Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevorkian Logic
"if the Holocaust is a reality, why don't we let more research be done on it? ... Where did the Holocaust happen to begin with? It happened in Europe, and given that, why is it that the Palestinian people should be displaced? Why should they give up their land?"
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I think it's hilarious how queer people get about holocaust deniers outside of Europe. The holocaust is not an important part of Iranian history like it is for European history and Jewish history (and American history due to these). The historical evidence for the holocaust occurring is abundant within those histories but not so within Iranian history because
it has nothing to do with them. Until loads of Jews started moving into Palestine and soon seperated part of it to become Israel, the holocaust also had nothing to do with people in Palestine.
I think that Ahmadinejad was using a stupid tactic to argue a completely valid point here. He seems to be arguing against the extremified version of the Israeli Jew viewpoint which is something like
'
The Holocaust Was The Single Worst Thing To Ever Happen In History To Anybody Ever And Is Thus To Be Used To Excuse All Of Our Future Misbehaviours For All Of Eternity'
with the viewpoint he wants to put across which is
'
The Holocaust Did Not Happen In The Middle East. There Is Nothing Written About The Holocaust In Arab Histories. The Sources Which Report On The Holocaust Are Mostly Jewish, European Or American And They Are The Same Peoples Who Are Trying To Repress The Arab Nations. Thus, The Only Evidence For The Holocaust Is Theirs And It Is In Their Benefit To Lie To Us. So Why Should We Accept The Holocaust Ever Happened?'
I'd like to think that is theatricalised opinion, intended to indicate how unimportant the holocaust is to Arabs as a historical event (unimportant because it's unrelated to them)... but it's clearly also intended to sow seeds of doubt into people's heads. In a sense I think the presence of some holocaust doubters is a good thing, because it maybe helps us realise how unless you are Jewish or your grandparents were Nazis the holocaust is actually of no importance to our lives, save for the general 'watch out for genocide' lesson.
The fact that Ahmadinejad was willing to talk about things based on the assumption that the Holocaust did happen
but that it happened in Europe would suggest that he does believe it happened anyway, and that he's 'doubting' it as a debating method.