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The Cincinnati Beacon
Iranian president says move Israel to Europe
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
via Wikinews
The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who recently called for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” says the Jewish state should be moved to Europe and questioned whether the Holocaust actually took place. In an interview with Iran’s Arabic channel ‘Al-Alam’, Ahmadinejad said that if Germany and Austria feel responsible for the massacre of Jews during World War II, they should host a state of Israel on their own soil.
"Some European countries insist on saying that during World War II, Hitler burned millions of Jews and put them in concentration camps,” Ahmadinejad said. “Any historian, commentator or scientist who doubts that is taken to prison or gets condemned. Although we don’t accept this claim [of the holocaust], if we suppose it is true ...”.
He followed this by a statement quoted as “Let’s give some land to the Zionists in Europe or in Germany or Austria,” according to USA Today, or, according to Reuters and Rediff, “If the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces in Europe—like in Germany, Austria or other countries—to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe. You offer part of Europe and we will support it.”
Israel condemned Ahmadinejad’s statements as “outrageous and even racist,” saying the comments defy international law which recognises Israel’s right to exist and assumed a denial of Holocaust. The United States described the comments as “appalling and reprehensible.”
President Ahmadinejad’s remarks Thursday were made at a summit of Muslim nations in Islam’s holy city of Mecca. The summit condemned terrorism and extremism, stressing the themes of moderation and tolerance. Speaking at a news conference on the summit sidelines, he said most Jews in Israel “have no roots in Palestine, but they are holding the destiny of Palestine in their hands and allow themselves to kill the Palestinian people.”
Ahmadinejad raised a similar storm in October calling Israel a “disgraceful blot” to be “wiped off the map.” Ahmadinejad, who was elected in June with the backing of Iran’s hard-line clerics, stuck by his comments, and his government organized a series of large anti-Israel demonstrations.
The President’s comments have ignited global ctiticism. His rhetoric, combined with Israel’s belief that Tehran’s nuclear activities are aimed at producing nuclear warheads, have increased tension between Israel and Iran.
Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon‘s adviser Ra’anan Gissin said, “just to remind Mr. Ahmadinejad, we’ve been here long before his ancestors. Therefore, we have a birthright to be here in the land of our forefathers and to live here. Thank God we have the capability to deter and to prevent such a statement from becoming a reality,”
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said the statement should be a wake up call to all of us around the world. “We should do everything we can in order to stop him, and to stop the Iranian effort to develop a nuclear bomb.”
United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged all UN States to combat such denial, and to “educate their populations about the well established historical facts of the Holocaust, in which one third of the Jewish people were murdered, along with countless members of other minorities.”
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the comment “further underscores our concerns about the regime in Iran. It’s all the more reason why it’s so important that the regime not have the ability to develop nuclear weapons.” Rabbi David Saperstein, head of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, called the comments a “repugnant distortion of history.”
Tension between Israel and Iran began before the 1979 Islamic Revolution when the Israelis joined the United States in siding with the Shah before he was deposed.
Reactions from Iranians
The Iranian blogger Babak Seradjeh reacted to Ahmadinejad’s comments by stating, “I wondered why Mr. Ahmanedinejad doesn’t provide the Palestinians with a piece of Iran. ... Such evil remarks in blatant disregard of documented history is nothing new of course coming from the kind of people that Mr. Ahmadinejad represents. Denying the Holocaust, calling to wipe a country off the map, or to move it, are all the stuff of my generation’s childhood, in school, on the radio and on TV, in the bold and thick slogans on the walls, the streamlined propaganda that aimed to penetrate all the space it could find in our brains.”
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