Haaretz
Kislev 21, 5767
Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday told delegates at an international
conference questioning the Holocaust that Israel's days were
numbered.
Ahmadinejad, who has sparked international outcry by
referring to the systematic murder of six million Jews in World War Two as
a "myth" and calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map", launched
another verbal attack on Israel.
"Thanks to people's wishes and
God's will the trend for the existence of the Zionist regime is downwards
and this is what God has promised and what all nations want," he
said.
"Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not
exist, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out," he added.
His
words received warm applause from delegates at the Holocaust conference,
who included ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist Jews and European and American
writers who argue the Holocaust was either fabricated or
exaggerated.
The White House on Tuesday condemned the gathering of
Holocaust deniers in Tehran as "an affront to the entire civilized world
as well as to the traditional Iranian values of tolerance and
respect."
A statement from White House Press Secretary Tony Snow
noted the meeting coincided with International Human Rights Week, which
renews the pledges of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights drafted in
the wake of World War II atrocities.
"The Iranian regime perversely
seeks to call the historical fact of those atrocities into question and
provide a platform for hatred," Snow said.
He said the United
States will continue to support those in Iran and elsewhere who seek to
promote human rights "and will stand with them in their efforts to
overcome oppression, injustice and tyranny."
On Monday the U.S.
State Department dismissed as "just awful" Iran's convening of a
conference to advance its contention that the World War II Holocaust never
happened.
Participants at the conference praised Iran's hard-line
president Tuesday, saying the gathering gave them the opportunity to air
theories that cast doubt on the Nazis' attempt to eradicate the Jewish
people, something that is banned in parts of Europe.
The
government-sponsored conference in Tehran, which has drawn Holocaust
deniers from around the world, has continued to be the focus of
international condemnation.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair
called the conference it was "shocking beyond belief" and branded it "a
symbol of sectarianism and hatred."
He said he saw little hope of
engaging Iran in constructive action in the Middle East, saying, "I look
around the region at the moment, and everything Iran is doing is
negative."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad initiated the
two-day gathering, which began Monday, in an attempt to bolster his image
as a leader standing up to Israel, Europe and the U.S. - an image he has
used to whip up support at home and abroad.
"Ahmadinejad's
Holocaust comment opened a new window in international relations on this
issue. Twenty years ago, it was not possible to talk about the Holocaust
and any scientific study was subject to punishment. This taboo has been
broken, thanks to Mr. Ahmadinejad's initiative," Georges Theil of France
told conference delegates on Tuesday.
Theil was convicted earlier
this year in France for "contesting the truth of crimes against humanity"
after he said the Nazis never used poison gas against Jews.
Michele
Renouf, an Australian socialite supporter of "Holocaust skeptics," called
Ahmadinejad "a hero" for opening a debate about the Holocaust. Renouf, a
blonde former beauty queen, addressed the audience wearing a green robe
and Islamic headscarf, abiding by Iranian law requiring women to cover
their hair.
The 67 participants from 30 countries - who include
some of Europe's most prominent Holocaust deniers - were expected to meet
Ahmadinejad later Tuesday.
"This conference has an incredible
impact on Holocaust studies all over the world," said American David Duke,
a former Ku Klux Klan leader and former state representative in
Louisiana.
"The Holocaust is the device used as the pillar of
Zionist imperialism, Zionist aggression, Zionist terror and Zionist
murder," Duke told The Associated Press.
In Germany, Austria and
France, it is illegal to deny the Holocaust or question some aspects of
it, and several of the Tehran conference participants have been
prosecuted. They and the conference organizers have touted the gathering
as an expression of academic free speech.
Participants milled
around a model of the Auschwitz concentration camp brought by one speaker,
Australian Frederick Toben, who uses the mock-up in lectures contending
that the camp was too small to kill mass numbers of Jews. More than 1
million people are estimated to have been killed there.
Toben, who
was jailed in Germany in 1999 for questioning the Holocaust, has toured
Iranian universities in the past, delivering lectures.
Also among
the participants are two rabbis and four other members of the group Jews
United Against Zionism, who were dressed in the traditional long black
coats and black hats of ultra-Orthodox Jews. The group says the creation
of the state of Israel violated Jewish law and argues that the Holocaust
should not be used to justify its founding.
Many of the speakers at
the conference insisted the extent of the Holocaust had been largely
exaggerated, some contending Jews had exploited it to win backing for the
creation of Israel.
In response to the forum, the Vatican issued a
statement calling the Holocaust an "immense tragedy before which we cannot
remain indifferent ... The memory of those horrible events must remain as
a warning for people's consciences."
German Chancellor Angela
Merkel said, "we reject with all our strength the conference taking place
in Iran about the supposed nonexistence of the Holocaust."
"We
absolutely reject this; Germany will never accept this and will act
against it with all the means that we have," Merkel said at a news
conference alongside visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert.
The gathering coincided with an independently convened
academic conference on the Holocaust in Berlin, Germany, where historians
affirmed the accuracy of the Nazi genocide data and questioned the motives
of those behind the Tehran forum.