The Holocaust as an Ideological Danger

In 2005, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made an astute observation about the Holocaust that was heard around the world: “The West had given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more than God, religion, and the prophets.” He further suggested that if the West had committed such a huge crime against Jews they should give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to the Jews. The Palestinians should not have to pay for someone else’s alleged crimes.[1]

Prominent Reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi, who will run in the next Iranian election for president, has recently said that Ahmadinejad's comments have cost Iran an arm and a leg. “We have so far paid a heavy price for the remarks by the president on the Holocaust,” Karroubi claimed, “and I cannot see what we have gained in return.”[2]

What Karroubi has apparently failed to mention is that, in the near future, Iran and the West may pay dearly for most of the world’s unquestioning acceptance of the Holocaust doctrine. This failure to publicly question and scrutinize this dogma has lead to defamation, death and suffering, and is helping to set the stage for a future destructive war against the Iranian people that may bring disaster to the entire world.

As the respected Jewish scholar David Klinghoffer admitted in the Forward: “”The world is aware how jealously the Jewish community guards the Holocaust, both as a memory and a weapon.”[3]

As we shall soon see, the Holocaust is a potent ideological weapon indeed, as it has been used against Europeans, Christians, Palestinians and Muslims. But just as importantly, it appears as though the Iranian people may be the future victims of the deadly ideological weapon of the Holocaust.

The Holocaust and the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

The Israeli historian, Dr. Ilan Pappe, formerly of Haifa University and now teaching at Exeter University (Great Britain), has pointed out how, in the war for the creation of Israel, the Holocaust was used as a weapon against Palestinian Arabs. (Pappe is not a Holocaust revisionist, and I presume he accepts the traditional Holocaust story.)

In the 1948 Zionist-Palestinian conflict, the Palestinians, and Arabs in general, were portrayed as “Nazis who would perpetrate another Holocaust.” We quote Professor Pappe verbatim: “The attempt to portray Palestinians, and Arabs in general, as Nazis was a deliberate public relations ploy to ensure that, three years after the Holocaust, Jewish soldiers would not lose heart when ordered to cleanse, kill and destroy other human beings.”[4] That is, the alleged Nazi Holocaust was a central piece of a propaganda campaign designed to insure that Jewish soldiers would not hesitate to oppress and kill Palestinians during the Zionist takeover of Palestine.

Pappe further pointed out that the Holocaust doctrine was used in the West to silence any opposition to Zionist plans for Palestine: “A conspiracy of silence on the part of the International Red Cross and Western journalists covered up the Zionist crime [the ethnic cleansing of Palestine], Pappe continued. The message to the Jews, he said, was that Europe wanted to atone for its silence during the Nazi persecution of Jews. A go-ahead signaled that building their state would bring closure to what the West allowed to happen to Jews during World War II.”[5]

Pappe is not the only Israeli scholar to point out that the Holocaust was a major propaganda weapon, utilized to silence opposition to Zionism’s takeover of Palestine and “justify” the denial of Palestinian human rights.[6]

The Holocaust Doctrine, Neoconservativsm and the US Invasion of Iraq

It is no big secret. The Neoconservative movement, a right-wing political philosophy that emerged in the United States and now has considerable influence over President George W. Bush, is essentially a Jewish movement with Jewish-Zionist interests at its core. This has been well documented by the recent publication of Jacob Heilbrunn’s They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of The Neocons. “After all, it is quite true that while not all neoconservatives are Jews,” the American political scientist points out, “the majority of neoconservatives were, and are, Jewish; it is also true that they tend to propose foreign policy goals that support and favor Israel.”[7]

But even more importantly, Heilbrunn notes that the Holocaust was a Neoconservative “justification” for the US invasion of Iraq. (Once again, Heilbrunn is not a Holocaust revisionist, and presumably he believes in the orthodox view of the Holocaust.) He writes: “In the end, the neoconservatives adduced a number of reasons justifying war against [Iraqi dictator] Saddam [Hussein]. Their moralism stemmed less from imperial dreams than from something else—a firm belief in America’s role as the only bulwark against a second Holocaust. As Jews, they (and their Catholic conservative allies) were haunted by the memory that the Allies had not stopped the Holocaust—and they strongly believed that it was America’s obligation to act preemptively to avert another one.”[8]

So there you have it. The Holocaust doctrine was one “justification” for the disastrous US invasion of Iraq. According to Neoconservative thinking, the US must invade Iraq to prevent Saddam Hussein from perpetrating another Holocaust against the Jews in Israel. The end result: over four thousand American soldiers and a multitude of Iraqis met their tragic deaths, further evidence that the Holocaust is a dangerous doctrine and a threat to human life.

