You recognize a mental case – an
advanced mental case – when you see someone associate things that do not
necessarily associate, then go further and see a conspiracy woven into the
phony association he just made. This is what Reuel Marc Gerecht is doing in the
article he wrote under the title: “Holocaust Denial and the Iranian Regime” and
the subtitle: “In Tehran 's worldview, if six
million Jews didn't die, then Israel
has no excuse to exist.” It was published in the Wall Street Journal on April
26, 2014.
Plagued with living by the
dictates of a twisted mind, he sees a relationship between Holocaust denial and
the desire to develop nuclear weapons. Well, he does not exactly put things in
simple terms such as these because a twisted mind never goes in a straight
line. Instead, he says that, at least for now, such relationship exists only in
Iran ... which is convenient
for him because he does not have to explain why China ,
North Korea , India and Pakistan
– all of them Asian countries – have developed nuclear weapons, having never
said something that hints at a desire to deny Israel the right to exist.
Gerecht points to a speech that
was delivered by Iran 's
ruling cleric, Ali Khamenei on March 21, 2014. He explains that the speech was
an attack on the West, and the Iranians who embrace the Western ways. He goes
on to say that Holocaust denial is part of the cleric's strategy to resist
those Western ways. But that's not all, says Gerecht, because the man in Iran has
additional ways to resist the West. Oh yeah! “And what would they be?” you want
to know. Well, are you ready for the answer? Here come the many ways to resist
the West: (1) developing a nuclear program, (2) developing a sanctions-proof
economy and (3) developing a culture that has little tolerance for deviant
conduct – all of which are, of course, alien behavior to Westerners.
But what can be alarming about
someone saying he is not too clear about a historical event that had nothing to
do with his society? Does everyone on Planet Earth know all that happened in Rwanda , Cambodia ,
Kosovo and Stalin's Russia ?
And why is it so vexing to someone like Gerecht that Khamenei expressed
puzzlement at the fact that in Europe someone
expressing doubt about the Holocaust can get stopped, arrested, sued or
imprisoned? Has this not happened? Of course it did. And why should people
learn to love horrendous situations of this kind, or profess to like them lest
they be criticized by a sicko living thousands of miles away? Why?
In fact, this kind of destructive
nonsense has to stop because it is becoming too destructive. And you can see
why this is so in the Gerecht article where the impact of his mental deformity
is in full swing. Look at the reality of what follows, and feel sick to your
stomach: “Many observers, including in the Obama administration, have sought to
play down the matter of Iranian Holocaust denial.” The writer hints that people
– perhaps those living in Asia close to Iran – have something in common
with highly placed individuals in the American government. They all pretend not
to see what he sees, he wants us to believe, but does not elaborate.
The first thing he does, however,
is demonstrate that he cannot see the difference between expressing doubt about
aspects of the Holocaust, and denying it. Second, he involves the Obama
administration in an accusatory way because that is where the nuclear issue is
slated to play a big role. Third, he directly associates and weaves Holocaust
denial with the nuclear issue: “It strongly suggests that Mr. Khamenei's
republic will endure great economic hardship to realize its dream of becoming a
nuclear power.” Thus, Asian nuclear issues and holocaust denial have become
inextricably linked in his twisted mentality. Does he now expect that sooner or
later, China , North Korea , India
and Pakistan will admit they
have hidden motives with regard to Israel 's right to exist?
He has not yet made that leap but
he lists all those in Iran
who, in his view, have embraced Holocaust denial even though none of them
actually came out and denied it. These would be all the commanders of the
Revolutionary Guard Corps. It would also be the newly elected President of the
country, Hasan Rouhani and his former mentor, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. And
it would be the well known former President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Gerecht then does something that
is truly perplexing because it sounds – at first blush – like it may be an
exercise in reverse psychology, but when you analyze it in depth, you find that
it does not rise to that level. In fact, reverse psychology would be to say
something as simple as: “The Iranians believe that the Jews control America but
this is not true.” Talking like that, you draw attention to the fact that the
Jews do control America ,
but you don't want to take the responsibility for saying it, so you attribute
the saying to someone else.
Our author started saying
something in that style but then messed it up because he could not marry that
thought with the main thesis he is spinning. And so, after saying that Iranians
have “a passionate belief in the awesome power of the Jews [whose] capitalism
controls America and via America the
West,” he goes on to deny the validity of that statement in a very
unconventional way. This is what he does: “Many Iranians appear to be flummoxed
by the contradiction of the all-powerful Jews losing more than half their
number to the Nazis.”
This being his approach, he goes
on to explain; it must be that in the eyes of the Iranians, the Holocaust is “a
narrative spun by the Jews to engender guilt and special advantages over
Muslims and others.” Right there, Gerecht blows himself out of the water. This
happens because the animosity that the Jews began to display toward the Muslims
did not begin against all Muslims. It began against the Sunni Arabs, while the
Jews were chummy with the Shiites of Iran. And none of that happened till 1948
when the state of Israel
was established, whereas the narrative of the Holocaust began to circulate a
number of years earlier than that.
Having blown away the advantage he
could have had by holding on to the idea that the Jews control America and via America the West, he now tries to
gain a similar kind of advantage but does a poor job. He says that the Iranians
are unlikely to attack Israel
because they fear American power and Israel 's too. So you want to know:
What's the problem, therefore? Well, are you ready for the answer, my friend?
Do you expect a huge revelation to come down like a lightening bolt? Or would
settle for an anti-climatic ending? Here it is: “The supreme leader's speech is
ultimately about creating an Islamic bloc that is capable of turning back
Judeo-Western imperialism.”
Is that it? The Jews, Israel , America
and the West are upset – they are angry – red hot angry – enraged – willing to
bomb Iran
into the Stone Age – because the Iranians wish to be free of Judeo-Western
imperialism. Is it that the Westerners devoted millions upon millions of words;
wrote tens of thousands of texts and gave tens of thousands of speeches for no
reason except to thwart that illegitimate Islamo-Iranian effort to be free? Is
Western freedom more valuable than Islamic freedom?