“The Zionist
regime will disappear soon, the same way the Soviet Union disappeared,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said, according to ISNA, a
government-financed news agency. Thus, “humanity will achieve freedom.”
He also
suggested that the work of the government-sponsored conference — billed as a
chance for “both sides” on the Holocaust to be heard — should continue with
formation of a committee to determine whether the mass killings by Nazis of
Jews and others really happened.
Mr. Ahmadinejad said the West had used the Holocaust as
propaganda to dominate the Middle East.
The conference
continued to draw outrage among foreign leaders.
Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain called it
“shocking beyond belief,” Agence France-Presse reported. “I think it is such a
symbol of sectarianism and hatred towards people of another religion, I find it
just unbelievable.”
The German chancellor,
Angela
Merkel, condemned “in the strongest terms” dismissals of the Holocaust
by “revisionist” historians, and the Vatican described
the Holocaust as an “appalling tragedy to which one cannot remain indifferent.”
The French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, called “the resurgence of revisionist
ideas” on the Holocaust “unacceptable.”
Although the
conference, held by the Foreign Ministry, was said to be a chance for scholars
to debate the Holocaust, the second day was much like the first. Most speakers,
a group that included discredited scholars and a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, called the
systematic annihilation of six million Jews a lie fabricated to form the state
of Israel.
The former Klan
leader, David Duke, said in an interview, “I think
Israel is more afraid of this conference than of Iran having nuclear weapons,”
and “They are afraid a taboo has been broken.” He said he came to support
freedom of speech.
Despite the
promises of open-mindedness, when one participant talked about the scholarship
confirming the Holocaust, his views were quickly dismissed.
That speaker,
an Iranian historian, Gholamreza Vatandoust, from Shiraz University, said,
“Some facts about the Holocaust have been documented.” But he was criticized
immediately by Robert Faurisson, a French academic, who said
he had never found documents to support the Holocaust.
One of a few
ultra-Orthodox rabbis at the conference, Moshe Ayre Friedman from Austria,
said, “I am not a denier of the Holocaust, but I think it is legitimate to cast
doubt on some statistics.”
More Articles in
International »
To find reference information about the words used
in this article, hold down the ALT key and click on any word, phrase or name. A
new window will open with a dictionary definition or encyclopedia entry.
