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GERMAN GYPSY LEADERS PROTEST IRANIAN PRESIDENT’S DISMISSAL OF HOLOCAUST

German Gypsy leader protests to Iran over president’s dismissal of Holocaust
The Associated Press
February 14, 2006

A group representing Germany’s Gypsies said Tuesday it has protested to Iran over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s dismissals of the Nazi Holocaust as a “myth.”

Of the roughly 1 million Gypsies living in Europe at the time of World War II, historians estimate that the Nazis and their allies killed between 25 percent and 50 percent, in addition to the Holocaust’s 6 million Jewish victims.

The head of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, Romani Rose, said in a letter to the Iranian ambassador that “the government in Tehran must respect these historical facts if it wants to be part of the international community,” the group said in a statement.

Rose also expressed solidarity with the Israeli and Jewish communities in Germany and elsewhere in his letter to Ambassador Seyed Shamseddin Kharegani condemning the Iranian president’s “continued hate propaganda.”

Ahmadinejad provoked outrage in Europe when he said last year that Israel should be “wiped out” and the Holocaust was a “myth.”

Tensions have escalated since then amid concerns over Iran’s nuclear program and the furor over widespread publication in Western newspapers of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad.

Rose’s group said his protest was directed not only against Ahmadinejad’s remarks but also against “demonstrations tolerated by the Iranian government with banners and placards saying that ‘the Holocaust is a lie.’”

 

IRANIAN AMBASSADOR TO PORTUGAL QUESTIONS HOLOCAUST

Iran’s envoy to Portugal questions Holocaust on radio show
Reuters/ Ha’aretz
February 15, 2006

www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/683351.html

Iran’s ambassador to Portugal told a Portuguese radio interviewer it would have taken the Nazis 15 years to burn the corpses of 6 million people, a remark reflecting the denials of the Holocaust made by his president.

“When I was ambassador in Warsaw, I visited Auschwitz and Birkenau twice and made my calculations,” ambassador Mohammed Taheri said in an interview with Portuguese state radio RTP on Tuesday.

“To incinerate 6 million people, 15 years would be necessary,” he said.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has repeatedly denied that the Holocaust, the Nazis’ killing of 6 million Jews during World War Two, took place. He has also called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”

More than 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, died at Auschwitz-Birkenau, a death camp set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland.

“When our president wants to talk about the Holocaust with historians and scientists, the whole world is against him,” Taheri said, referring to plans by Ahmedinejad to organize an academic conference on what happened in the Holocaust.

“Historians need to get together to give their opinions,” the envoy added.

Taheri said the publication by European newspapers of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, outraging many Muslims and provoking widespread protests, was an Israeli conspiracy designed to cause conflict between Muslims and Christians.

“We think that this is a conspiracy by Zionists who want to put Muslims against Christians in Europe,” he said.

Iran’s best-selling newspaper, Hamshahri, has responded to the Muslim outrage over published cartoons of the Prophet by organizing a competition for cartoons about the Holocaust, saying it is a test of the West’s vaunted freedom of speech.

 

PORTUGAL SUMMONS IRANIAN AMBASSADOR OVER HOLOCAUST COMMENTS

Portugal summons Iranian envoy over Holocaust comments
Reuters/Ha’aretz
February 16, 2006

www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/683412.html

Iran’s ambassador to Lisbon was summoned by Portugal’s government on Wednesday after saying in an interview it would have taken the Nazis 15 years to burn the corpses of 6 million people.

The remarks, reflecting similar Holocaust denials by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, were an unacceptable distortion of history, Portuguese Foreign Minister Diogo Freitas do Amaral said in a statement.

The statements “seriously offended humanity’s collective conscience,” the minister said.

In an interview on Tuesday with Portuguese state radio RDP, Iranian ambassador Mohammed Taheri said: “When I was ambassador in Warsaw, I visited Auschwitz and Birkenau twice and made my calculations. To incinerate 6 million people, 15 years would be necessary.”

Freitas do Amaral said Taheri was told his statements and those of his government’s over the Holocaust were unacceptable.

Freitas do Amaral said Iran’s statements over the Holocaust, attacks on embassies in Tehran and Iran’s “negative attitude” in its nuclear standoff with the International Atomic Energy Agency were threatening relations based on “mutual confidence.”

Ahmedinejad has repeatedly denied that the Holocaust, the Nazis’ killing of 6 million Jews during World War Two, took place. He has also called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”

More than 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, died at Auschwitz-Birkenau, a death camp set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland.

“When our president wants to talk about the Holocaust with historians and scientists, the whole world is against him,” Taheri said, referring to plans by Ahmedinejad to organize an academic conference on the Holocaust.

“Historians need to get together to give their opinions,” the envoy added.

Taheri said the publication by European newspapers of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, outraging many Muslims and provoking widespread protests, was an Israeli conspiracy designed to cause conflict between Muslims and Christians.

“We think that this is a conspiracy by Zionists who want to put Muslims against Christians in Europe,” he said.

Iran’s best-selling newspaper, Hamshahri, has responded to the Muslim outrage over published cartoons of the Prophet by organizing a competition for cartoons about the Holocaust, saying it is a test of the West’s vaunted freedom of speech.

 

IRANIAN JEWS SCARED BY AHMADINEJAD COMMENTS

Iran’s Jews: president’s words scare our community
By Christian Oliver
Reuters
February 12, 2006

www.keralanext.com/news/index.asp?id=550922 (An Indian website.)

