POLITICS: Forgiving the Unforgivable

By Haider Rizvi Reprint | | Print |

Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 26 2007 (IPS) - In a forceful move to snub Iran for its continued denial of the Holocaust, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution Friday condemning those who question whether the killing of six million Jews at the hands of the Nazi regime of Adolph Hitler actually happened.

Sponsored by 103 countries, the resolution deplored “without any reservation any denial of the Holocaust.” Noting that all countries have “a vital stake in a world free of genocide,” it urged the international community to reject any attempts aimed at denying this historical event.

In condemning the Holocaust denial, though sponsors did not name Iran, many believe that the adoption of the resolution was an obvious reaction to Tehran’s ongoing international campaign for Holocaust denial.

Just last month, Iran hosted a conference questioning the historical fact of the Holocaust. Those who attended the meeting were well-known “revisionist” Western academics and activists, including David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan from the United States.

In Tehran, many participants endorsed the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s view that the scale of the atrocities committed against the European Jews during the Holocaust was questionable. The meeting was widely condemned by a number of world leaders, including the former U.N. chief Kofi Annan.

Pleased with the General Assembly for adopting the resolution with consensus, Ban Ki-moon, the U.N Secretary General, said it reflected “the prevailing view of the international community.”

Commenting on the outcome, Shiekha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, president of the 192-member General Assembly, an Arab Muslim, added: “This is a strong reminder to all that the international community is united in opposing all crimes against humanity.”

Introducing the text, the U.S. envoy Alejandro Wolff, who described the Holocaust as “one of the most tragic moral catastrophes in all history,” said those who deny the holocaust reveal their ignorance and moral failure,” an implicit reference to the Iranian position.

For his part, the Iranian diplomat Hossein Gharibi, refused to embrace the resolution, saying that he had no reason to believe that the intent behind that move was “genuine.”

“Iran, like many other countries, has condemned genocide against any race, group, or religion as a crime against humanity,” he said. “There is no justice or any justification for the attempts made by some, particularly the Israeli regime, to exploit past crimes as a pretext to commit new genocide.”

Though supportive of the move to adopt the resolution, a diplomat from Iran’s close ally, Venezuela, criticised the sponsors for failing to maintain a balanced approach.

“While millions of human beings have been victims of the Holocaust, the resolution should also cover the deaths of those killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the Palestinian people, who are the victims of excesses perpetrated under the pretext of self-defence and security,” said Venezuela’s Marco Palaviana.

Explaining his position, Dan Gillerman, the Israeli representative, said the resolution reflected that speaking out and educating about the “Nazis’ brutal and systematic murder of the Jewish people” must focus world attention on the horrors of genocide, and compel all nations to commit to preventing such atrocities.

But “regrettably,” he added, “lessons are being rejected and flaunted in certain parts of the world.” Alluding to Iran, he said while the nations of the world are in unison in condemning Holocaust denial, “a member of the General Assembly continues to deny that eternal truth.”

Speaking on behalf of the European Union, German envoy Thomas Matussek said he fully acknowledged that the “unprecedented crime” of the Holocaust was committed by Germans “in the name of their country,” adding that millions of Jews, as well as other groups like Siniti and Roma, were killed during the Second World War.

In urging the international community to fight anti-Semitism and racism, he said attempts to distort historical facts are “a shameful failure of the common responsibility to ensure a world free from such atrocities.”

Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador, whose nation had lost millions of people in the fight against the Nazis, defended the resolution by saying no one could remain indifferent . “The Holocaust is not only a tragedy for Europeans,” he said. “but for humanity as a whole.” Noting that the U.N. had declared Jan. 27 the International Day of Holocaust Commemoration, Churkin recalled that was the date when the Red Army freed Auschwitz, one of the largest Nazi death camps.

The Russian ambassador stressed that the resolution not only contained an appeal to condemn the denial of the Holocaust as a historical event, but “any act that sought to achieve that aim.”

Except for Iran, all Muslim nations endorsed the resolution on the Holocaust, although an overwhelming majority of them decided not to join the move as sponsors.