Blogiversary

Hard to believe that it's been a year to the day that the first post went up on this blog. No, Holocaust denial is not dead yet. But in looking over the events of the past twelve months, it might as well be. We won't claim any strategic role in this development, we'll not crow about our part in their downfall, but it behoves us to point out how Holocaust Revisionism, that much-vaunted ideological tool of the far right, has increasingly proven a blunter and blunter sword.

Contrary to a thousand internet message board arguments over the past 365 days, this isn't because of the legal cases. There is now widespread consensus among the liberal intelligentsias of Europe and the rest of the world that jailing deniers only breeds martyrs and contradicts the principle of freedom of speech. What deniers have yet to realise is this is now a Pyrrhic victory. Defending someone's right to say it doesn't mean that their words will be listened to. Debates about the abstract principles of free speech, which make up virtually the sole discussion of Holocaust revisionism in the mainstream media, and discussions about the legalities, which now make up nearly 80-90% of the content of the sole surviving denier journal VffG, mean that the underlying ideas are not being discussed. Far from stimulating interest in revisionism, the free-speech martyrdom strategy has simply reaffirmed what public opinion largely already held to be the case: they can say what they like, but they are still assholes.

So, Irving was released in December to a brief burst of publicity, and then nothing. He will have to work hard to regain much momentum or credibility after his repeated U-turns and bizarre statements. Zündel's attempt to portray himself as the denier Joan of Arc slowly backfired over the course of the year; by the time he was jailed, there wasn't even much of an echo at places such as RODOH or the Phora. No one has even posted a thread concerning Germar Rudolf's 30 month jail sentence on either board. The propaganda value of these acts of 'martyrdom' have, strange as it is to say, diminished utterly.

There are several reasons for this turnabout. The first can be summed up in one name: Ahmadinejad. Far from ushering in a new golden age of Historical Revisionism, the endorsement and state sponsorship of Holocaust denial by a Middle Eastern head of state has done more to discredit the creed than any other event barring the Irving libel trial defeat. In hindsight, the ritual denunciations by governments, NGOs and institutes of the vapidity and offensiveness of the Tehran Holocaust conference seem overblown. No doubt they needed to be said; and no doubt there will be some who 'discovered' the joys of denial because of it, but as a propaganda stunt, it backfired totally. An ageing cast of no-name Z-listers as well as the overly ubiquitous Faurisson, still trading on the impact of his 'intervention' more than a quarter of a century ago, does not add up to a reputable cast of intellectual adventurers. Henceforth, Holocaust denial will be associated almost exclusively with the Islamic world, and thereby damned by association with state-sponsored propaganda and terrorism. The obvious sound of axes grinding in Tehran and elsewhere in the Islamic world is now drowning out the revisionist 'message'.

The second reason for the accelerated decomposition of revisionism can be found closer to home in the United States, and that is the comet-like rise and fall of the 9/11 Truth movement. If Holocaust denial was, once upon a time, an offensive intellectual tragedy, then 9/11 denial is pure farce. The Truth Movement has passed through the same cycle of emergence, word-of-mouth growth and pseudo-intellectual articulation, followed by the same cycle of circular firing squad contradictory and competing explanations, splits, feuds, and debunkings. More importantly, it has distracted from its older cousin, simply by providing what Holocaust denial lacks: immediacy, video footage and no need to delve into obscure historical matters involving strange foreign languages like German. That there is a proven, demonstrable overlap between the two forms of woo, as well as other conspiracisms, serves only to discredit and self-debunk both of them. The next time you encounter a Holocaust denier, ask them how the Twin Towers collapsed, and if they spout Truther nonsense, you have already shown them up for the gullible fools that they are.

