I’m fascinated by the Iranians who believe the Holocaust is a myth. Apparently they are not alone. It’s a common belief in the Muslim world. But how do you NOT believe the most documented historical happening of all time?
If you read about Holocaust deniers in Wikipedia.com, just to pick one source, it presents their arguments and then slashes them to bits as you would expect. But here’s the fascinating thing. Before you read the views of mainstream historians, do some snooping on the web and find a Holocaust denier web site and read their arguments as if it were the only information you ever saw on the topic. (In other words, read about the Holocaust the way an Iranian student does.) I’m not going to provide a link to a denier web site because it will look like I’m promoting that view. You can Google a site in about 5 seconds.
When you read the denier arguments without the benefit of context or counterargument from the mainstream historians, you can see how someone who was inclined to believe that sort of thing would be convinced. For example, one of their most popular arguments is that scientists tested the walls of the “alleged” gas chambers and found no traces of gas. Therefore, the deniers claim, there were no gas chambers at all. What the deniers don’t mention is that other scientists tested and found the gas traces exactly where they were supposed to be. Any argument sounds good if you leave out all of the embarrassing counterarguments.
That’s why I think the United States and Israel are playing this “Holocaust Conference” issue wrong. Iran had their sham conference to discover the “truth” about the Holocaust and invited only people on one side of the issue. At the end of it, the Iranians decided to put together a committee to continue searching for the “truth” about the Holocaust. Our politicians condemned and dismissed the whole effort. While that might have been the morally correct thing to do, on a political basis I think it was a huge mistake.
I think we should offer to help fund the committee, publicize it, and televise the process, under the condition that all sides of the issue be presented and that the conclusions be made available to the publics of all countries. There’s no risk that the denier arguments will hold up against the mountain of historical evidence. Perhaps we could suggest that China or some relatively unbiased country referee the process.
It seems to me there are two possible outcomes from making this sort of offer to the Iranians. Either they will decline our “help” and reveal themselves to be uninterested in the truth, or they will accept the offer and become agents of spreading the real truth of the Holocaust to their own public. We win either way.
If we continue to ignore the Iranian search for “truth,” the outcome is fairly predictable. The Iranians will end up more certain than ever that the “truth” is being hidden. And our resistance to their efforts will only add fuel to their conspiracy theory.
I realize how distasteful it is to dignify the Holocaust denier arguments in a public forum. But the opportunity to show how science and reason can triumph over ignorance and propaganda is too good to ignore. This qualifies as one of those “once in a thousand years” opportunities. Imagine the impact on Muslim youths in the best case scenario where they learn that an important part of their history lessons have been completely falsified. Suddenly the Great Satan America doesn’t look quite so Satanic in comparison.