Muslims against Iranian Holocaust conference

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 10:24 AM on December 15, 2006.

Hat tip to Tikkun for finding this Muslim denunciation of Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial conference. Tikkun founder Rabbi Lerner writes:

How many times have you heard claims that Muslims never speak out to denounce the extremism in their community, while Jews and Christians do? It's a lie that is part of the larger assault on Muslims that has replaced anti-communism as the primary way that reactionary forces in the U.S. deflect attention from their own extremism, militarism and ongoing war in Iraq.

History will recall the tragedy of the genocide that slaughtered some six million European Jews between the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party in 1933 and the culmination of the Second World War in Europe in May, 1945.

The evidence of this crime, and the horrible magnitude of this killing, is irrefutable. From sources as varied as Nazi war records, film documentation, and most importantly, the testimony of survivors and witnesses, we know that the mass murder of European Jews was, indeed, the single greatest crime of genocide in the twentieth century.

Yet the world now witnesses yet another wave of historical revisionism and Holocaust denial, this time emerging not from European Anti-Semites, but from none other than the President of Iran. Indeed, this head of state has taken the unprecedented act of hosting an international conference of anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, and even white racists like former Klan leader David Duke, to gather in Tehran to deny the magnitude, if not the very existence, of this barbaric act.

As a Muslim of African decent in the United States, whose ancestors were victimized by the enormous crime of slavery, I object. And I believe that all Muslims, like other human beings who value compassion and truth, must vigorously object to this gathering as well.

Like many in the global Muslim community, I regard the occupation of Palestinian land and the policies of the State of Israel as issues of extreme importance. I am certainly among those who believe that the occupation of Palestinian territory and the denial of full human rights to Palestinians, and even to Arab people regarded as Israeli citizens, is deplorable.

But I find it to be morally unconscionable to attempt to build political arguments and political movements on a platform of racial hatred and the denial of the suffering of the human beings who were victimized by the viciousness of Hitler's genocidal rampage through Europe.

President Ahmedinejad should recognize that the issue of the Palestinian people must not, and cannot, be transmogrified into the ugly and spiritually bankrupt context of racial hatred. The cause of freedom must never drink from the well of hatred and racism.

And indeed, as the Holy Qur'an compels Muslims to demand justice for the oppressed, we are also called to witness against ourselves when we are in error.

And in this case, the President of Iran most certainly is.

Tagged as: iran, jews, muslims, holocaust

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.