There is a third reason, which derives from the struggles internal to the white nationalist/ racialist far right that has long made up the core constituency for Holocaust denial. Namely, that many racist organisations have begun to distance themselves from the more obviously insane and pathological mantras of Jew-hatred and Hitler-worship in an endeavour to mainstream themselves. There is now an undeniable split in the far right between organisations such as American Renaissence and the British National Party on the one hand, who wish to forget about the 'Jewish Question' in the interests of reaching a wider audience, and the hardcore of neo-Nazi uniform fetishists on the other. So far, this split has yet to filter down to the numbskulls, but can be seen in the often bitter debates on the Phora and certain other locations. It is as if it has finally dawned on many self-styled white nationalists and racialists that after nearly sixty years of post-1945 propagandising along Nazi lines, and after equally as much emphasis on the 'Jewish Question', that perhaps these were not the most effective tactics to espouse. The downside to this development is that racist ideas may yet achieve a wider appeal; the upside is that this wider appeal will not emphasise Holocaust denial or antisemitism as much as has been historically the case.

Optimistic? Perhaps. One can easily point out many contrarian trends, and future posts will no doubt do so. But it's helpful to keep a perspective. Part of that perspective comes from the 350+ posts we have racked up, and the internal discussions we have had within the blog team. Simply put, we know much more about Holocaust deniers' arguments and where they are fallacious than we did 12 months ago, and by creating this repository of posts, so too do many other internet surfers, acquaintances, friends and strangers. Andrew, Roberto and Sergey have almost finished debunking the 'denierbud' YouTube videos, and there is more to come. I myself have been fairly inactive this past while both because of teaching commitments at university but also because I have been researching this milieu on a more systematic basis for a future academic monograph. Some of the fruits of this reading will be posted as trial balloons over the next few months. In the meantime, we resume our normal (albeit irregular) service.

Only If You Show Me Yours

Let me preface this post by saying that I don't think Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism is typical of most Muslims, and that I have the utmost respect for all religious provided they are practiced in a manner that respects people of other faiths. That being said:

Back last year and before, when the so-called Muhammad cartoons appeared in Denmark's Jyllands Posten, some prominent members of the Muslim communities, as well as the Iranian government on an official level, decided to answer what they considered blasphemy with, among other anti-Semitic reactions, Holocaust denial. Since that time, Iranian President Ahmadinejad has hosted a Holocaust denial/"Anti-Zionist" conference, written letters to El Presidente and Bundeskanzlerin Merkel, and now the Iranian government is asking for proof that the Holocaust happened.

I have an idea: Let's provide Iran's "World Holocaust Foundation" and its head, Mohammad Ali Ramin, with proof. But let's put a condition on it. Because it was the Iranians (primarily) who decided to play a moral equivalency game between offending the sensibilities of a religion and denying the Holocaust, we should offer Mr. Ramin the proof with the requirement that, in return, he provide evidence of the following:

(1) That a forty-year-old illiterate Arab spoke with the angel Gabriel some 1,400 years ago
(2) That Jesus of Nazareth was conceived without sexual intercourse and spoke as an infant
(3) That Abraham and his son Ishmael built the building in Mecca now known as the Ka'aba
(4) That there is anything in the Qur'an that indicates that the caliphate should have followed in Muhammmad's bloodline

Let's ask these four questions of Mr. Ramin, reminding him that the Holy Qur'an may not be used as evidence for any of this (it is, after all, begging the question to do so).

Let me close by saying, again, that it is not my intention to poke fun at Islam. All religions, including my own, are based on leaps of faith. One must necessarily suspend one's reason to accept notions such as those above, or that Moses spent forty days on Mt. Sinai speaking with God, or that Jesus rose from the dead, or that Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha.

I officially release this blog post to anyone that should choose to e-mail it to Mr. Ramin. Send him my worst regards.

Mahmoud confirms his Moonbat status

Reuters:

Asked by Der Spiegel, in its cover story entitled "The man the world is afraid of", whether he stood by his earlier view the Holocaust was a myth, Ahmadinejad said: "I only accept something as the truth if I am truly convinced of it.

"In Europe there are two opinions on it. One group of researchers who are by and large politically motivated say the Holocaust happened. There is another group of researchers who have the opposite view and are by and large in prison for that."

Yeah, as if that last group was not politically motivated and as if it is their imprisonment that has anything to do with historicity of the Holocaust, and not the substance of their "research".

This is clearly a person whose logical circuits are faulty. He is fit to be neither teacher, nor president.

