Iran’s holocaust-denier president

In an interview with Der Speigel, the president of Iran proves that once again, he is able to manipulate the media at will.

Here is the problem. He has set the debate starting from the false position that the Muslim and Arab world, and frankly, the Israel-hating part of the world, begins from: Namely, that Israel exists only because of the world’s guilt after the Holocaust. No one ever reminds Ahmadinejad that Jews originated in Israel, that there has been a continuous Jewish presence there for 3,500 years, and that it is the ancestral homeland of the Jews — just as Iran in the ancestral homeland of the Persians. Instead, we get idiotic journalists who counter his lies with things like this:

SPIEGEL: Well, we are conducting this historical debate with you for a very timely purpose. Are you questioning Israel’s right to exist?

Ahmadinejad: Look here, my views are quite clear. We are saying that if the Holocaust occurred, then Europe must draw the consequences and that it is not Palestine that should pay the price for it. If it did not occur, then the Jews have to go back to where they came from. I believe that the German people today are also prisoners of the Holocaust. Sixty million people died in the Second World War. World War II was a gigantic crime. We condemn it all. We are against bloodshed, regardless of whether a crime was committed against a Muslim or against a Christian or a Jew. But the question is: Why among these 60 million victims are only the Jews the center of attention?

SPIEGEL: That’s just not the case. All peoples mourn the victims claimed by the Second World War, Germans and Russians and Poles and others as well. Yet, we as Germans cannot absolve ourselves of a special guilt, namely for the systematic murder of the Jews. But perhaps we should now move on to the next subject.

Ahmadinejad: No, I have a question for you. What kind of a role did today’s youth play in World War II?

SPIEGEL: None.

Ahmadinejad: Why should they have feelings of guilt toward Zionists? Why should the costs of the Zionists be paid out of their pockets? If people committed crimes in the past, then they would have to have been tried 60 years ago. End of story! Why must the German people be humiliated today because a group of people committed crimes in the name of the Germans during the course of history?

SPIEGEL: The German people today can’t do anything about it. But there is a sort of collective shame for those deeds done in the German name by our fathers or grandfathers.

Ahmadinejad: How can a person who wasn’t even alive at the time be held legally responsible?

SPIEGEL: Not legally but morally.

Ahmadinejad: Why is such a burden heaped on the German people? The German people of today bear no guilt. Why are the German people not permitted the right to defend themselves? Why are the crimes of one group emphasized so greatly, instead of highlighting the great German cultural heritage? Why should the Germans not have the right to express their opinion freely?

That crap plays really well to certain people. And it is utterly not germane to the existence of Israel. Just once — just once, I’d like to see a journalist confront him with these historic facts, and see what he says. Not that I think he’d say much different, but to see just one journalist push and push until he has answers the question or gets pissed off.