If President Obama really wants to reach out to Muslim world, here’s something he should look for ways to reach out and stop cold: Yet another round of Holocaust denial, from Iran’s Holocaust-denier-in-chief, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Now running for re-anointment (as my colleague Michael Ledeen points out, “re-election” isn’t really a word that applies), Ahmadinejad repeated on Wednesday his claim that the Holocaust was a “big deception.”
This is quite horrible enough, coming from a strutting, messianic, nuclear-obsessed despot belonging to a regime that would like to blot out Israel.
But Elie Wiesel – a Nobel laureate and a survivor of the Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered – offers a theory even more chilling about why Ahmadinejad, while setting the stage for a second Holocaust, finds it so compelling to keep denying that there ever was one. Speaking at a Hudson Institute luncheon in New York on April 30th, Wiesel offered his view that Ahmadinejad is after his own monstrous version of personal glory:
Wiesel said his guess is that Ahmadinejad “wants to enter the history books as the only one who destroyed the Jews.”
Ergo — according to Wiesel’s theory – in Ahmadinejad’s scheme of the universe, there is no room to admit that Hitler already set the bar.
Wiesel went on to warn that there is a chronic tendency to think such things could never happen, to believe that fanatics such as Ahmadnejad, or his patron Ayatollah Khamenei, don’t really mean what they say. Wake up, says Wiesel: Ahmadinejad “is clear. He means it.”
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9 Comments
1. Brian:Claudia wrote:
I’m profoundly sorry that I can’t remember the proper attribution, but there is an all-too-human thought process that, a wiser person than I, suggested approximates this:
Jun 3, 2009 - 9:19 pm 2. Alex:Claudia, in regard to your latest article on Obama in Forbes,
there are at least two points that you are factually wrong on:
1. Putin is no longer the Prime Minister, he hasn’t been for a long while now and
2. There’s no way to prevent a terrorist plan from being hatched; there
is a way however, to prevent it from being implemented and the major part (the one that mattered) of it’s hands-on planning and implementation did not happen during Clinton’s time.
You lost a lot credibility with the article in question.
[Ed. note: Alex, Putin hasn't been president for a while, but unless you know something the rest of us don't, he's still the prime minister.]
Jun 3, 2009 - 10:45 pm 3. Alex:Oh yes, my bad, I forgot they have it the other way around in Russia.
Cheers!
Jun 4, 2009 - 2:23 pm 4. Why does the Iranian President Deny the Holocaust? « maladaptivecognition:[...] speech to the Muslim World,
Jun 5, 2009 - 10:11 am 5. Jan:And yet Wiesel gives Obama credibility by appearing with him at Buchenwald and suggesting that he, Obama, can make a positive difference in this world.
Mr. Wiesel, what could you be thinking. Obama ignores the madman from Iran’s ranting.
Jun 5, 2009 - 2:59 pm 6. Danny:I think it is a simpler reason. Basically it is a result of their narrative for the reason Israel exists:
1) West is overcome with remorse at not having saved the Jews in the second world war,
2) As such they “give” “Palestine” to Israel.
Now if it turns out Jews weren’t really killed then there is nothing to feel bad about and so you can “give” “Palestine” back.
NB none of the 2 pillars are true but this is the standard narrative.
Jun 6, 2009 - 11:51 am 7. Steynian 362 « Free Canuckistan!:[...] MAD MAHMOUD Ahmadinejad’s Real Reason for Denying the Holocaust? …. [...]
Jun 9, 2009 - 6:19 am 8. La véritable raison pour laquelle Ahmadinedjad nie la Shoah « Leblogdenoach:[...] (http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/ahmadinejads-real-reason-for-denying-the-holocaust/) [...]
Jun 10, 2009 - 6:45 am 9. Zitate! « abseits vom mainstream – heplev:[...] Ahmadinedschad will als der einzige in die Geschichtsbücher eingehen, der die Juden vernichtete. Elie Wiesels Vermutung darüber, weshalb der Teheran-Adolf den Holocaust leugnet (zitiert von Claudia Rosett, Pajamas Media, 03.06.09). [...]
Jun 14, 2009 - 10:20 am