Last week, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sponsored a Holocaust deniers' symposium. One famous attendee was David Duke. I just can't "put two and two" together about the thinking process of Holocaust deniers. They don't like "Jewish" people for a variety of reasons (though the definition is loose--are we talking about adherents to a religion? People with a certain cultural identity? An ethnic group?) But, do the Holocaust deniers believe that if they can debunk the Holocaust, then "Jewish" people aren't as special as everyone seems to think that they are, and bigotry against them is then OK (or not as bad)? Somebody please explain this to me.

Hate is a big part of being human....

Trixter nailed it.

Jealousy is perhaps a secondary part of it as well, especially when you look at what Arab and Persian cultures have not accomplished in the past few centuries.

Herb

Since the driving force behind the establishment of Israel as a nation was the Holocaust, their reasoning is, if they can eliminate that fact, they can eliminate the justification of the existance of Israel.

And since there are people that believe the Moonlanding was faked, it shouldnt be hard to convience people the Holocaust was faked.

Nevermind the eyewitness accounts of the soldiers, and the survivors, or the filmed evidence.

It's not hard to oversee something like the Holocaust for someone who considers the victims subhuman. Hitler considered Jews subhuman, Ahmadinejad does as well. Seeing as the current Israel was created by the UN to give the Jewish folks a safe homeland of their own, it stands to reason that Iran would face some rather drastic circumstances if they "obliterated" Israel as Ahmadinejad wants to.

Given all the supporting evidence, why not simply put their speech to the test. They've a very high burden to meet.

This should be a no-brainer really.

This is one of those things, where a lot of people are predisposed not to believe the truth.

But it should work out like the moon landings does. The solid case is well presented and those few whackos who deny we landed on the moon are marginalized.

There is plenty of evidence we had a holocaust.

(isn't there?)

I haven't even followed these jokers because it's like the moon landing thing. Bet the both of them saw Elvis at Burger King too.

Heck there's plenty of evidence still existing that there was a holocaust. Geez, those concentration camps still standing didn't just sprout roots and pop out of the ground like a weed did they?

Exactly!

That's better than the video footage we have of the moon landings.

What drives them is advancing some agenda then. They can leverage the contraversy to sway the ignorant and get a lot of attention at the same time.

I strongly doubt honest convictions are behind this crap.

Evidence of the Holocaust unfortunatly isnt as solid is it could be.

The Germans tried their best to cover up as much as they could, almost no written records, the normally very effieent german administration didnt keep lists of those killed.

And not that many survived, and the deniers claim the are biased anyway.

The camps exist, and there are pictures of many in the furnaces and those liberated, but that is a small part of the total killed.

The deniers claim, that yes a lot of Jews are missing, but there are a lot of others missing, many died in the war.
You would think any reasonable person would have no doubt, but were dealing with a lot of people that are unreasonable, and dont want to believe.

Ok, that takes care of the sheeple following this thing. Enough doubt is there for some questions to pop up. Understandable. Not cool, but understandable.

Those driving this thing are not ignorant. If they are good enough spin doctors to bring this whole affair into doubt, they are smart enough to know better. I'll stick by what I wrote above.

6 million Jews were killed by Hitler's Germany during WWII.

30 million kulachs were killed during Stalin's communist 'collectivization'.

Hitler was evil.

I just wonder why doesn't Stalin get the same rap?

Herb

I think that the hatred behind Israel fuels a lot of this. These cultures think anything to do with Western culture is living life away from god....well...I shouldn't say all, the persian people I've met are adorable and very sweet loving people, but there is a rumbling in these countries about Israel's existence.

I know the christian people in here may disagree with this, and that's fine...but Israel has created a lot of its hate. They use the money and the weapons that we give them to negotiate their power in the region.

I've spoken with people who teach at universities (I just almost typed that in Norwegian...god help us all.) in West Bank and Gaza...and while there are crazy people blowing things up for these regions, there are reasons why they are fighting.

Israel has an iron grip on West Bank and Gaza's economy...anything that's made in those areas are sold in Israel, but it has to be labeled as made in Israel...otherwise they can't sell it. Which means that it gets counted in Israel's GDP, and hurts the surrounding area while it helps Israel.

There are other instances...mostly political that Israel is disliked. They are quick to flash the planes that the US has given them...that no one else can afford to defend themselves with.

What I see in this region is several different religious meccas and holy places meeting in one region...when you mix this with poverty, oil, money and power...you have a very vitriolic, caustic area that is exploited by everyone who comes into power in the area.

I feel for the common person in the region. There's a lot of things being fed to them that they believe because it gives them hope.

Dont forget Mao, he killed at least as many as Stalin.

For one thing, the Stalin and Mao never were defeated, therefore their evil deeds didn't become as public.

And Stalin was our "ally".

What can be really troubling, is the deals we made with a lot of the Nazis, because we "needed" them. Such as Gen Gehlan and the various rocket scientists.

"And Stalin was our 'ally'."

Excellent point. I think FDR called him 'good old Joe.' We had a lend-lease program that was supplying the Russians.

Yet Stalin murdered millions of his own innocent people.

Like Winston Churchill said, Churchill would have made a pact with the devil himself to defeat Hitler. Looks like he did when we teamed up with Stalin. That's how bad those times were.

Herb

"Excellent point. I think FDR called him 'good old Joe.' We had a lend-lease program that was supplying the Russians.

Yet Stalin murdered millions of his own innocent people.

Like Winston Churchill said, Churchill would have made a pact with the devil himself to defeat Hitler. Looks like he did when we teamed up with Stalin. That's how bad those times were."

Stalin dealt with whom it was most convenient for him to. Remember he signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler, promising Hitler most of Poland and Stalin the Baltic states. Though he and Hitler deeply distrusted each other, it was a convenient deal for both sides; it allowed Hitler to expand eastward without fear of attack from the Soviets, and it appeased Stalin's own imperialistic desires and let him focus on his war with Finland. Hitler of course reneged on that pact, probably the stupidest move he made during the entire war.

Stalin's reign of terror indeed makes Hitler's look pedestrian. Hitler pretty much persecuted those who didn't fit into his "master race" (namely Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals). Stalin took it another few steps forward. His paranoia and mistrust of those closest to him makes Richard Nixon look like Bubbles the Clown in comparison. Up until Moscow was in sight of the Germans basically, the Red Army was in a constant state of upheaval because of Stalin's purges of his military commanders whom he felt he could not trust. **ANYONE** with religious conviction stood no chance. Anyone THOUGHT of being against his collectivization, off with their heads. He did a much better job of hiding his heinous acts from the world than Hitler did as well; FDR genuinely liked Stalin, to the point where it significantly strained the relations between Roosevelt and Churchill (who didn't trust Stalin one iota).