halocaust

[lady cop]

Iran: What Holocaust?.........how can anyone question the horror? the evidence is all there.

[cherandbuster]

How sad :-1

You can see why we will never have peace in the Middle East

[RedGlitter]

You know, the ME isn't doing a whole heck of a lot to improve its image and this new display of ignorance is not helping.



This isn't peculiar to the ME though. There are all kinds of people who doubt the Holocaust ever happened. They have a right to of course, but I don't see how anyone could doubt it.

[danieeeel]

Yeah well.. Ahmadinejad.. what would you expected?

[tr0lle]

Yeah, but people also doubt Evolution/big bang

[nvalleyvee]

This war does not even compare to the 146,000 people who died on all sides of WW2.

I haven't included the 6 millions Jews who were slaughtered like worthless furniture.

[nvalleyvee]

It does compare to Hitler's genocide. How many thousands of people did Sadam kill simply because he did not want them in HIS country...they were not good enough to live.

[tr0lle]

It was less than six million, but most of the jews that died were poles so you can't really complain

[nvalleyvee]

tr0lle;539905 wrote: It was less than six million, but most of the jews that died were poles so you can't really complain


You sick mother humper!!!!!!!

[Lon]

lady cop;480728 wrote: Iran: What Holocaust?.........how can anyone question the horror? the evidence is all there.


It's a mystey to me how anyone can dispute the Holocaust and the number of deaths when there are still so many living survivors that were there as well as soldiers that liberated the camps. In addition, the films that are available speak volumes and the meticulous records kept by the Germans as well.

[Galbally]

The reason why people deny the Holocaust or any other genocide (such as that suffered by the Armenians is a good example, the Turks still refuse to discuss it) is because they have an agenda to follow, right wing holocaust deniers want to rehabilitate the German Nazi Party's reputation, so that they can indoctrinate another generation of Naive people into thinking that it wasn't so bad in Berlin the 1930's, the Turks don't want the Armenian issue brought up, because it means they might have to face up to some unpleasant history, and also recompense the few Armenians that are left in that area of the Pontic shore on which they used to thrive. Some others are just guliable and naive fellow travellers, whom are always with us, and whom Lenin reffered to as "useful idiots".

There are many, many examples of such things, the Jewish Holocaust is the most chilling fur us I suppose, because of the highly civilized nature of Germany (a western nation BTW), before Hitler, the casual, industrial nature of how it was done, the complicitness of ordinary people in it, and the scale of the murders. Unfortunately it was not, and is not the only example in European history of these things, and they could well reoccur once again, if we are not wise enough to ensure they do not.

[Galbally]

Diuretic;539946 wrote: G - it can happen again quite easily and it can happen anywhere, as you would be aware. I think it's just human nature, we're easily led. You're probably very familiar with the Milgram and Zimbardo experiments.

What stunned me when I read up about it was the willingness of the medical profession in Germany to go along with the experimentation on humans. I mean we're not talking rednecks here.

Humans are easily manipulated.


Yes, in general people are very easily led, its one of the realities of the species, and why we have to be very careful, and also very much prepared to tackle people who would try such things, because all that evil needs to succeed is for good people to do nothing of course as was once famously said.

[Lulu2]

Add in the tendency to blame the victims...it's all their fault, somehow.

[Trouble(for the SA)]

You cant deny the halocaust, but i think iran thinks the halocaust had something to do with the formation of Israel, and most of those countries hate Israel, thats probably why they say there was no halocaust.

[Trouble(for the SA)]

Diuretic;547045 wrote: I think it's Ahmadinejad, who has made himself look a bigger fool than he already is, who's peddling that garbage.


Of course its ahmadinejad, its funny that he calls bush a fool when he is one himself

[spot]

Diuretic;547071 wrote: The real powerbrokers in Iran aren't elected so they can let him rant and carry on and give the people a chance to let off a bit of steam plus he gets to be the lightning rod for any dissatisfaction with how the country is being run.Which powerbrokers are those, Di? If you can manage a name or two rather than "The Imams", for example, it would help a lot.

