hiver - Historical Revisionism by Vrij Historisch Onderzoek

——————————————————————> Conseils de révisions / hiver winter 2007
Bolton, who the north Koreans once called "human scum," accuses the Iranian president of
"calling for the destruction of Israel." The Guardian ran the Bolton-accused-Ahmadinejad-ofgenocide
story on December 13, under the headline "Move to bring genocide case against
Ahmadinejad as Iran president repeats call to wipe out Israel." Bolton's suit also refers to
"numerous threats against the United States" Ahmadinejad is alleged to have made, which says
that what Bolton has oodles of in the human scum department, is matched by equal oodles of in
the chutzpah department. Did Ahmadinejad really threaten to wipe out Israel No more than
scientists predicting the melting of the polar ice caps are threatening to melt them themselves.
What Ahmadinejad did say was that, "The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the
Soviet Union was" (5) - a prediction, not a threat. And since the Soviet Union wasn't wiped out in a
hail of nuclear missiles, a storm of terrorist attacks, or an epidemic sparked by biological weapons,
it might be safe to conclude that Ahmadinejad expects Israel to collapse through self-inflicted
wounds - the way the Soviet Union did - and not under a barrage of nuclear missiles launched from
Tehran. In the Iranian president's view, the days of Israel, as Zionist state, are numbered because
it was founded on injustice, and therefore stands on rotten foundations. When the UN carved a
Jewish homeland out of someone else's homeland, and without consulting a single Palestinian, it
created a Chimera whose existence would always depend on sponsorship by imperialist powers,
and unremitting, massive infusions of aid. In other words, Israel has been artificially kept alive
from the start.
Elections, explained Ahmadinejad, should be held among "Jews, Christians and Muslims" in
Palestine (by which he means Israel, Gaza and the West Bank together) "so that the
population.can select their government and destiny for themselves in a democratic manner." (6)
That's a far cry from raining down nuclear missiles on Tel Aviv to wipe out Jews, but is much more
compelling a story if your aim is to shape public opinion in ways that favor a possible future
intervention in Iran. The whole sordid business of the Holocaust conference, and earlier, the
Holocaust International Cartoon Contest, would never have happened had the Danish newspaper,
Jyllands-Posten, not run flagrantly racist cartoons mocking the prophet Mohamed, and had Western
governments not dismissed the resultant flap as an over-reaction by a bunch of hot-headed
Mohammedans. It's a free speech issue, the West's politicos said. You Muslims -- simmer
down. What a crock, retorted Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "In this freedom,
casting doubt or negating the genocide of the Jews is banned, but insulting the beliefs of 1.5 billion
Muslims is allowed." (7) Bull's eye.
With the Jyllands-Posten scandal still resonating, Iran's largest newspaper, Hamshari,
counterpunched. It would sponsor a carton contest to mock the Holocaust. If you can mock the
prophet Mohamed, and say it's a free speech issue, then surely we can mock the Holocaust, and
say the same. As it turned out, the cartoons didn't do much mocking. They didn't present the
genocide of Europe's Jews as a myth, or mock its victims. Instead, they explored the themes of
Israeli brutality against the Palestinians, use of the Holocaust to justify anti-Palestinian crimes, and
parallels between Israel and Nazi Germany.
Judge for yourself. The drawings showed: A vampire wearing a Star of David drinking the
blood of Palestinians; Ariel Sharon in a Nazi uniform; three army helmets together, two with
swastikas and one with the Star of David; a rabid dog with a Star of David on its side and the word
Holocaust around its collar; a dove prevented from flying because it is chained to a Star of David;
US president George Bush seated at a desk swatting doves; an Israeli asleep with three Arab heads
mounted to the wall above his bed; an Israeli soldier pouring fuel into a tank from a gasoline can
that reads Holocaust on the side; a razor blade in the ground, representing the illegal Israeli-built
separation wall, bearing the word Holocaust; two firefighters, each with Stars of David on their
chests, using Palestinian blood to extinguish flames issuing from the word Holocaust. (8) While the
director of the exhibit correctly pointed out to a New York Times reporter that the drawings were
anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist, not anti-Jewish, the newspaper nevertheless ran the story under the
headline "Iran exhibits anti-Jewish art." (9) Conflation of Israel and Zionism with Jew, and
therefore anti-Israel and anti-Zionist with anti-Jewish, is a handy howitzer to have around
whenever you need to blow away opposition to Israel.
This month's conference was similarly described as anti-Jewish and while the conference
certainly featured a cast of unsavory Jew-haters, not all the participants were of the same
stripe. Shiraz Dossa, an admirer of Noam Chomsky and Hannah Arendt, who teaches Third World
politics at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, delivered a paper on the abuse of the
Holocaust to justify the war on terror. Dossa calls the Holocaust a reality and says that "anyone
who denies it is a lunatic." (10) He accepted the invitation to speak at the conference to help
Tehran make its point: That the West's commitment to freedom of speech extends only to insulting
someone else's sacred cows.
Last point: If the real aim of the conference was to call the Holocaust into question, it would
hardly make sense to assemble a gang of hacks, flakes and whack-jobs whose credibility is nil. On
the other hand, if the aim was to show that free speech doesn't justify a repellent, silly, and
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