Iran’s Jews have sharply criticized President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust, saying his remarks have sparked fears in their ancient but dwindling community.

Ahmadinejad has dismissed the 1933-1945 genocide of six million Jews by the Nazis and their allies as a myth, saying the crime was exaggerated to bolster Israeli interests. Haroun Yashayaei, the head of Iran’s Jewish community, sent a letter of complaint to Ahmadinejad two weeks ago.

“How is it possible to ignore all of the undeniable evidence existing for the exile and massacre of the Jews in Europe during World War Two?” said a copy of Yashayaei’s letter faxed to Reuters on Sunday. “Challenging one of the most obvious and saddening events of 20th-century humanity has created astonishment among the people of the world and spread fear and anxiety among the small Jewish community of Iran,” the letter added.

A Jewish community leader said he preferred not to comment on whether Ahmadinejad had sent a reply to the letter, penned on behalf on the entire Jewish community. Jews occupy an awkward position in Israel’s arch-foe Iran, often speaking out against Israeli treatment of Palestinians.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, spiritual father of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, urged Iranians to distinguish clearly between their own ancient community and Zionists. However, Iran’s Jewish community has slumped to some 25,000 members from about 85,000 at the time of the revolution. Iran’s population is about 69 million.

Iran’s Jews are often the subject of intense suspicion and 10 from the southern city of Shiraz were convicted of spying in 2000. The closed door trial sparked international outrage. The last five detained were released in April 2003. Last April, Iran’s Jewish parliamentarian had to complain to parliament that popular television serials were anti-Semitic. The parliament speaker supported his complaint.

 

“WE CAN DO THE BEST, SHARPEST, MOST OFFENSIVE JEW HATING CARTOONS EVER PUBLISHED”

‘No Iranian will beat us on our home turf’
By Nirit Anderman
Ha’aretz
February 20, 2006

www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/684696.html

While the Muslim world is still boiling over the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper, two Israeli artists have decided to come out with an initiative to stress the importance of satire, freedom of expression and self-humor. After hearing about the decision by an Iranian newspaper to join the international Muslim protest and open a competition for cartoons about the Holocaust, illustrator Amitai Sandy and actor and screenwriter Eyal Zusman decided to bring Israel into the new battlefield: They have declared an Israeli competition for anti-Semitic cartoons, open to Jewish participants only.

“We’ll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published!” said Sandy. “No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!” declared Sandy last week, in announcing the competition on his Internet site boomka.org. The announcement invited artists from all over the world to send in cartoons, illustrations and short comics that express hatred for Jews in the most outrageous way.

News of the competition spread over the net, and within a few days the initiators of the competition received hundreds of e-mails congratulating them on the initiative. Quickly the discussion spread beyond the realm of the Internet and reawakened the debate on the limits of satire; media outlets from all over the world swooped down on it with interest. Sandy says that within three days he was interviewed by more than 30 dailies, two television channels and a radio program broadcast on 450 local stations in the United States. Sandy, 29, relates that most of the e-mails have come from Jews around the world who say they are glad to hear about the initiative and that it has made them proud to be Jewish. E-mails from Christian surfers, who congratulated them on the initiative but noted that they would not feel comfortable participating in the competition, led him to decide to restrict the competition to Jewish participants only and to focus it on Jewish self-humor.

“I believe that humor is the best way to examine our values,” he says. “The problem with values is that over time they become sanctified, and therefore the best education is to cast doubt, to ask questions all the time, even about the values one believes in. One of the best ways to do this is self-humor.”

Many people have responded on the Web site and via e-mail expressing concern about the suitable limits of satire, the subject matter appropriate for cartoons and their ability to encourage hatred and racism, or, alternatively – openness and tolerance. Sandy relates that he was surprised by the large number of surfers who said that the contest stirred pride in their Jewishness. “There were reactions like ‘We will show those primitive Arabs that we are better than they are,’” he says. “I didn’t think we would get reactions like that. We are in no way against the Iranians, and I do not think that they don’t have a sense of humor.”

However, it appears that the main difference between the Iranian and Israeli anti-Semitic cartoons is nevertheless humor. While in the Iranian contest the main message is anti-Israeli or anti-Jewish, the organizers of the Israeli contest are aiming at creating a collection of works that are above all funny. They are showing that it is possible to defuse the hatred and fear in anti-Semitism by means of humor, and in this way are ridiculing the grimness that characterizes the Iranian contest.

Thus far the contest has received about 40 entries, and Sandy relates that many of them – as well as many of the jokes that surfers are telling on the competition’s Web site – deal with the Holocaust. Many responses have come in from Jews who say they are descendents of Holocaust survivors and have no hesitations about dealing with this trauma through means.

According to Sandy, only a small proportion of those who have responded have come out against the competition. A small minority of pro-Israeli Christians from the United States, for example, has argued this initiative is dangerous, because anti-Semites could use cartoons from the competition for anti-Jewish propaganda.

The submission deadline is March 5. Apparently the jury will include, alongside Sandy and Zusman and a number of Israeli cartoonists, American historian Deborah Lipstadt, who has written a book about Holocaust-deniers and became well known in the wake of the libel suit pressed against her in 1998 by David Irving, the Holocaust-denying historian. Sandy says Lipstadt contacted him after hearing about the competition and wrote that she had experience with anti-Semitism and that she would be glad to serve in the jury.