On September 24th, I went to Columbia University to protest its decision to extend a speaking invitation to the President of Iran, Ahmadinejad. I knew him as a Holocaust denier and a human rights violator, and I wanted to display my disapproval that an American university was welcoming such a man. I was able to get onto the Columbia University campus, and along with thousands of other students, I watched on a large outdoor screen a live taping of the interview that was taking place in a nearby building. While I had come to protest Ahmadinejad’s speaking there, I listened intently to his words because I was very curious to hear what he had to say.
One of the more publicized parts of the interview was when Ahmadinejad made a fool of himself by saying that the phenomenon of homosexuality does not exist in Iran. The crowd, mostly composed of students, laughed at his comment. Hardly a single person among thousands took him seriously. Unfortunately, this was the only time that the crowd expressed unanimous disapproval of the Iranian leader.
Frighteningly, many of Ahmadinejad’s thoughts could be perceived as progressive. He identified himself as a scholar, and he spoke in the language of the Enlightenment. He used recognizable Enlightenment aphorisms such as “a true scholar never stops searching for the truth,” and “the enlightened thinker is always questioning,” bringing into question one of the greatest human crimes ever committed: the organized murder of several million European Jews during World War II, which has since been referred to as the Holocaust.
Without insulting anyone’s intelligence, please allow me to repeat: there is no need for further research into the reality of the Holocaust. We have overwhelming evidence of this holocaust, in the form of artifacts, photographs, documents, the infrastructure of concentration camps, including gas chambers and human ovens, railroads, mass graves and, finally, personal accounts of survivors.
Yet Ahmadinejad questions the Holocaust under the guise of being a scholar. Ahmadinejad is no scholar. He is a great charlatan who abuses the language of reason and logic to further one of his main political agendas: the elimination of the State of Israel.
If we are to play Ahmadinejad’s silly (but dangerous) game of questioning events that have been clearly documented, like the Holocaust, then shouldn’t we question the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, which Ahmadinejad alluded to as having resulted in the death of thousands of Iranians? I was alive during the time when this conflict was supposed to have happened, but I never heard much about it growing up. And honestly, to this day, I have not met anyone who said they were affected by it. So, maybe it really never happened? Or, perhaps something happened, but maybe it was just a little skirmish that was blown way out of proportion? As an enlightened thinker, shouldn’t I be asking these questions?
No. I should not.
Like the Holocaust, the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) has been well documented, and questioning whether or not, or to what extent it happened, is just insulting to those who were killed in the war and whose lives were damaged by it.
At Wesleyan, I remember that for many of my papers, it was acceptable, if not encouraged, to respond to a question with a question. There is often nothing wrong with this. Many times, posing other questions can lead us to think about a topic in different ways, which can be illuminating.
However, this approach cannot be applied to everything. In some cases, you can only respond to a question with an answer—specifically, a “Yes” or “No” answer. Did the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center fall on September 11th, 2001? Yes. Did they fall on September 11th, 2001 in Pittsburgh, PA? No. Were several million Jews systematically murdered in Europe between 1940 and 1944 in what has commonly been referred to as the Holocaust? YES.
Masquerading as a scholar, Ahmadinejad’s “just questioning” of the Holocaust is a cruel and manipulative device that he is using to reach his ultimate goal of eliminating Israel in the Middle East. If he can undermine the legitimacy of the Holocaust, which is one of the main reasons why Israel was ultimately created, he can then posit to the world community (and he has already) that not only has the existence of a Jewish State in the Middle East caused much turmoil, it also has no basis for existing. Why? Because Jews don’t need a safe haven—they were never fleeing from persecution in the first place. What cruel and conniving twisting of facts, and under the pretense of “exploration and science.”
If Israel disappears as a political state, as Ahmadinejad would hope, then Jews everywhere are in danger of another Holocaust, which could always be easily questioned by the next great charlatan. Moreover, it is very important to realize that, just because Ahmadinejad is critical of the flawed Bush Administration and this terrible American-led war in Iraq, it does not mean he makes sense! So, please, do not sympathize with him because you agree with some of his ideas. He is not just some of his ideas. He is all of his ideas. And he is not just the controversial President of Iran. Right now, I believe that he is the greatest enemy to Jews, and their friends, everywhere.
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