The International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust was a two-day conference in Tehran, Iran that opened on 11 December 2006. Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the conference sought "neither to deny nor prove the Holocaust... [but] to provide an appropriate scientific atmosphere for scholars to offer their opinions in freedom about a historical issue". Participants included David Duke, Moshe Aryeh Friedman, Robert Faurisson, Fredrick Töben, Michèle Renouf, Ahmed Rami and Yisroel Dovid Weiss of Neturei Karta.
The conference was widely described as a "Holocaust denial conference" or a "meeting of Holocaust deniers."[1]
The conference provoked strong criticism.[2] The Vatican condemned it, the US administration of George W. Bush called it an "affront to the entire civilized world," and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair described it as "shocking beyond belief."[3] Historians of the Holocaust attended a separate conference in Berlin organized in protest against the assembly in Iran, calling it "an attempt to cloak anti-Semitism in scholarly language."[4]
The idea for the conference was inspired by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had been criticized since coming to power in 2005 for referring to the Holocaust as a "myth" and calling Israel a "tumor". The event opened on December 11, 2006, and was organized and hosted by the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs's Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS).
Manouchehr Mottaki, then foreign minister of the Ahmadinejad government, said the purpose of the conference was not to reject or accept the historical reality of the Holocaust.[5] Instead, along with other Iranian officials, he stated that the conference was intended to "create an opportunity for thinkers who cannot express their views freely in Europe about the Holocaust".[6] Its objective was to create "suitable scientific research so that the hidden and unhidden angles of this most important political issue of the 20th century becomes more transparent."[7]
According to Mottaki: "If the official version of the Holocaust is thrown into doubt, then the identity and nature of Israel will be thrown into doubt. And if, during this review, it is proved that the Holocaust was a historical reality, then what is the reason for the Palestinians having to pay the cost of the Nazis' crimes?"
There were 67 attendees from 30 countries, according to the Iranian foreign ministry.[8]
American David Duke, a former State Representative of the US state of Louisiana and ex-Ku Klux Klan leader, attended the conference. Politician Georges Theil, a member of the French National Front who was convicted under France's Holocaust denial laws, attended, as did the German-Australian Fredrick Töben, founder and head of the Adelaide Institute who had been imprisoned in Germany for three months in 1999 for Holocaust denial.[9] Robert Faurisson, a convicted Holocaust denier from France also attended,[10] as well as Ahmed Rami, a Swedish-Moroccan Holocaust denier who was imprisoned in Sweden for inciting racial hatred.[11] Psychologist Bendikt Frings, a leading member of the German National Democratic Party (NPD), was invited by Iranian Deputy Minister of Islamic Guidance Mohammad-Ali Ramin; Frings said that he had waited for such a conference "all my childhood".[12] [13] The NPD is often considered the most significant Neo-Nazi party in Germany.[14] [15]
Michèle Renouf, an Australian-born British defender of Holocaust denial author David Irving also attended. At the conference, Renouf claimed that the "terrible things" that happened to the Jews in World War II were brought upon by Jewish leaders.[16]
Among the participants at the conference were six members of the anti-Zionist Jewish organisation Neturei Karta, including Aharon Cohen,[17] [18] who said he had come to the conference to express the Orthodox Jewish viewpoint. Cohen also said that while the Holocaust indisputably happened, "in no way can it be used as a justification for perpetrating unjust acts against the Palestinians."
