLife News Center).