[spot]

Diuretic;547209 wrote: Happy to oblige Spot - I think it's the Guardian Council. There are a lot of other unelected bodies that really run the show but I'm not up to speed with it all. It's a bit more complex than just the Imams but given that Iran is a theocracy I would think the religious leaders are very influential.


Let's compare, shall we?The Guardian Council, as it is known for short, is in effect an upper house of parliament with the power to vote out the lower house's resolutions. It is assigned to check the laws passed by the Majlis, compare them with the provisions of the Islamic canon and the constitution, and ratify them, or return them to the House for being amended.

The council has 12 members. Six are clerical Islamic canonists and six others are civilian jurists. The first group of six is appointed by the leader, or the Leadership Council, and the second group is elected by the Majlis from among candidates nominated by the Supreme Judicial Council. Members of the Guardian Council serve a six-year term.

http://www.iranembassy.hu/political_guardians.htmlThe US equivalent is the Federal Supreme Court:The Supreme Court consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and such number of Associate Justices as may be fixed by Congress. The number of Associate Justices is currently fixed at eight (28 U. S. C. §1). Power to nominate the Justices is vested in the President of the United States, and appointments are made with the advice and consent of the Senate. Article III, §1, of the Constitution further provides that "the Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, andshall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office".

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/bri ... fAppointed for life by the President of the moment with confirmation by the Senate, you'll notice, with the personal option of abdication.

The UK equivalent is the House of Lords which has around six hundred members, all of whom can sit and vote whenever they feel inclined:

One in six inherited their right to sit in the House and were selected by their peers from a full list of several hundred about ten years ago.

Twice a year an Appointments Commission makes announcements of new life peerages.

Retiring members of the Lower House are selected by the Prime Minister for appointment to the Upper House.

Retiring Prime Ministers recommend peerages for fellow politicians, political advisors or others who have supported them.

Twenty six bishops of the Church of England sit in the House by right. If a vacancy comes up the most senior serving bishop is appointed. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York usually get life peerages on retirement. "I would think the religious leaders are very influential", you said?

Traditionally, peerages are awarded to former Speakers of the House of Commons.

Appointments to the House of Lords are for life.

Do I make my point, or would you like to nominate any other Iranian powerbrokers with no democratically elected credentials?

[spot]

Diuretic;547246 wrote: But the UK is a constitutional monarchy, Iran is a theocracy, that was my point. Ahmadinejad is the CEO but he's not the decider.


Nobody's a decider in either country, everyone concerned is a power centre. Who do you take to be the "decider" in the UK, since that's the example you've selected? My own opinion is that the electorate in Iran has more of a say in the power balance than the electorate in the UK does, if it comes to brass tacks, and we've seen that over the last ten years both here and there.

[koan]

Diuretic;547246 wrote: But the UK is a constitutional monarchy, Iran is a theocracy, that was my point. Ahmadinejad is the CEO but he's not the decider.


:yh_giggle

GWB: "I'm the decider!"

[spot]

Diuretic;547261 wrote: As far as I understand it there are many powerful unelected positions (unlike the House of Lords which has constitutional limits to its authority if I remember rightly) outside the executive and the parliament in Iran. Again that was my point.And where are the limits on the authority of the Federal Supreme Court?

eta: On a point of information: there is, as you say, an override to all aspects of the House of Lords, even appeals to the Law Lords which used to be the final constitutional port of call for the judicial system. They're associated with the abdication of sovereignty to the European Union though, other than the application of the Salisbury Convention (which means that the House of Lords does not oppose legislation promised in the Government's election manifesto) or the blocking of money bills or repetitively presented new legislation.

[spot]

Diuretic;547273 wrote: Which country?


The one I quoted in http://www.forumgarden.com/forums/showp ... stcount=21 - the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

[spot]

Right, if we've dealt at least superficially with the influence the Iranian electorate has on Iranian foreign policy - and by all means extend that if it's not been dealt with - we might move on to the Iranian President's views on the Holocaust.

I've dug up a source for us which I hope is non-contentious - the Anti-Defamation League's page on what he's said over the years on the subject at http://www.adl.org/main_Anti_Semitism_I ... _words.htm

So, what's he said that anyone here takes objection to?

