One of the most dangerous twists to the Ahmadinejad lies about the Holocaust is the way it utterly ignores the 3,500-year-history of a Jewish presence in Israel.
The way the media are portraying the quotes effectively passes along the lie. Imagine that you know nothing of Israel’s history (and many people do not). You read this:
“Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces and they insist on it to the extent that if anyone proves something contrary to that they condemn that person and throw them in jail,” IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
“Although we don’t accept this claim, if we suppose it is true, our question for the Europeans is: Is the killing of innocent Jewish people by Hitler the reason for their support to the occupiers of Jerusalem?”
“If the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces in Europe – like in Germany, Austria or other countries – to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe. You offer part of Europe and we will support it,” he added.
Earlier in his remarks, the Iranian president, a former Revolutionary Guardsman who won a surprise election victory in June, said “the question is where do those who rule in Palestine as occupiers come from? Where were they born? Where did their fathers live? They have no roots in Palestine but they have taken the fate of Palestine in their hands.”
And you start wondering why Israel should have been established by European Jews in the middle of Arab nations.
This is the real danger of his lies, because the AP and Reuters never follow up these stories with the fact that Israel was a Jewish state centuries before Islam came into the world. They also never mention the fact that Israel’s population is now 50% Sephardic in origin–Jews from Arab/Muslim nations, or the children and grandchildren of those Jews–including Jews from Iran.
Hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled or fled from Arab and Muslim nations after Israel declared her independence in 1948. Many of them went to Israel. But that’s a fact the world chooses to ignore.
This is what has been bothering me the most about the media passing along MonkeyBoy’s blather. The loony left has already embraced the lie–go read any Indymedia site. We need to keep pointing out the truth to counteract the “European colonialists” libel.
MonkeyBoy? Monkeys are not suicidal, far as I know. And some of them are quite clever, what with ancestoring business and stuff…
Yea, Meryl… your not being very sensitive to monkeys and their ilk. :)
And don’t forget that Arab violence against Jews in Israel goes back further than 1948.
That’s a disadvantage of the de-Christianization of the West. Anybody familiar with the Bible would know that Jews lived in Eretz Israel in ancient times. Even the Jew haters among them would have to admit that.
The mixed ethnic nature of Israel was starkly illustrated a few years ago when some of Arafat’s finest made a drive-by shooting of a jogger in Jerusalem. They shot him because, they said, “he looked Jewish”. It turned out that he was an Arab Christian attending the Hebrew University. I suppose everybody except the poor guy’s family has forgotten this now, but it is a good reminder that the people who call Israel a “White Settler State” are vicious liars.