The ugly specter of anti-Semitism was on display again last month in Iran. It should send a shudder up and down your spine, and serve as a warning that this disease has not been eradicated and threatens world peace.
by Darris McNeely
In December, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hosted an eclectic gathering of scholars, Orthodox rabbis and Holocaust deniers in an international conference whose purpose was to debate whether the Holocaust of World War II that killed more than 6 million Jews really occurred.
That one of history's most documented stories could even be questioned in such a setting shows the bizarre mind-set of the Iranian leader and his government. Ahmadinejad has repeatedly questioned the Holocaust as part of his continuing rant against the state of Israel and its main supporter, the United States. He told conference attendees, "Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out."
This conference highlighted Iran's position as a source of instability across the Middle East today. Iran is behind the Shiite unrest in Iraq and is well known to be the real power behind the terrorist group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The recommendations of the recent Iraq Study Group include approaching Iran as a partner in reaching a peace settlement in Iraq and the Palestinian territories.
That Iran could be a serious partner in reaching an equitable solution for Jews and Arabs in the region strains the imagination. This leader speaks clearly, consistently and dogmatically about a world under his view of Islamic law. One must conclude that he represents a dominant view among Iran's ruling religious clerics. And his world is one without Jews and Americans or anyone else who fails to submit to the teachings of Allah and his one prophet, Muhammad.
Anti-Semitism in Europe
Anti-Semitism is still very much alive in Europe, the scene of the Holocaust. Synagogues have been attacked, Jewish cemeteries desecrated and angry Muslim immigrants have murdered some Jews. The situation is so bad in France that many French Jews have purchased second homes in Israel should the situation ever become intolerable.