Shiraz Dossa, a professor of Political Science at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada, presented a paper at the conference and was castigated for his participation by the Canadian media and his university.[19]
During a presentation, Jan Bernhoff, a computer teacher from Sweden, claimed that only 300,000 Jews had been killed as opposed to six million.[20]
Israeli Arab lawyer Khaled Kasab Mahameed was invited to attend the conference by the Iranian government, who rescinded his permission after it was discovered that he holds Israeli citizenship.[21] Iran does not grant visas to Israelis. According to Ha'aretz, Mahameed intended "to tell the conference that the Holocaust did happen and that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's position of Holocaust denial is wrong". He stated:
Everything that happened must be internalized and the facts must not be denied... It is the obligation of all Arabs and all Muslims to understand the significance of the Holocaust. If their goal is to understand their adversary, they must understand the Holocaust... The naqba [disaster] the Palestinians experienced in 1948 is small compared to the Holocaust, but the political implications of the Holocaust have made its terrors a burden on the Palestinian people alone... The Holocaust has all the reasons for the creation of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but also has potential to bring peace."[22]
The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying: "The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom [and] elections should be held among Jews, Christians and Muslims so the population of Palestine can select their government and destiny for themselves in a democratic manner."[23]
Papers delivered by participants from countries ranging from Austria to Indonesia included "A Challenge to the Official Holocaust Story," and "Holocaust, the Achilles Heel of a Primordial Jewish Trojan."[24]
David Duke gave a speech in which he said: "In Europe you can freely question, ridicule and deny Jesus Christ. The same is true for the prophet Muhammad, and nothing will happen to you. But offer a single question of the smallest part of the Holocaust and you face prison."[9]
Fredrick Töben told the conference: "Minds are being switched off to the Holocaust dogma as it is being sold as a historical fact and yet we are not able to question it. This is mental rape."[25]
Aharon Cohen told the conference: "There is no doubt whatsoever, that during World War II there developed a terrible and catastrophic policy and action of genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany against the Jewish people, confirmed by innumerable eyewitness survivors and fully documented again and again...The figure of six million is regularly quoted. One may wish to dispute this actual figure, but the crime was just as dreadful whether the millions of victims numbered six million, five million or four million. The method of murder is also irrelevant, whether it was by gas chamber, firing squads or whatever. The evil was the same. It would be a terrible affront to the memory of those who perished to belittle the guilt of the crime in any way.[18]
Richard Krege maintained his suggestion of diesel exhaust gas chambers to be an "outright lie," and showed a model of the Treblinka extermination camp to illustrate this.[24] He claimed that up to 10,000 people died in the camp, but of disease, instead of planned extermination.[24] He said, "There is no scientific proof to show that this place was an extermination camp. All that exists are the words of some people."[24]
According to IRNA, the conference participants agreed to start a world foundation for Holocaust studies with Mohammad-Ali Ramin as its Secretary General. The stated purpose of the foundation was to "find out the truth about the Holocaust." More immediate tasks included preparing for the next Holocaust conference and composing the foundation's letter of association. The main office would initially be located in Tehran, though Ramin said it will eventually move to Berlin, "once proper grounds are prepared".[26]
Iran's sole Jewish member of parliament Maurice Motamed said: "Holding this conference after having a competition of cartoons about the Holocaust has put a lot of pressure on Jews all over the world;" and that "The conference has upset Iran's 25,000-strong Jewish community."[27]
Though reformist demonstrations had been rare since Ahmadinejad took office, a few dozen students burnt pictures of him and chanted "death to the dictator" as Ahmadinejad gave a speech at Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran on 12 December 2006.[25] One student activist said the protest was against the "shameful" Holocaust conference, and added that Ahmadinejad had "brought to our country Nazis and racists from around the world."[25] Ahmadinejad responded by saying: "Everyone should know that Ahmadinejad is prepared to be burnt in the path of true freedom, independence and justice."[25]
However, Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, Secretary-General of the International Congress to Support the Palestinian Intifada, expressed support for the conference, saying that the "Western and Zionist media have always been aggrandizing the dimensions of the reality of Holocaust, mixing a bit of truth with a lot of lies".[28]
Belgium - Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht said he "condemned the revisionistic and negationistic expressions (of Iran) and the repeated questioning of the right to exist for the state of Israel."[31]
Canada - Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter MacKay said that the conference was "an outrage". "It is an insult to Holocaust victims. It is an insult to their descendants. Canada's new government and I am sure many others in this House (of Commons) and around the globe condemn this conference, just as we have previously condemned the Iranian president's comments about the Holocaust as hateful."[32]