[spot]

Diuretic;547337 wrote: His contention that the Holocaust is some sort of myth, for one.


Come on, I put the quotes there for a reason. It would help a lot if you included the text with each point you make."Today, they [Europeans] have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets … This is our proposal: give a part of your own land in Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to them [Jews] so that the Jews can establish their country."That's a good start. There's different uses of the word "myth" and I see no reason to go for the most extreme use which paints the blackest possible result. How about, from the Oxford English Dictionary, "A popular conception of a person or thing which exaggerates or idealizes the truth"? I've seen exaggerated descriptions of the holocaust just as I've seen minimising of the Holocaust. I've seen what is a complicated situation idealized into one in which no Jew under Nazi occupation was in any way questionable.

There is a mythology of the Holocaust despite the truth of the numbers killed, among whom were six million Jews. It encompasses the utter uniqueness of the acts and intentions, the refusal to compare what happened with anything before or since, and (as President Ahmadinejad says in his context) the assumption of an absolute right of the Zionists to set up and maintain a Jewish-centred State in the Holy Land. It seems to me unlikely that, apart from the Holocaust, the State of Israel would have been set up by the United Nations (though that's a matter of opinion, I grant you).

That's his only reported use of the word "myth". I take it that the quote-site I selected is acceptable to you, or would you like to add any others?

It's a contentious use, I agree. It's a valid context in which it's used.

[Galbally]

Sorry, but thats just eloquent sophistry. There is an agenda in whats being said about the holocaust by Muslim leaders and intellectuals in the middle east and its well you know it. That doesn't negate the fact that everyone else has an agenda as well, but I can't see any justification or motive for the Iranian Presidents comments regarding Israel, Jews, and the Holocaust other than the obvious ones.

[spot]

Galbally;547553 wrote: Sorry, but thats just eloquent sophistry. There is an agenda in whats being said about the holocaust by Muslim leaders and intellectuals in the middle east and its well you know it. That doesn't negate the fact that everyone else has an agenda as well, but I can't see any justification for the Iranian Presidents comments regarding Israel, Jews, and the Holocaust.


Go and read the Anti-Defamation League's series of quotes, Galbally. I've read them and there's nothing there I'd not put my own name to. By all means extract any passage you take issue with and we can toss it in the air a few times.

[Galbally]

spot;547555 wrote: Go and read the Anti-Defamation League's series of quotes, Galbally. I've read them and there's nothing there I'd not put my own name to. By all means extract any passage you take issue with and we can toss it in the air a few times.


Oh I dunno, I guess we can go through some of the more obviously inflammatory ones, but I am too jaded at the moment to get into it, it will be a serious one, maybe later on in the week. What I would say is that in terms of the quotes you have read on the anti-defamation leagues website, replace the Iranian president saying them with a white U.S. Senator from say Alabama, and have a think whether you would be so sanguine about what he is saying, or the implications of the words.

[spot]

Galbally;547628 wrote: Oh I dunno, I guess we can go through some of the more obviously inflammatory ones, but I am too jaded at the moment to get into it, it will be a serious one, maybe later on in the week. What I would say is that in terms of the quotes you have read on the anti-defamation leagues website, replace the Iranian president saying them with a white U.S. Senator from say Alabama, and have a think whether you would be so sanguine about what he is saying, or the implications of the words.


If the white U.S. Senator from Alabama was saying that about the apartheid Israeli legal system I'd be very surprised indeed, if slightly pleased - he'd know a lot about apartheid systems, if he was old enough. President Ahmadinejad isn't calling for another Holocaust, just for dismantling the apartheid legal system and restoring some measure of justice to the Palestinians. His comparison with what happened to Soviet Russia shows that, surely - dismantling an unfair oppressive regime rather than mass murder of the inhabitants.