PS: as usual, incompetent journalists get everything wrong.

Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis and their allies in concentration camps.

Such incompetence only feeds filthy neo-Nazis, who already react:

They stopped insulting the Einsatzgruppen.
A good progress.

Iranian thugs detain a scholar

A prominent Iranian-Canadian scholar is being detained in Iran after writing an article earlier this year in which he challenged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's contention that the Holocaust was a myth.

The rest here.

If it so happens that he was indeed detained for writing that article (and we don't know the details yet), then there is a certain parallel between this and arrests of deniers in Europe. Not a perfect one (correcting Mahmoud the Moonbat re: the Holocaust in no way contitutes an incitement of racial hatred), but still a good one. People should not be arrested merely for Holocaust denial - or affirmation, for that matter.

Let's see how the deniers react, though. Will they say that it makes up for "revisionists'" arrests?

The Thin Edge of the Wedge Gets a Big Thicker

The deniers have been concentrating their efforts primarily on the Middle East for some time, seeing a general opportunity to exploit anti-Zionist sentiment in the region. While it's true that they have gained significant ground in the region and that anti-Semitism has grown by leaps and bounds, every now and then a prominent Arab from the region comes along and shoots the deniers down.

The latest to do so is Israel Knesset member Dr. Ahmad Tibi of the United Arab List party. Tibi published an article Wednesday on Al-Arabiya's Web site in which he denounced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial and the denial by other Arabs and Muslims.

Dr. Tibi wrote, "The Holocaust was the expression of one of the most despicable crimes against humanity carried out by the Nazi enemy during one of the human history's most shameful eras." He added, "We mustn't deny the fact that the Jews were victims of the Nazis. Denial is an immoral act. We need to understand the other and its distress, and recognize its sacrifice."

Dr. Tibi now joins several prominent Palestinian spokespersons who have unequivocally rejected Holocaust denial, including Ali Abuminah, Hussein Ibish, and Mahmoud Darwish. And what interest would the rest of the Arab world have in denying the Holocaust if the Palestinians themselves refused to?

Ahmadinejad is at it again

Mahmoud the Moonbat sez about the Holocaust:

If such a disaster is true, why should the people of this region pay the price? Why does the Palestinian nation have to be suppressed and have its land occupied?

Pray tell, what does the Holocaust have to do with the Palestinian situation?

Or is Ahmadinejad under impression that without the Holocaust there would be no Israel? Well, he's predictably wrong. Evyatar Friesel, Professor Emeritus of Modern Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, concludes in "The Holocaust: Factor in the Birth of Israel?":

On May 15, 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed. A new political reality was thus established. In the words of the Israeli diplomat Walter Eytan: If this Jewish state came into being...it was not primarily because the United Nations had recommended it...When the day of independence dawned, the decision was Israel's alone.

[...]

Was there, then, a connection between the Holocaust and the creation of Israel? Is it conceivable that the two most decisive events in modern Jewish history could occur almost simultaneously and not be linked? Is it possible that the emergence of the Jewish state was unrelated to the terrible disaster of the Jewish people and to the remorse of the nations of the world? Regarding the deliberations of the United Nations and its bodies in 1947-1948, it is difficult to find evidence that the Holocaust played a decisive or even significant role. No bloc of nations proclaimed during the UN discussions on Palestine that its foremost aim was the creation of a Jewish state. (On the other hand, an important group of countries did favor the transformation of Palestine into an Arab state.) What impelled the international body was the practical problem of the Jewish refugees and, even more, the awareness that the Palestinian problem was drifting toward chaos and war.

[...]

True, some of the countries of the Western bloc did display an understanding - and, in a few cases, even a genuine interest - in Jewish and Zionist aspirations, but, for most of the states represented at the UN, the Jewish problem was something far removed from their concerns. It was, however, natural and understandable for them to go along with the Soviet-American proposition, given the great political and moral weight of such an agreement between the super-powers.