The Holocaust and the “Justification” of Hate, Defamation and Mass Death

One promoter of Holocaust hate is the Nobel Peace Prize winner and “chief witness” to the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel. He openly makes appeals that could generate ethnic hatred, for he wrote: “Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate—healthy virile hate—for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German. To do otherwise would be a betrayal of the dead.”[9] Admonitions like this, coming from a major Jewish icon, are likely to encourage Jews to hate Germans.

Not only has Wiesel employed the Holocaust to encourage hatred, he has also used it to attack the entire span of Christian civilization, for he has stated that “Auschwitz signifies …the failure of two thousand years of Christian civilization…”[10]

In a past issue of the Jewish weekly, the Forward, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric Yoffe, was quoted as saying: “And in Europe, which bears the mark of Cain for its complicity in the Holocaust, the Arab-Israeli conflict has become a means of absolving guilt. In turning Israelis from victims into Nazis, they [non-Jewish Europeans] seek to cleanse their consciences by casting their sins upon us [the Jews].”[11]

Once again, here we have an important Jewish leader claiming that, because of the alleged Holocaust, non-Jewish Europeans carry the mark of the Biblical murderer, Cain. According to the “ethics” of modern Europe, Jewish-Zionists are “allowed” to use the Holocaust to defame non-Jewish Europeans.

And yet, there is even a more outrageous example of how the Holocaust doctrine is a threat to all life on earth. A book published in 1989, Testimony: Contemporary Writers Make the Holocaust Personal, is a landmark volume in which Jewish novelists, essayists, and poets tell how the Holocaust has affected their lives and thinking. The testimony of the award-winning writer, Jane De Lynn, is quite shocking. She wrote: “Although in general I believe in nuclear disarmament, I am GLAD Israel has the atomic bomb, and the continued existence of Israel is the only cause for which I consider it justifiable to use nuclear weapons. Let me put this in the starkest and ugliest light: I am not sure, but I believe, that if the choice were between the survival of Israel and that of the remaining 4 or 6 billion peoples of the world, I would choose the 4 million [Jews in Israel].”[12]

Does the reader understand the horrendous nature of what is being suggested? Because six million Jewish lives were allegedly lost in the Holocaust, nuclear destruction of the non-Jewish world may be preferable and justifiable in order to save Jewish Israel!

The reader should keep in mind that De Lynn is not some insane derelict whom everybody ignores. She is a prominent writer who commands a respectful hearing in Jewish and Gentile communities. How many other Jewish-Zionists in powerful places have beliefs similar to hers? The sheer danger of such thinking should be intuitively obvious.

The Holocaust as Weapon Against Muslims and Iran

And now, a new pattern is emerging. In the future, it appears as though Zionist ideologues are going to use the Holocaust to blacken the image of Muslims and Iranians. In the January 8, 2006, issue of the San Francisco Chronicle, the pro-Zionist writer Edwin Black made this statement: “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has shot to the forefront of Holocaust denial with his rabble-rousing remarks last month. But it’s more like self-denial. The president of Iran need only look to his country’s Hitler-era past to discover that Iran and Iranians were strongly connected to the Holocaust and the Hitler regime, as was the entire Islamic world under the leadership of the mufti of Jerusalem.”[13]

According to this Zionist propagandist, Iranians in particular and Muslims in general are now “accomplices” in the alleged mass murder of Jews during WWII. Ideas like this, I could argue, are bound to generate hatred for Muslims and Iranians.