France - Prior to the conference, Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said France would condemn the conference if participants used it for Holocaust denial.[8] After the conference opened, Douste-Blazy stated to French RTL radio, "I reiterate our utter condemnation of this conference and the revisionist ideas it’s given a platform to."[33] He cited this conference as further evidence of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "shocking" and "unacceptable" statements, and that this conference violated the 2005 United Nations resolution on Holocaust remembrance, which "rejects any denial of the Holocaust as a historic event, either in full or in part."[33] [34]
Germany - Chancellor Angela Merkel, after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said "I would like to make clear that we reject with all our strength the conference taking place in Iran about the supposed nonexistence of the Holocaust."[23] According to the New York Times, the "German government summoned the Iranian chargé d’affaires in Berlin to complain."[8]
Israel - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "denounced the conference before embarking on a two-day trip to Germany"[9] calling the gathering "a sick phenomenon that shows the depths of hatred of the fundamentalist Iranian regime."[35] Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Foreign Minister, "commented on the Holocaust conference at a Knesset meeting ... and said, 'I didn’t come to this meeting to argue with the evil one from Tehran and his allies. He can’t erase the pain of the survivors.'"[36]
Mexico - The government issued a letter disapproving of the Conference and its results. In a statement on its website, the Foreign Secretary wrote that: "The government of Mexico, through the office of the Foreign Secretary, agrees with the international disapproval of the Iranian Conference on the Holocaust...and rejects all negation, either partial or total, of the Holocaust as historical fact."(translation)[37]
Poland - The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on its website that Poland "expresses its strong disapproval of the conference, which contradicts the idea of the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust established by the UN General Assembly, and celebrated on 27 January...Any attempt at contesting this truth arouses serious concern in Poland, where 6 million people were victims of the Nazi genocide". The Ministry also consigned informational material from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum to Iranian scholars, seeking to "deepen their knowledge" of the Holocaust.[38]
Sweden - Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt said: "The Iranian regime's statements about Israel and the questioning of the Holocaust are completely unacceptable, as well as Iran's questioning of the state of Israel's right to exist."[39]
Switzerland - Foreign Ministry spokesman Johann Aeschlimann said that the ministry condemned any querying of the right of Israel to exist, as had once again happened in Tehran, and of the Holocaust. "The Shoah is a historical fact. It is unacceptable to call this into question."[40]
United Kingdom - Prime Minister Tony Blair denounced the conference as "shocking beyond belief." Blair also said that it was "a symbol of sectarianism and hatred toward people of another religion. I mean, to go and invite the former head of the Ku Klux Klan to a conference in Tehran which disputes the millions of people who died in the Holocaust … what further evidence do you need that this regime is extreme?"[41]
United States - The State Department described the Iranian event as "yet another disgraceful act on this particular subject by the regime in Tehran.[35] It is just flabbergasting that they continue - that the leadership of that regime continues to deny that six million-plus people were killed in the Holocaust," spokesman Sean McCormack said.[42] The White House called it an "affront to the entire civilised world."[3]Thirty four of the world's leading policy institutes released a statement on 15 December that they would break off all relations with Iran's Institute for Political and International Studies. Signatories included the directors of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London; the Aspen Institute in Berlin; the German Marshall Fund in Washington; the Geneva Centre for Security Policy; the Center for International Studies and Research in Paris; the United States Studies Centre in Sydney, Australia; and the Center for International Relations in Warsaw.[45] The conference was condemned by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).[46]
Ayaan Hirsi Ali called on Western leaders to wake up to the reality of the situation. She stated: "For the majority of Muslims in the world the Holocaust is not a major historical event they deny; they simply do not know because they were never informed. Worse, most of us are groomed to wish for a Holocaust of Jews."[47] She said that she never learned anything about the Holocaust while she was studying in Saudi Arabia and Kenya. She called for action from charities: "Western and Christian charities in the third world should take it upon themselves to inform Muslims and non-Muslims alike, in the areas where they are active, about the Holocaust."[47]
A number of Arab journalists in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom criticized the conference, arguing that it included unqualified non-historian speakers, spread the hate and propaganda of an extremist Iranian government, defended the heinous crimes of the Nazis, damaged Iran diplomatically at a time when its foreign relations were difficult, and reflected a lack of human and cultural sensitivity.[48]