[Galbally]

spot;547639 wrote: If the white U.S. Senator from Alabama was saying that about the apartheid Israeli legal system I'd be very surprised indeed, if slightly pleased - he'd know a lot about apartheid systems, if he was old enough. President Ahmadinejad isn't calling for another Holocaust, just for dismantling the apartheid legal system and restoring some measure of justice to the Palestinians. His comparison with what happened to Soviet Russia shows that, surely - dismantling an unfair oppressive regime rather than mass murder of the inhabitants.


I think again, you are being selective and obtuse, I don't think that the Iranian Presidents intentions have anything to do with Palestinian justice issues, I also notice that on issues such as the oppression of the Kurdish people by Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq, he remains strangely silent, also in terms of the treatment of the Armenian Christians of the Levant and Anatolia by the Turks, Syrians, et al, he is again not quite so vocal in his opinion, or the Syrian oppression of Lebanon, including the assassination of the ex prime minister of that country, of course Israeli actions in that dirty little proxy war are condemned while Hizbollah's policies are applauded, (this is because Iran is directly involved of course), likewise the Turkish deportation and mass murder of ethnic Greeks from Anatolia in 1923 seems to cause him no problems, neither do the death-notices served by members of his own hierarchy against those Muslim or European intellectuals that would dare challenge the orthodoxy of Islam by writing "evil" books (how charming, remind you of anything?), or come to think of it, the utterly racist treatment of black Africans by semitic north Africans also passes him by, as does the casual racism, sexism, homophobia, poverty, clientism, political, intellectual and religious oppression, and despair that seems to infect almost all middle east societies doesn't give him much pause for thought in his triumphalist, pseudo-intellectual pronouncements on planet earth, (as of course racism and social problems are a white European disease that the Jews seem to have caught as well somehow or was it the other way round?). In fact he is strangely reticent on almost any other "moral" issue in geopolitics other than the narrow Israeli-Palestinian one or the "evil" U.S. (how convenient), which is odd, because he is not a Palestinian, or even an Arab, so why is he so obsessed with the "Jews" (or at least makes a pretense of being so) in his pronouncements on world affairs? This is laughable is it not?

Obviously the issue of Palestine is a real one, and also a deeply emotional one, as well, but it seems that the particularism you rightly mention in the treatment of the Jewish holocaust has also been carried on into the particularlism of looking at the Palestinian-Israeli question as the fulcrum of all issues in the middle east, and this great cause celebre, overshadowing all other issues that governments in the region are concerned about, thats nonsense, its just a convenient way for quite unpleasant regimes such as the one in Tehran to justify their own racist, xenophobic, bigoted, policies while claiming victimhood status on behalf of the poor, hopeless people on the west bank, who make useful corpses for their propaganda outrage.

Again I do understand that this simply reflects a differing world view and an agenda, but lets not pretend that from our perspective its a particularly pleasant one, or that there are no agendas here, the goal of Iranian policy remains the destruction of Israel, entirely, the humiliation of the U.S., the continuing religious conflict between Persian Shiites and Arab Sunni Muslims, the overthrow of the house of Saud, and the governments in Damascus and Ankara (which at least in the first example the foolish U.S. invasion of Iraq has made more likely as we all know, and which is why the Iranians are up to their necks in Iraq) and the propagation of the particular theocratic, particularlist world view of the jacobins in charge in Tehran throughout their own region. Yes, the U.S, also has an agenda, as had Israel, and Europe and Russia for that matter, but bad intentions and faith one one side doesn't justify it on the other either.

I have no illusions about the failure of western policy in this part of the world, the brutality of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, or the abyss that is opening up in the region as a whole, I equally have no illusions about the nature of the people who run the regimes in countries like Iran, or Eygpt, Saudi Arabia, or Algeria, or Libya. It is a depressing picture, but life is often unpleasant, and we do not get to choose the times in which we live.

[spot]

As far as the selection of a quote source goes, I chose the ADL as being the most reliable and comprehensive one I could find which self-evidently had no interest in glossing over anything which might embarrass President Ahmadinejad. I'd be delighted if additional sources were added to the thread but I can't see a need. The ADL is a significant and well-funded Jewish pressure group, after all, discussing the President's comments on Jewish affairs.