And since the measure of agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union neutralized clear-cut international rivalries, their tendency was to consider the Palestine question in terms of political realities. Factors such as the historical connection of the Jewish people to Palestine, or feelings of remorse because of the recent Jewish tragedy were hardly heard, if at all. Indeed, were they to be expected? It is only reasonable to assume that the great majority of UN members considered the Palestine question in "practical" terms. That attitude was well expressed in Article XII of the UNSCOP principles, which stressed that there could be no connection between the Palestinian issue and the Jewish problem.

Consequently, when at the beginning of 1948, it became increasingly clear that partition was not going to prevent a war in Palestine, the UN (spurred by the United States) started looking for a different, "practical" solution. All of which only emphasizes how modest a role the facts about and the reactions to the Holocaust played in the considerations of the international community. Even if there were a similarity in the actual outcome under consideration, there was little in common between the reasons impelling Jews and Zionists toward Jewish statehood and the reasoning behind the United Nations resolution for the partition of Palestine.

What They Won't Tell You At CODOH

Somehow, I doubt Hargis/Hannover will ever link over CODOH to this particular story from the Middle East Times in his pro-Iranian Zeal.

Former Iranian president attacks Ahmadinejad over Holocaust
By Stefan Smith
AFP
Published March 1, 2006

Iran's former reformist president Mohammad Khatami has described the Holocaust as a "historical reality" - a stinging attack on his controversial and revisionist successor Mahmud Ahmadinejad.
"We should speak out if even a single Jew is killed. Don't forget that one of the crimes of Hitler, Nazism and German national socialism was the massacre of innocent people, among them many Jews," the cleric said in comments carried in the Iranian press on Wednesday. The Holocaust, he asserted, should be recognized "even if this historical reality has been misused and there is enormous pressure on the Palestinian people".

Ahmadinejad has caused international outrage by insisting that the Holocaust - the killing of an estimated 6 million Jews by the Nazis and their allies during World War II in death camps and elsewhere - was a myth used to justify the creation of Israel. He has also said that the Jewish state "must be wiped off the map" or moved as far away as Alaska - comments that have provoked anger in the West and even condemnation from the UN Security Council. Ahmadinejad's violent rhetoric has also served to increase tensions over Iran's atomic energy drive, seen in the West as a mask for weapons development.
Khatami served as Iran's president from 1997 to 2005, and attempted to open up Iran to the West and initiate a "dialogue among civilizations" - in stark contrast to the ultraconservative agenda of Ahmadinejad. The mild-mannered former president, who has shied away from the political limelight since leaving office, also asserted Muslims were not out to persecute Jews. "The persecution of Jews, just like Nazism, is a Western phenomenon. In the east, we have always lived side by side with them. And we follow a religion that states that the death of an innocent person is the death of all of humanity," Khatami said.
He also argued that it was of little importance "whether the number killed [during the Holocaust] was high or not" - but at the same time went on to accuse Israel's leaders as being "victims of fascism and practicing fascist policies today".
Ahmadinejad also came under attack from the prominent and centrist Shargh newspaper, which complained that "the Holocaust has, as wished for by the president, become a topic of our foreign policy".
"The Jewish question was never a problem for Iran or Islam, and is a Christian-European problem," the paper argued. "Don't we have enough with the nuclear question, human rights, free elections and political in-fighting, so do we need to add another problem to that?" it said, saying that Iran would be better off "thinking of the creation of a Palestinian state rather than the destruction of Israel". But an editorial in the ultra-hardline Kayhan newspaper, a firm supporter of Ahmadinejad, continued to champion Holocaust revisionism. The president's controversial remarks, the paper said, were "like a dagger in the side of the US and its allies".
Iran's top-selling daily, Hamshahri, is also running a contest for cartoons of the Holocaust in a tit-for-tat move over European newspaper publications of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed that have angered Muslims worldwide. And Iran's foreign ministry is sticking by its plan to host a conference on the Holocaust - an idea that British Prime Minister Tony Blair has described as "shocking, ridiculous, stupid". Last month Iran's Ambassador to Portugal Mohammed Taheri also questioned the Holocaust, telling Portuguese public radio that "to incinerate 6 million people, you'd need around 15 years". Iran has nevertheless offered to send a team of "independent investigators" to the former Nazi death camps.