In September 2007, President George W. Bush cited the Holocaust religion as a “justification” for possibly attacking Iran and beginning a world-wide war. Bush was quoted as saying: “Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put the region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.”[14]

A former White House aide clarified the meaning of Bush’s statement: “By using the word ‘holocaust,’ Mr. Bush has provided a moral reason to allow the Jewish state to do what it needs to do.”[15]

Israel may be planning a war of mass death, utilizing dubious Jewish Holocaust claims dating back to World War II as the “justification.” This has been further confirmed by Republican presidential candidate John McCain, as he also has used the Holocaust doctrine to “legitimize” a possible future attack upon Iran. In reference to Iran’s nuclear technology, McCain stated in his first debate with Barack Obama: “We cannot allow a second Holocaust.”[16]

Reformist cleric Karroubi is partly correct. Iran has been condemned by Western governments and media sources for President Ahmadinejad’s criticism of the Holocaust religion. But what Karroubi has failed to note is that silent acceptance of the Holocaust doctrine, failing to publicly contest it, may lead to a destructive war against his own people that could result in a disaster for the entire world. Clearly, as I have shown here, the Holocaust doctrine is now being used as the ideological “justification” for a future destructive war of mass death against Iran. For this reason alone, the Holocaust should be subject to intense debate and scrutiny. If we can debunk the “justification” for a future war, we can possibly prevent the war and save tens of thousand of lives.

Before Karroubi again criticizes President Ahmadinejad because of his public remarks about the Holocaust, he should contemplate how this doctrine may be used in the future against his own Iranian people, just as in the past it has been used against Europeans, Christians and Palestinians.

What is to be done?

As I have shown here, the traditional view of the Holocaust has been used to “legitimize” hate, defamation, ethnic cleansing, and future wars of mass death. In the West, the Holocaust ideology has been raised to the status of an intolerant religion. It is the ultimate “mortal sin” to contest it. Even Israeli scholar Beit-Hallami is honest enough to admit the moment the Holocaust dogma is raised to “justify” a political agenda, almost all debate and discussion ceases.[17] Yet, this scenario contradicts the political philosophy of democratic governments, for any doctrine that influences the politics of the nation or world, as the Holocaust undoubtedly does, should be subject to close scrutiny and questioning.

In this world of endless war and violence, it is everyone’s duty to help bring about peaceful resolutions to the problems humanity faces. It is now up to the powerful interests that are behind the Holocaust ideology to engage its opponents, the revisionists, in peaceful, democratic debate so we may get at the truth about the fate of the Jews during World War II. Indeed, a critical examination of the Holocaust dogma is in the best interests of Iran, the United States, and the entire world. In this way, we can help to build a more rational and humane world order.

Notes

Copyright 2008

[1]

“Iran Paid Dearly for Holocaust Remark.”
Online: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=71976&sectionid=351020101

[2]

Ibid.

[3]

David Klinghoffer, “Our Role in Promoting Holocaust Denial,” Forward, 30 December 2005, p. 9.

[4]

Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (One World Publications, 2006), p. 72.

[5]

Pat and Samir Twair, “Ilan Pappe Blames West’s ‘Conspiracy of Silence’ Condoning Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August 2008, p.44.
Online: http://www.washington-report.org/archives/August_2008/0808044.html

[6]

Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel (Olive Branch Press, 1993), p. 181.

[7]

Jacob Heilbrunn, They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Necons (Doubleday, 2008), p. 10.

[8]

Ibid., p. 243.

[9]

Elie Wiesel, Legends of Our Time (Avon Books, 1968), pp. 177-178.

[10]

Quoted in Robert Jan van Pelt, The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial (Indiana University Press, 2002), p. 6.

[11]

Quoted in the Forward, 14, November 2003, p.9.

[12]

David Rosenberg, ed., Testimony: Contemporary Writers Make the Holocaust Personal (New York Times Books/Random House, 1989), p. 65

[13]

Edwin Black, “Denial of Holocaust nothing new in Iran: Ties to Hitler led to plots against British and Jews,” San Francisco Chronicle, 8 January 2006, p. D-1. Online: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/01/08/INGODGH99Q1.DTL

[14]

Tim Shipman, “Will President Bush bomb Iran?,” Sunday Telegraph (Great Britain), 4 September 2007. Online: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/02/wiran102.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox

[15]

Ibid.

[16]

“McCain: Nuclear-equipped Iran threatens ‘second Holocaust,’” Yahoo! News, 27 September 2008. Online: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080927/wl_mideast_afp/
usvoteiran_080927045101;_ylt=ApcAZxPUIKwq2v6884YTu_JSw60A

[17]

Beit-Hallahmi, p. 178, op. cited.