As for the abolition of Israel, let's make a comparison with South Africa. The land of South Africa still exists. The inhabitants, both those held down by apartheid and those who ran the apartheid state, continue to live in the country. The name of the country hasn't even changed. What's different is the legal system which discriminated in favour of a single group on the basis of a self-defined concept of racial purity. Apartheid South Africa has been abolished. Israel needs to be abolished on exactly the same basis. For "Apartheid South Africa" read "The Zionist Entity" in the language of the region. The notion of breaking the East Bank, the West Bank and Gaza into two states, one of which continues to discriminate on the basis of Jewish identity (for immigration, travel restrictions, land ownership and so on), only extends the problem indefinitely. A single nation with no discrimination is the only long-term answer to the tensions there. A single basis for citizenship which has no discriminatory bias is the core of the reforms. Was breaking South Africa into white and black sovereign enclaves considered an acceptable solution to what had happened there?

The Islamic revolution in Iran was a direct consequence of the overthrow of the legitimately elected democratic government of 1953 by the USA and Britain in favour of their puppet administrator, the Shah. Without that intervention Iran would have been an entirely different place and, I suggest, a secular democracy comparable with Turkey. The Shah's excesses and despotism, propped up by US support, brought in Khomeini in 1979 and the start of the rhetoric concerning the Great Satan, America. The more the US has pushed since (as, for example, by stretching out for as long as possible the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s) the more entrenched has become the anti-American stance of the Iranians, and who can blame them. Support for the Palestinians and Hesbollah are perhaps a natural extension of that, an opposition to any US interests in the Middle East. If you don't go for the "natural justice" aspect, and I agree that nation-states don't form policy on such a basis, then developing a regional power base is as good an explanation as any for their partiality.

So yes, Galbally, there is a driving desire to humiliate US interests wherever possible and pressing for a just settlement in Israel is one way of keeping up that pressure. Given the background, and given the expressed desire of the White House administration to intervene again internally in Iran, who'd blame them for it.

As for "eloquent sophistry" or "selective and obtuse" I disagree. Anyone can paint the most pessimistic interpretation of a set of quotes and in this case it seems to be the only way anyone wants to look at them. I'm suggesting reasonable alternatives which might bridge the gap to the point where we can eliminate the extremes, hit the ballpark and discuss aspects of what's happening without this made-up barrier of a multitude of "Islamic Jihadists" aiming to impose Shariah law on the entire planet.

[Galbally]

As for the abolition of Israel, let's make a comparison with South Africa. The land of South Africa still exists. The inhabitants, both those held down by apartheid and those who ran the apartheid state, continue to live in the country. The name of the country hasn't even changed. What's different is the legal system which discriminated in favour of a single group on the basis of a self-defined concept of racial purity. Apartheid South Africa has been abolished. Israel needs to be abolished on exactly the same basis. For "Apartheid South Africa" read "The Zionist Entity" in the language of the region. The notion of breaking the East Bank, the West Bank and Gaza into two states, one of which continues to discriminate on the basis of Jewish identity (for immigration, travel restrictions, land ownership and so on), only extends the problem indefinitely. A single nation with no discrimination is the only long-term answer to the tensions there. A single basis for citizenship which has no discriminatory bias is the core of the reforms. Was breaking South Africa into white and black sovereign enclaves considered an acceptable solution to what had happened there?

Okay, sorry I will get back to you on this one, have been too busy to reply.

[spot]

Galbally;548698 wrote: Okay, sorry I will get back to you on this one, have been too busy to reply.No rush, honestly. Asynchronous communications, posts. I'm still surprised we've not got more people here talking about it though.

[Parker_scramble]

Ahmadinejad is an idiot. i feel bad. i wouldnt classify myself as ultra conservative, but jerks like him dont deserve to be in power.. heck, more than that.. dont deserve to walk on this earth.

wasn't he the same guy that said he wanted to wipe israel off the map?

what a jerk.

[spot]

Parker_scramble;569727 wrote: wasn't he the same guy that said he wanted to wipe israel off the map? As an expression of distaste for what Zionism has become it seems an unexceptionable comment, the Israeli constitution can't be allowed to stand as it is indefinitely.