Iran to host conference on whether the Holocaust was real

[Accord]

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Iran, whose president has described the Holocaust as a "myth," said Tuesday they will hold a conference to discuss the evidence that the Nazis committed genocide against the Jews in World War II.

 

The two-day conference scheduled for next week was initiated by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called the systematic killing of some six million Jews, which has been extensively researched and documented, a "myth" and "exaggerated."

 

"The president simply asked whether an event called the Holocaust has actually taken place," Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mohammadi as saying. "No rational response was ever given to Ahmadinejad's questions," he added, explaining the rationale for the conference.

 

The Iranian president has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and the conference appeared to be part of Ahmadinejad's public campaign against the Jewish state.

 

Ahmadinejad told Germany's Der Spiegel magazine in an interview in May that "if the Holocaust didn't take place, why then did this regime of occupation (the state of Israel) come about? Why do the European countries commit themselves to defending this regime?"

 

MORE ON IRAN: Progress, but no accord in nuclear talks

 

Mohammadi rejected any suggestion the conference would encourage anti-Semitism, calling discrimination against Jews a "Western phenomenon." The proof of Iran's lack of animosity toward Jews, he said, was Iran's 25,000-strong Jewish community.

 

Mohammadi said the conference seeks to "provide an opportunity for scholars to offer their opinions in freedom."

 

Tehran has announced plans for the conference several times. One such announcement came during a visit to Iran by United Nations chief Kofi Annan in September.

 

During his visit, Annan said an Iranian exhibition of cartoons denying the Holocaust, on display at the time, promoted hatred.

 

The Iranians mounted the exhibit after a wave of anger and violence swept the Islamic world over the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammed.

 

The two-day Holocaust conference, sponsored by the Iranian Foreign Ministry's Institute for Political and International Studies, is scheduled for Dec. 10-11.

 

Some 67 foreign researchers from 30 countries are scheduled to attend, Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

 

An Israeli Arab who last year opened a Holocaust museum in his home, said in November he planned to attend the gathering in Iran so he could tell the Iranians that the genocide could not be denied. Khaled Kasab Mahameed, a Muslim lawyer from Nazareth said he had been invited to the conference.

 

It was not immediately clear whether Mahameed still plans to attend, or where the 67 participants will come from.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-12...holocaust_x.htm

 

And people think we can negotiate with these people :| .

[Guest marlins02]

f*** it lets nuke em

[FutureGM]

We have talked to worse enemies in the past, including the USSR, China, and Vietnam. I think we can still talk to Iran. Will they listen? I don't know. It hasn't been promising so far.

[bobbob1313]

I hear Mel Gibson is the keynote speaker.

 

(too easy, but I'll take it)

[EricWiener]

And people think we can negotiate with these people :| .

 

Talking is better than shooting, unless you have demonstrated that talking will never work. The only way to find out that talking will never work is to try to talk to them. We are the only people that have anything they want. A little quid pro quo will either work, or we will know that there is no talking to them.

[Accord]

I hear Mel Gibson is the keynote speaker.

 

(too easy, but I'll take it)

Damn man, you're on like a 3 week long roll.

[bobbob1313]

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but either way, it's great for my already monstrous ego.

[FutureGM]

I hear Mel Gibson is the keynote speaker.

:notworthy

[OldSand]

One thing is certain: other ethnicities that were victims of the Holocaust do not get as much recognition as Jews.

[Beinfest4Prez]

One thing is certain: other ethnicities that were victims of the Holocaust do not get as much recognition as Jews.

Its a numbers game.

 

 

All I know is in my Hebrew school they stressed it wasn't only Jews who were massacred.

 

 

Anytime one group has six million plus killed for the single fact of their religion its of course going to get more recognition than the death of 100,000 gypsies (for example).

[BullDurham]

It's also b/c the Jews were the primary target, with the most energy being spent by the Nazis to demonize them first (the initial demonization of Communists was just use of a code word).

[Accord]

One thing is certain: other ethnicities that were victims of the Holocaust do not get as much recognition as Jews.

That's because an overwhelming majority of the victims were Jews.

 

What you're saying is pretty off base. It's like saying that only American victims of 9/11 get all the recognition, even though ~75 of the victims were Canadian. Jews, like American's, were the main target. And an overwhelming majority of the victims were Jews, like American's - therefore they get all the recognition.